Dream
So the other night I had a dream. I was at a fancy-pants party at some fancy-pants mansion. I didn’t really want to go (I never want to go to parties) but my big group of fancy-pants friends were all, “Oh, you have to go, Harriet, it’s the party!” So against my better judgment, I trudged along, doing my best to put on a happy face and telling myself, “Don’t be so gloomy! You’re always gloomy!”
As soon as we arrived at the party, things felt wrong. First of all, Alfred Hitchcock was there, as a butler, which is nothing good. Everybody was hysterically happy, with garish masks and “Oh, did you see her dress?” and music playing off-key. As soon as I arrived, somebody took my coat and purse, which I did not want to give them, but didn’t want to make a fuss. Eventually I decided I’d rather have my coat and purse with me, and I asked the butler who took them where they’d been placed. “What coat and purse?” he said. “You had no coat and purse when you came in.”
I told my friends about this, and they laughed it off. “Oh, he’s just a stupid butler. He probably forgot where he put them and doesn’t want to admit it.” I refused to be placated, kept saying I thought there was something wrong. “Oh, come on, Harriet,” they said. “You’re not going to ruin a party for that?”
This being Dream Me instead of Real Me, I was all on top of shit. I had already known something was wrong about this party. Having my friends scoff at me, tell me I was wrong, dismiss me, insist that a party was more important than how I felt – instead of Real Me, who would have hemmed and hawed and felt guilty and tried to be accommodating, badass Dream Me knew all this shit only confirmed just how wrong everything was.
I announced to my friends that I was leaving. They made shocked and angry and disgusted faces. They admonished me for my selfishness. They asked, fake concern dripping, if I was okay, you know, in the head. They yelled. I didn’t argue with them. I just turned on my heel and walked away to search for my coat and purse. One friend came with me. She didn’t believe me that anything was wrong, but she could see how upset I was and wanted to support me, which I appreciated.
Every time I thought I might have located the room where coats and purses were, something would happen. A butler would drop a tray in front of me. A friend would trip and break their ankle and start pleading for me to come help them. The host would come up and offer me chocolate. The more angry I got, the more people around me would laugh at my silliness: Surely you don’t think that butler dropped the tray on purpose! Just to keep you from going on that room? Just to keep you from leaving? This is just a series of strangely timed coincidences, and you are blowing them all out of proportion!
A butler finally told me that they had, indeed, misplaced my purse and coat, but if I would kindly have a seat they would locate it right away.
“Fuck! My! Purse!” I shouted, and turned to leave. All sorts of acrobatic antics occurred between the door and me, but I managed to get out, my one loyal friend in tow. I entered into this enormous courtyard and saw that there were parties happening on all sides of this mansion, in every room. Alfred Hitchcock menacingly loomed in one window, puffing out his lower lip at me. Partygoers rushed to and fro in the courtyard, giving me strange looks, asking me why in the world I would want to leave now.
I broke into a goddamn run. When I got to the end of the courtyard, I looked back and saw that my friend was gone. “Oh dear,” said a passerby, “You had better go and get her, she’s probably lost. Probably lost and scared and alone.”
It was very clear to me what was happening. If I kept going, I would be abandoning my poor friend, who I did not really want to abandon. But if I turned back, all of this would have been for nothing. Why would I say “I’m leaving” if I didn’t really mean it? If all it took was the right distraction to make me stay? I decided to leave my friend behind. She’d have to find her own way out.
Then things got extra wacky. I got to the parking lot, and the chauffer, of course, had misplaced my car. I finally just fucking stole one and started roaring away. Once I got into the town outside of the mansion, people were obviously still trying to keep me from leaving. They’d nonchalantly come up to my window, as if they just wanted to ask me a question. When I spat at them to get the fuck away from me, I was getting the fuck out of here, they’d act as if I had just shot them through the heart. No need to be so rude! They were just talking to me!
Finally, the coup d’etat, some lady picked up her baby and threw it in front of my car. I remember thinking just before I woke up, aw fuck no, lady, I am leaving and nothing is going to stop me. If you thought your baby would stop me, then you just killed your goddamn baby.
Until I told my bear about this dream, I was totally not even aware of how BLATANTLY OBVIOUS the interpretation was. “Your friends were all your shitty friends from when you were with Flint, who refused to see you were being abused or help you escape,” he said. “The friend that went with you and was lost was Polar, who you had to leave behind or get sucked into her abusive relationship. And the baby was the whole future you were throwing away and running over by leaving.”
Oh. Duh.
I had a psychology professor who told us that the first basic rule in dream interpretation is to pay attention to the emotional content. The dream content is wacky and wild and may be obviously representative of something or other, but may just be a fat hippo on a tightrope because you have a lizardbrain with a crude sense of humor. What matters is how the dream felt, how each symbol made you feel. That’ll tell you what it actually represented. My bear has picked this trick up from me, and asked me how the dream felt.
It felt pretty goddamn good, actually. Even when I was running over the baby, it felt good. I felt right. I felt safe, in a way. In my dream, I trusted my instincts and gave complete priority to my needs. I didn’t shy away or waffle one bit from what I was seeing – I knew that woman was intentionally risking her baby’s life in order to force my hand, and I knew without a doubt that if the baby died, it wouldn’t be my fault for leaving, but her fault for prioritizing keeping me in one place over the life of her child. I also knew that if I let the baby stop me, the whole mansion and the whole town would know that the next time I tried to leave, all they’d have to do was threaten to kill a baby, and I’d stay. I so rarely trust my perceptions that completely.
I remember a corollary moment with Flint. We were in that long 6-month process between when I had told him, “I’m not happy with you and I’m in love with another man; this relationship has to get better or I won’t stay;” and when I finally left. That was, unequivocally, the worst time of my life, since when I said, “The relationship has to change,” I’m pretty sure Flint heard, “Abuse me harder.” At one point, Flint’s very old grandfather was on his deathbed. Suddenly it hit me: if I leave right now, it’ll be, “Harriet left me when my grandfather was dying! That bitch!” If I left after he had died, it’d be, “Harriet left me right after my grandfather died! That bitch!” If I left before Flint got a job, it would be, “Harriet left me when I was unemployed and had no money to support myself! That bitch!” If I left after he got a job, it would be, “Harriet left me when I finally got a job, and I was so upset at work I nearly lost it! That bitch!” (This one actually happened — he went to work and sobbed all day and told anybody who even glanced at him, “MY WIFE IS LEAVING ME ABLUBLUBLUB” and then was all shocked — shocked! — when his boss suggested he either go home or cut it the fuck out.) If I left him when we were still living in his parents’ basement, it would be, “Harriet left me when we didn’t even have a place to live! That bitch!” If I left him after setting him up in an apartment, it would be, “Harriet just got an apartment to drop me off in, then left me! That bitch!” I realized there was never going to be a time and a place where I could leave him and it wouldn’t be the worst time and place to leave him ever. If I was going to leave, I had to let nothing stop me. When I said, “I’m leaving,” that would have to be the end of it. If I waffled at all, for any reason, Flint would just learn that all he had to do to keep me from leaving was throw a baby at my car.
I thought of the emotional quality of the baby-thrown-at-car in my dream, and I realized I knew exactly what it represented. After/during the rape (they kinda blend), Flint tried to impregnate me. Accidentally, dontcha know. I said nothing about it. I was just waiting out the clock until my new apartment was available. He finally brought it up, and I just wanted to retch. All soft and sensitive like, he said, “So we had an ‘accident’ last night. I just want you to know that if you get pregnant, I’ll be there for you. No matter what you choose.”
Surprising myself, I said, “If I get pregnant, I’m going to get an abortion within a week, and I’m never going to tell you about it.” He went on as if he hadn’t heard me, “I’ll be there to hold your hand, and I’ll comfort you after, and I’ll pay half…” And I thought to myself, if I get pregnant, have an abortion, and don’t call him, it’ll be, “She had an abortion and didn’t even call me! After I offered to rub her tummy and everything! That bitch!” I tried plainer language. I told him, “Flint, if you knock me up, I’m killing that baby, and we’re still not getting back together.” And he got all pinch-faced and sad and, “I can’t believe you’d say that! That’s a horrible thing to say! I’m just trying to do the stand-up thing and you’re talking about killing babies!”
The dream made me think of all the people I know who are staying in bad places, bad situations, with bad people, for “reasons.” Well, we got married, so now I guess I have to try. Well, we had a baby, so I can’t leave him now. Well, our family never thought we’d stick it out together, so I can’t prove them right. I remember the only acquaintance in college who ever said boo about Flint to me. I was telling her about something horrible he had done, though I softened it up quite a bit before I pitched it to her, then ended with a laugh and, “Well, it doesn’t matter anyway, because my mom already bought her plane ticket to the wedding, so…” And she turned to me and death-gripped my shoulders, saying, “Harriet, do not marry this man because your mother has a plane ticket.” It sounded so absurd put like that, and I convinced myself that that hadn’t been what I meant, but really, it was. My mom has a plane ticket, so I have to marry him. I don’t know where else I’d live, so I have to stay here. I can’t piss our friends off, so I won’t ask him to stop feeling me up in public. All sorts of things that had no bearing whatsoever on the issue at hand – I want to leave you, Flint – and I let them dictate the issue at hand.
The dream also gave me some sense of peace around my ex-friend Polar. Polar is a long story. She was married to Flint’s best friend, Red. When I started to leave Flint, Polar was a huge moral and practical support. It was Polar who helped me move all my stuff. It was Polar who encouraged me to be with my bear. Polar was the first friend who, after bear, I told about the rape. Polar was helping me because she was a good person at heart, and because giving all of herself to those around her was part of what abuse had trained her to do. But she was also helping me because her relationship with Red was eerily similar, except Red actually got up the gumption to beat her now and again. Polar wanted to live vicariously through me a little, I think. And once I was away from Flint and putting my life back together, I felt like trying to return the favor.
I remember one day when Polar took me out for lunch. She insisted on paying, which she always did, and we had a back and forth about it. Polar came up with some wacky bizarre reasons why she had to pay, why it was morally right for her to pay, and I realized that we were arguing about a lot more than lunch. I let it drop, because that’s not the argument I signed up for. But I remember thinking, very quietly to myself, “Someday Polar and I won’t be friends, and she will say, ‘I always bought her lunch, and she just blew me off. That bitch.’”
Red had a creepy sexual obsession with me. He pushed Polar to convince me that having a threesome with them would be extra awesome. When she tried to start these conversations with me, she’d always be near tears. I’d tell her, “Okay, 100% not interested, please stop bringing it up, and also, is this something you want or something Red wants?” The answer, of course, was that Polar wanted what Red wanted. So she kept bringing it up, kept pushing it. For Valentine’s Day, Polar and I got some cutesy burlesque photos taken, to give to our respective others. Later I found out that she had given mine to Red. I was angry, but mostly I was indescribably sad. I knew what it was like to provide your abuser whatever he wanted sexually, even when it ripped you apart, physically or emotionally, just to keep him happy for one more day. If my photos kept her from another beating, I was fine with that.
I tried to stay friends, with serious misgivings. And in retrospect, it doesn’t do anybody any favors, being friends with somebody you pity and don’t trust. They can feel that as acutely as you. But I felt, after all she’d done for me, it would be wrong to not be friends with her. Then one night, she called me up at midnight, told me Red had hit her, and asked if she could sleep at my place. I let her in, but was too tired to talk, so just told her I’d see her in the morning and went back to bed. When I got up, she had already left. My first thought was to call her and tell her, “Come live with me.” I had to sit down and realize I couldn’t do that and be safe. I didn’t want Red in my apartment. I had already told Polar, after the photo thing, that I never wanted to see Red again. And yet, every time I saw her, she’d bring up how lonely Red was without me, how sad, and how mean it was to just dump this guy who’d been my bestest friend (Red and I barely spoke). If I told Polar I didn’t want Red in my apartment, she’d bring him there when I wasn’t around, or spend all day convincing me that it was so mean that Red couldn’t come over. I also imagined all sorts of things that seemed ridiculous at face value, but after the photo debacle, I couldn’t dismiss. What if Red came over when I wasn’t here and Polar let him take some of my stuff? Like my underwear? What if they did something creepy and sexual to be my bed? What if she gave him a key and he came over when she wasn’t here?
I went to my mom and explained the situation, telling her I was in a real pickle. She came back with, “Polar is in a pickle. This is not your pickle, unless you make it yours.” I realized that I couldn’t trust Polar as long as she was with Red, and especially as long as Red nursed a hostile crush on me. Red would always come first, and she would throw me to the wolves to save herself. Again, I wasn’t angry about that, but I did have to make a hard decision. This wasn’t going to be my pickle. I ended my friendship with Polar, who had helped me out when I needed it most, fully knowing that Polar probably needed help very badly right now. I had to end it because it wasn’t safe, and because I had made a commitment to take abuse out of my life, and allow myself the selfishness of safety.
You can know that you’ve done the right thing and still feel guilty about it. I have felt very guilty for years, because I know Polar is still with Red, and I know he is doing terrible things to her. And I imagine all these ways I could have helped, but didn’t.
In my dream, the Dream Me (kinda like the Higher Power me) calculated all those things in a few seconds. Dream Me looked over my shoulder, saw Polar was gone, and determined that Polar would have to find her own way out. The Dream Me didn’t have to gird her heart to do this, didn’t have to think of all the bad things Polar had ever done in order to get up the gall to leave her friend. The Dream Me could love and care for Polar, and recognize that the choice was between staying and leaving, and Polar was on the side of staying.
This last year has been a very bad time for me. There were a lot of ugly things happening, and instead of changing them, I kept saying, “I can’t leave now, because somebody threw a baby at my car…” Last year was The Year of Bad. I’m feeling like this year is the Year of Change, because I am no longer afraid of the consequences of running over the baby. I know for a fact, because I spent a year there, that staying at the shitty party is worse.
What I mean to say is, I stagnated. I forgot what I’d learned from Flint, which is that when a change has to happen, it has to happen now, regardless of consequences. I let myself be dictated by consequences, instead of remembering that in the universe that is me, I am the most important thing. And if I am sick, the whole universe is sick. Everything I touch and see and smell and do and love is sick. If somebody else will be hurt by me making myself better, they will only be hurt worse by my staying sick, because I will be one of the friends who doesn’t let them leave the evil party when it comes their turn to be healthy.
And I forgot that disregarding all consequences doesn’t mean I have to stop caring about people around me. I can care about them, even as I leave them behind. I just can’t care about them more than I care about myself. That way lies madness, and Alfred Hitchcock’s fat lip.
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That’s breathtaking. Scary good, and frighteningly on target for me, and I suspect for a bunch of your readers.
Thank you for having the guts to publish it.
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Usually when people start a conversation with “I had this dream last night…” you know you’re in for a boring time. (I’m not the first or only person to say so, but I can’t remember who else to credit.)
But I read your dream, and thought about it, and maybe learned something. That’s some serious evidence of a gift for storytelling.
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If it helps any, the person who left me behind wound up doing me a favor–and in a way I even knew that at the time, although what I preferred to focus on then was “how mean, how selfish, after all I’ve done for her,” etc.
But part of me knew that her refusal to get sucked in to my situation was exactly the kind of refusal I needed to learn how to issue myself. In that sense, her telling me, in effect, “it’s me or him, and until you can stop choosing him, it’s not gonna be me,” was inspiring. If she could put her foot down like that, maybe someday I could too. Maybe someday Polar will, and I think if she does it will be in part because she saw you do it first.
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Wow, what a fantastic entry. Thank you.
One thing that always impresses me about your entries is that although they are long, they NEED to be that long. You don’t waste words; you just lay everything out plainly in all its complexity. I can’t think of anybody else on the internets who does long as well as you.
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thank you so much- that helped me- made so many things in my life clear- thank you
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I love it when your own brain does something like that for you. A few times in the last year (also year of Bad although possibly not on the same scale… then again, who can really calculate that sort of thing?) I’ve had dreams like that.
They have either laid things out in such a way that I can finally see the choices I need to make, or that have taken the choices I’ve already made, and pushed them that step further into the emotional certainty that that is right and good and best, even when the pros and con list is out of balance.
I’m with your Bear – most of the time it’s a weird dream, end of story. But sometimes there’s something that should make you sit up and listen. And what might be a nightmare for one person is actually helpful – my last one was a perfectly nice dream of hanging out with my snugglebuddy and a girl, and when we went to go to her house, the doors and windows were covered in big scary spiders and I couldn’t get in without pushing, HARD, against them, a sure way to get bit. So I went off and did my own thing and turns out that was the right thing to do in real life, too (loooong story). The rest of the dream was a surreal treck to the supermarket to buy beans, but that one bit had emotional punch. I can still feel how scary those spiders were! I don’t think it matters either what spiders are supposed to mean in dream dicitonaries, etc. It’s what that is in your own brain.
Congrats on listening to yourself! That’s such a hard lesson to learn.
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(Here via Xtinian Thoughts.)
I had much the same experience many years ago of thinking “I need to leave, but it would be mean to leave him around his birthday/before the prom/when he’s finishing up his senior year/when he’s getting settled into college…” and then realizing that there was never going to be a kind time to leave but I had to do it anyway. So I stuck it out through the prom (for some vague ridiculous reason like “He’d already bought the tickets”), and we had not-very-consensual sex that night, and I was SO GLAD that I had already made up my mind to break up with him the next day, because having to figure that out on top of being completely numb and miserable from the not-very-consensual sex would have been kind of impossible. I just wish I’d decided to hell with his birthday, to hell with the prom, to hell with the baby under the car, and just dumped his ass as soon as I realized just how bad the relationship was for me. I wish I’d valued being kind to myself as much as I was trying to value being kind to him.
I’m glad your subconscious is figuring this stuff out. Sounds like it’s on the right track. And thanks for posting this; as much as I hate that anyone has ever gone through this sort of thing, it’s also really reassuring to know that I’m not alone in needing to painstakingly work through that train of thought before I could do what I needed to do for myself.
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when a change has to happen, it has to happen now, regardless of consequences
I really needed to read that.
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I agree with geekgirl. Most posts this long I kind of check out, but I was rapt. I’ve had to do some similar things after deciding that my sanity was much more important
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oops, meant to subscribe.
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You know, I almost don’t want to mention this, but the whole time I was reading this, I thought it was about your recent experience with your blog, and that the moral of the story was that you were going to have to stop blogging because it was turning into another form of abuse that you needed to put your foot down about.
But I guess (I hope) that was just my own fear of losing your remarkable voice from my life. I keep thinking you must get a book deal soon, because someone who writes like this deserves a much wider audience. Or, rather (given your ambivalence about wider audiences), the world needs you! I think I’m a bit older than you and I have to say, it’s been years since a feminist writer has broken new ground for me like you have.
Even if you stopped now, though, your blog posts and the ensuing discussions to date (published in book form or not), are more of a contribution to the world than I and many others ever will ever make.
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“in the universe that is me, I am the most important thing. And if I am sick, the whole universe is sick. Everything I touch and see and smell and do and love is sick”
One of the more poignant sentences I’ve read this month, thank you.
And, y’know, thank you in general for writing, as always, but that sentence in particular.
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I have told my 24-year-old daughter, who has screening problems and keeps ending up in (thankfully) brief abusive relationships, to substitute your blog for whatever system she uses to make choices about men. Make a prospective boyfriend read it, and if he doesn’t understand or doesn’t like it, tell him to hit the road. I also am making my (mostly female) diversity class at the university where I teach read it and talk about it. All this must be overwhelming, but yours is the clearest, sanest voice I’ve heard in a long time.
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There are many times when you say the things I wish I could clarify in my head. This would be one of them. I was out for a year, and wanted to go back to see if I could save any of the friendships. I tried. But in the end you can only support someone who is already trying to get out.
Thank you for being articulate. It really helps those of us who are still trying to sort things out.
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i’ve never been raped, or married to someone abusive, but so much of what you write speaks right to me.
thanks for writing, & i think you are a great writer!
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Thank you.
I had a dream in that vein last night, oddly enough. It wasn’t that long and complex (that I remember) but I do remember feeling remarkably clear-headed and articulate in the face of misogyny that makes Real Me simultaneously spitting mad and terrified of responding.
Also: you write wonderfully well.
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I just want to thank you.
I read this and I took a step to cut out more abuse from my life.
Even with the babies thrown in front of my speeding car.
My boyfriend also read this and we have been quoting it back and forth in reference to the abuse situation I just ran over, with little remorse seeing as no matter how they spin it if it is hurting me then it is hurting me and I have to stop letting it.
Thanks, and don’t stress over everyone peeping at your words, they help others and inspire. You don’t have to be perfect. Fuck I hate perfect. I love seeing someone real that is going through and has gone through some serious shit and is still speaking her mind.
We need more Harriets in this world.
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I greatly respect the way you are pulling your own strength in to face this pain. You show admirable insight.
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When you get tired of being told you’re amazing, let us know, ok? Because you are amazing.
…and I hesitate to say this, because this is not a nice thing to do, but….Polar does not sound as sympathetic and nice as you perceive her. She does not even sound like an abused person who was grasping at straws. She sounds, frankly, pretty creepy, and her help and care for you comes across as emotional loansharking. Not, as somebody who would later feel let down because you stopped being a friend. But as somebody who helped you out to set you up for later. She helped you, she was so nice to you, so surely you don’t mind that she gave intimate pictures of you to her boyfriend, right?
I don’t say this to excuse or justify Red, or suggest Polar was to blame for his behavior. But sometimes people who are abuse victims aren’t very nice people in their own right, and are happy to be abusers, themselves.
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She was definitely both, at different times. I could sense a lot of real goodness in her that was continually thwarted and perverted and abused. And then I could sense the times and ways in which she gave up and got shitty, or made cold and bad bargains as the only form of power she thought she could access. And those were choices she made, even understanding how limited her options were. Since I knew how badly she was being abused, I was willing to err on the side of “This isn’t you — this is something you’ve learned to do to survive.” But it was all sort of moot anyway, and the question of whether she was fundamentally good or bad only got in the way of me making my decision. I.e., “Polar is really a good person, so I shouldn’t leave her behind!” vs. “Polar is really a bad person… but what right do I have to assume or judge that? Lots of people thought I was a bad person when I was with Flint!” I just had to decide, whatever was actually “her” and whatever was the abuse, whatever was her fault and whatever wasn’t, in the end she was crap for me to be around anyway, so pfft to that.
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It is sort of moot, and I hope I didn’t sound like I was criticizing your choice in any way. I was just really creeped out by Polar; she came across as someone whose method of dealing with her abuse was to pass it on down.
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Far out, he tried to impregnate you? That happened to me; it seemed so fucked up and unreal but it was what finally flicked the lightbulb on in my head and made me plot my escape from the bastard.
As awful as it is to bond over abuse, I’m glad to know I’m not alone in what happened to me.
“Red would always come first, and she would throw me to the wolves to save herself. ”
This post came at exactly the right time for me. I have a friend who is dealing with systemic manipulation and abuse as I was, but where I am ruthlessly cutting it from my life, she is appeasing it in the hopes it will go away. I have tried NOT to bully her into standing up for herself or making the choices I have made, as I recognise the thing about abuse victims doing what they need to survive – I’ve done it myself. But I made the mistake of thinking I could somehow buffer our friendship from the effects of the abuse, and make sure she was never put in a position where she had to choose between them or me. But it’s hung over my head, that I know when it comes to the crunch she would throw me to the wolves to keep her abusers happy.
The last couple of days it has come to a head, worlds collided and she has thrown me to the wolves. I’ve finally had to ‘recognize that the choice was between staying and leaving, and Polar was on the side of staying’ as you put it so well. And that ultimately, I have to leave people who try and keep me from sticking up for myself, and that means I’m leaving her.
I’ve dealt with all the angst about cutting off support to someone who basically has none – but ultimately, until she stops throwing her friends to the wolves for her abusers, she’s not a safe person for me to be around.
I really needed your post to make all that clear in my head, and it came at exactly the right time. So, thank you so much.
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I needed to read exactly this today. Thank you.
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A few entries ago, I asked you about othering an abuser – not as a “gotcha” question, but out of genuine curiosity. You responded that escaping an abuser requires a certain amount of othering, and that you’d get back to that point in more detail in a later entry. I don’t know if it was your intention or not, but to me, this is that entry.
This put things into perspective for me, with a relationship I hesitate to describe as abusive because I am a two-hundred-pound white male who – despite growing up impoverished and a minority – is the very definition of privilege.
Yet I recall being sucked into the negative vortex of my closest friend in high school – who held my very identity hostage and drained me of all life. Whenever I experienced a moment of clarity to this regard, he was quick to remind me of his Peter-pan-complex pedophile mother; his violent, fucked-out-of-his mind veteran father; his smug, self-absorbed brother; the legions of bullies at our high school who’d singled him out; teachers who saw no potential in him; etc. I had it slightly better than him, and wasn’t that enough to try to help?
To this day I’m still dealing with the way he made me feel. He pops up all the time among my facebook friends making snide, self-righteous comments that are not directed at me, but still hurt when I read them.
It took me until my mid-twenties, after nearly a dozen staged, cry-for-help suicide attempts to understand how pathetic he was. Mental illness or not; tragedy or not; my pity for him is the only thing keeping him from getting his hands on me again and tearing down this rickety structure of sanity I’ve built in my adulthood.
So I get it now. Thank you for clarifying.
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I’m glad this answered it for you, because I had completely forgotten saying I was going to write another post addressing it specifically. Bonus!
One thing I’ve really had to learn, over and over again, is how to separate a person’s behavior from the person. When I made the decision to get my husband out of my life, I started from a place of personalizing it. He is evil, he is bad, he deserves to be left. I really had to believe that other people were not like that, that the world outside my abuser was a better place, in order to get the strength to go out into the unknown.
Then, when things reached a head with Polar, I had to make a different sort of decision. I think, at heart, Polar is a good person, or was when I knew her. But it didn’t matter how “good” she was if she acted in abusive ways. I had to separate the behavior from the person, decide that there is certain behavior that I find unacceptable, no matter the context, no matter the person. That was a much bigger and scarier step to take, because using that standard instead of the “bad person” standard, I ended up cutting most of my friends out of my life, long before they reached the point where they turned into demons and I felt, finally, justified in leaving them.
I came to realize that some of my reluctance to leave Flint was based on an unconscious understanding of that principle. Leaving Flint was one thing. Deciding I didn’t deserve to be abused was another. The former just got me away from Flint. The latter required a fundamental restructuring of my entire life, and a loss of nearly all my friends and intimate relationships. The alternative was to keep being abused by my intimate friends, until it reached a fever point where I had to demonize them in order to get away from them. That was too much shit to go through over and over again, so I had to make a rule: this thing you do, you can’t do it with me. I don’t care what you’ve done for me in the past, what we’ve shared, what you’re going through, whether or not you’re throwing a baby at my car. You can’t do this thing, ever. This is not my bag, and I’m not carrying it for you.
It is not an easy thing to learn, and once you’ve learned it, there’s still five thousand times you forget about it and think, “Well, my friend is just going through a rough time right now, I really shouldn’t be mad at them…” It’s amazing how deep a barb somebody can land in your heart, and how hard they can tug it with the smallest, most innocuous of words.
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Harriet, you’re an amazing writer, with a fascinating perspective on life. I don’t know how better to put this – thankyou for writing.
x
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