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Why Doesn’t She Leave : VS : Why Doesn’t She/He Stop Yelling
This is a 3 Part Series:
Intimate violence is the willful and systematic use of verbal, physical, and/or sexual assault, all forms of aggressive intimidation, by one member of a domestic partnership against the other. It doesn’t begin with a threat. It doesn’t begin with a punch. It doesn’t begin with a rape. It can end with a murder.
Intimate violence begins when a person is not confronted, from the first childhood act of overt or covert aggression, that their behavior will not be tolerated by society. Intimate violence begins when middle school bullies are allowed to skip out on responsibility for their actions or in-actions, enabling them to further refine their manipulative tactics for future confrontations.
Intimate violence begins when the majority of society is taught that violence only happens to other people, allowing the majority to falsely believe that they are better than the person being victimized. Intimate violence begins when we seek the deep rooted causes for another persons’ dysfunctional behavior, thus giving the aggressor another excuse for perpetrating.
Gossip is one of the many forms of relational aggression familiar to most of us. Allow me to turn the craziness of intimate violence into a soup metaphor. Let’s throw some spices into our cauldron. We have the expatriate that is openly rude to a visitor who may or may not be considering moving to the area. Now, add the expatriate who dislikes the seasonal homeowner, i.e., the snowbird. Turn up the heat and allow the spices to boil. While the expatriate who forms relationships by cultivating a false sense of safety in the newly landed gains a bit more heated power, prepare the other ingredients. Take a pinch of chopped nuts (the smaller the pinch of the mentally deficient the better), a cup of mixed vegetables (the downsizing herbivores of the group), a heaping helping handful of yummy stock (the kindness of strangers variety), and a splash (or bottle) of red wine (or tequila). While humming happy tunes, turn down the heat. Once the raging boil of spices has come to a quiet simmer, throw in these ingredients. Just at finish, add the flash fried single gnarly knuckle of some wild animal. Reheat, serve in individual bowls, and expect everyone to get sick.
Depending upon which part of the soup has been contaminated, when the gut decides to go for a little drive-by shouting match with your brain and heart, you may not realize that it was THIS soup that made you ill. Food spoilage bacteria live everywhere we live, and most of them don't do us any harm. Unfortunately, all of these organisms like to eat, and they generally are eating what we like to eat, and where we like to eat. Although we don’t find festering and smelly gossips enticing, those slime organisms don’t necessarily make us sick. In fact, many slimy foods unwittingly become delicate sauces, used by the deadly bacteria found on meat, such as a gnarly knuckle, to mask its’ off-taste.
The gnarly knuckle is a master chameleon. Why be that hunk of grey meat when it can be the crispy yumminess of the party. Gnarly knuckles exude excitement, and enthusiasm. They are the life of the soup! The soup is created for them and for their pleasure alone. There is no competition or need for confrontation as the gnarly knuckle is the life of the soup. What’s there to complain about? If you do, they will blame the nasty bacteria that is keeping your gut from making an informed decision, or they will hold the soup maker responsible, or they will take you down another path entirely, possibly the one that says it is your fault you got sick. If you persist in making them take responsibility for your gut reaction, be prepared that the next opportunity the gnarly knuckle has to jump into the fire, you are very likely to have a pop of hot grease land very near to your eye, causing you to fear, not the fire or grease, but blindness. .…to be continued
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8 comments:
Who ever it is you are describing, get thee beautiful self away from their poison. Emotional poison is contagious. Leave the area immediately and sanitize with a healthy dose of positive love, go to the love. Embrace it, focus on it and do not allow the person (poison) to rent space in your head. The medicine for this soup is abstinence from it. Period, no trying to reason, no being nice, just put that heavy spoon down.
I have experienced this toxic soup and I think you've nailed the ingredient list. It's remarkable how the toxicity of an insular group can increase and become something almost alive in itself.
The disease (dis ease) can become so pervasive that it sucks in even the unsuspecting. I don't know what it is about humans that makes a bit of gossip, even the "innocent" kind, a delicious little bite.
I've thought about it a lot, as it's a habit I've tried to eliminate. Still, the tiny seduction of "guess what....?" and especially in an isolated community (of expats, of recovering people, of one top unit of child welfare~and you can imagine the gossip that comes out of that sense of superiority and entitlement)... just the littlest whiff and I can be off again.
The thing is, it makes me dislike myself. Even listening to the gossip of others makes me unhappy and uncomfortable. Why is it that there is some kind of delight / joy / thrill in the misdeeds, misfortunes, sadnesses of others?
That's the human nature thing I question. I don't want to be like that and, of course, I've noticed that I am virtually immune to gossip when I am happy. I can sit in the middle of a group talking about this and that and simply bypass the eyeroll, the smirk, the snort that changes the conversation from interesting chitchat about activities and such to gossip of the vicious kind.
By the same token, I am immune to intimate violence in all its incarnations when I am happy and whole on my own.
Who is ever entirely happy and whole, right? Those prone to abusiveness can always find the tiny crack, the entry point to the tender and vulnerable center.
There will always be predators ~ gnarly knuckles ~ and there's no way to transform that into something else. The only way is to toss the poisonous thing out of the soup entirely, to avoid it, to eat around it, and if necessary, to find another pot in which to immerse ourselves.
Happiness, being whole on the inside, that's the innoculation, though. While it's not a pure immunization from evil, it is definitely the thing that builds my internal defenses and my sense of self such that I kick the gnarly knuckle out of my way instead of settling in next to it.
Well said
Part 3 will address the tactics used by perpetrators that make it difficult for a woman to recognize that she is being victimized by her partner. Thus, the question most people ask, namely, why doesn't she leave, requires an in-depth understanding of how the cycle of abuse is established.
Thank you for the comments.
If the cycle of violence began with a punch in the gut, most women would walk away. Unfortunately, this form of intimidation begins covertly with manipulation, thus there is no visible injury.
The traits sought out by perpetrators of violence in their victims, are the very same traits the general population finds admirable in others. This is part of the reason that the question of why stay needs to become why is the perpetrator being allowed to harm.
Very nice informative article Benne, and Lynette you are absolutely right about the gossip crap...hate it, but like most people occassionaly get caught up in it then wish i had just left it be and stayed out of the whole mess. Gossip hurts for sure and why we want to hurt others is beyond me.
Nancy, I suppose the good news is that once we realize who the gossips are, we limit our interactions with them. Instead of serving as a vehicle to keep us away from or interested in the person being gossiped about, the gossiper becomes their own warning siren. Thanks for posting your comments.
Enjoyed reading your blog. Avoiding gossip is a good one; I remember in my younger and less-wise days participating in triangulation that way. Glad to be done with that! From now on, it's take it straight to the person I have conflict with. If I can't resolve it, it's move on time.
Jacqueline, thank you for that tip. There are many times when we find we have no opportunity to resolve a conflict with another person. As difficult as it is to have to accept a lack of closure, walking away is often the only choice.
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