Words Used As Weapons, Emotional and Verbal Abuse

Caution this contains specific details of domestic violence, emotional and verbal abuse, proceed with caution.  

     Also I want to state that these are my experiences and my perspective. Others may see these same events differently and I respect that.  But I believe it is essential we share our experiences with Domestic Violence, so we can recognize it in our families and in our communities and strive for healing.  We are only as sick as our secrets.

     I had left my house late in the night after what I consider the first incidence of physical abuse.  I was lucky I could spend the night at my sisters.  The next day I took my sisters advice and called the women's hotline.  I can still remember clearly sitting in my car calling on my cell phone.  I called to ask, what do I do now?  How do I respond to the incident that happened last night? 

     When I explained what had occurred, she said I'm sorry to tell you this but this is Domestic Violence.  Those 4 words changed my life. - This is domestic violence.  - I knew what Domestic Violence was from school and living in Indian communities. There is constant community education about the escalating danger of Domestic Violence and no one should stay in a relationship that they are in danger in, cause it only gets worse.

     I knew that I had been living with emotional and verbal abuse. That I could recognize, after  being called an F-!$ing bitch for years among other things had made me learn to tune out the rantings.  I had insisted we start marriage counseling just a little over a year ago when another incident had scared me so much, I packed up the girls and drove to his family about a days drive away while he was at work the next day.  I knew his anger and the demeaning things he said to me were wrong, but I never saw them as domestic violence until this call.  

"Domestic violence is a pattern of behaviors used among family members or within a home by one or more persons to oppress, dominate, and control another person or persons. " 1

Emotional and verbal abuse is a pattern of behavior that controls another person.

"Emotional and verbal abuse, which is a repetitive pattern of using words as weapons to denigrate the abused party’s sense of self worth, such as name-calling, belittling and sarcastic comments that continually "beat down" self-esteem. It may also include humiliating, rejecting, or ignoring the abused party in private or in public.

• For children, this may occur in a repeated pattern of caregiver behavior or extreme incidents that convey to children that they are worthless, flawed, unloved, unwanted, or only of value in meeting another's needs.

• For adults, this may be a relationship where the offender continuously degrades or belittles the abused or accuses them of being stupid, unattractive, a bad parent, unfaithful or any other similar fault and can be considered an indicator of domestic violence or the potential for domestic violence." 2

     Using words as weapons.  I once watched  a kid cartoon were a preschooler asked his Mom what cuss words were and she said they were meant to hurt you.  Wow. What a simple way to describe what cussing does to a person.  It hurts you.  And it's meant to hurt you.

     Words as weapons used to oppress, dominate and control another person.  I remember after one verbal attack I felt as if someone had punched me hard in the stomach.  My whole body ached.  A girlfriend of mine years later shared her perspective, emotional and verbal abuse leaves a bruise on the heart, not on the arm.

     Looking back I can see how my choices were limited more and more over the years.  I had less and less freedom to make simple choices on my own without paying a consequence for it.  In one area, what foods were "allowed" in the house started after our 1st year of marriage.  I was criticized for having my favorite foods in the house, Hagen Daz coffee ice cream and Lay's potato chips.  I had to choose if I wanted these favorite foods in my home or face consequences if I  chose the "wrong" choice.  Slowly over the years I grew     tired of the constant criticism and rarely bought these items.  It was just easier.  Life was easier if I didn't make choices he didn't agree with.

    Domestic Violence you say?  Well fast forward 12 years, and if I didn't hide my wrappers from McDonald's, a cup from Starbucks or a cake in the fridge for a Holy Day, I could receive a a criticism,  a sarcastic comment or an explosion of rage.  When I saw that beautiful strawberry shortcake in the display on sale at Whole Foods that Ridvan day, I knew if I brought it home, I would suffer a consequence.  And I was ready for it.  I decided I had every right to buy a cake for a Holy Day if I wanted to.  When I received a sarcastic comment when he saw the cake in the fridge, I packed it up and started to walk out the door to eat it somewhere else  in peace.  I received another verbally abusive comment and I lost it, and swung my grocery bag and hit him with my cake.  

     This incident was later used to point out I had hit him, too.  Domestic Violence is about control.  Did I have control here?  Was I stopping him from doing something that should be his right and prerogative to choose with basic consideration and respect?  I had lived with his control of what I ate and what I bought for the house for over 10 years.  I finally lost it and hit him with a cake.  I would say I was pretty tolerant.  Or I could say I should have lost it a lot earlier.

     5 years later, I still have issues with food.  When I decide to buy chips, less and less often do I hear the tape recording -"chips are bad for you.  We don't need these in the house."  I no longer live in the cage where I have a consequence of belittling or sarcasm if I buy chips.  It's taken years to drown out the tape recording with moderation.  Yes, I can buy chips and eat chips in moderation.  I eat very healthily and can choose for myself what my favorite treats are.  Today I can't eat Hagen Daz coffee ice cream because of dairy intolerance so I buy quality chocolate instead.  And I choose a more natural potato chip.  

     In the past few years I saw my best friend from high school, who later became my boyfriend.   He asked me something about my favorite ice cream.  And I was actually stunned, it had been so long since I'd loved ice cream, I could barely remember it.  Who had I become that I didn't even remember my love of ice cream?  That is the cage that Domestic Violence builds.  You become someone else to keep peace in your home.  It's easier that way, at least in  the short term.  Later when you learn you can't survive in an environment like that and stay sane, you have to re-learn to love yourself,  just the way you are.

Challenge:  have you lived with emotional abuse?  Do you live with  emotional abuse now?  Do you use counseling?  Can you use Al-Anon as a source of support?  Can you help support a friend who is surviving life with emotional abuse?  

This is the month to learn about Domestic Violence.  And do something about it.  "Let deeds, not words, be your adorning."

National Domestic Violence Hotline

1-800-799-7233

http://www.thehotline.org/

A copy of the Guidelines for Spiritual Assemblies on Domestic Violences is on this page.

 http://www.bahai.us/social-action/advancement-of-women/addressing-domestic-violence/

A Baha'i view on Domestic Violence: during Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Caution this contains specific details of domestic violence, emotional and verbal abuse, proceed with caution.  

     Also I want to state that these are my experiences and my perspective. Others may see these same events differently and I respect that.  But I believe it is essential we share our experiences with Domestic Violence, so we can recognize it in our families and in our communities and strive for healing.  We are only as sick as our secrets.

     I am writing this month about my experience with domestic violence to honor my history, that of my grandmothers, my great-grandmothers, and my friends who currently struggle with family violence in their homes.  And most of all I am writing this for our children.  That we may heal these spiritual illnesses afflicting humankind and help build peace on Earth by building peace in our hearts and in our homes.  

     5 years ago this month I left my home due to domestic violence.  It took 6 weeks of communicating with my husband's family and our local Baha'i Spiritual Assembly to coordinate a separation enabling me to return to my home in Ann Arbor, MI  from my refuge at my parents home in Juneau, AK.

     These words from the Guidelines for Spiritual Assemblies on Domestic Violence from the Baha'is of the United States were a comfort to me during that storm and still are to this day:

The National Spiritual Assembly wishes to convey a clear message that acts of domestic violence are at complete variance with the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh and that violence in the family is a practice to be condemned. In addition, domestic violence is a criminal act in the United States. Such behaviors, on the part of either men or women, are rooted in longstanding social practices connected with an inability or unwillingness to apply the fundamental spiritual principle of the equality of women and men and to recognize the fundamental right of every human being to be treated with consideration and respect.

     What are the behaviors rooted in longstanding social practices connected with the inability or unwillingness to apply the fundamental spiritual principle of the equality of women and men? What does a fundamental right to be treated with consideration and respect look like?

     This is the definition of Domestic Violence in the Guidelines for Spiritual Assemblies on Domestic Violence:

Domestic violence is a pattern of behaviors used among family members or within a home by one or more persons to oppress, dominate, and control another person or persons. Abuse occurs among people from every socioeconomic, racial, educational, cultural, and religious background. It may occur between partners in a relationship, married or not married, living together, separated or dating. It may also occur between siblings, between a parent and child(ren), between an adult child and an elderly parent, or between other relatives. Sociological research indicates that in the absence of remedial action, abusive behaviors that do not directly incorporate physical violence may lead to it and that such behaviors usually worsen over time.

     What patterns of behavior are used to oppress, dominate and control another person?  What is remedial action?  Abusive  behaviors that do not directly incorporate physical violence may lead to it and usually worsen over time.  

     Patterns of Domestic Violence may include the following: physical abuse, sexual abuse, economic abuse, destroying or damaging property, neglect, abandonment, emotional and verbal abuse, corrupting, stalking, using coercion and threats to intimidate, isolating the abused party, minimizing or denying the abuse, and blaming the abused party.

     In my experience emotional and verbal abuse worsened over time. Looking back now I can clearly relate to the illustration of the frog in the pot of water that slowly heats up to a boil.  For me it took about 7 years to get to a place where I felt I had to jump out of the boiling water or else I wouldn't survive.  As I found peace in separation and followed by a Year of Patience, a Baha'i practice  of attempting to reconcile before seeking a divorce, I felt like I had lived in a cage that had slowly over time grown smaller and smaller until I no longer had the freedom to move.

     When that "cage" was no longer there, it took months and years to heal from the emotional abuse, the constant criticism and judgement, and to stretch out my arms and legs and learn how to walk on my own again without a constant leash of emotional and verbal abuse being tugged to require me to make certain choices or consequences would be given.

     

Challenge: make a commitment to learn about the Equality of Women and Men and how Domestic Violence plays a role. Read the Guidelines for Spiritual Assemblies on Domestic Violence.  It's approximately 100 pages.  If you read 5 pages a day you could finish by October 30.  If you read 1 page a day, you'll be done by the end of January.  To heal domestic violence the whole community needs to be able to recognize it and help encourage suffering families to get professional help.

You can find a copy here 

http://www.bahai.us/social-action/advancement-of-women/addressing-domestic-violence/

This painting is of a mother reading a bedtime story to a child at the Seattle Art Museum by the artist father.  May we all be comforted and sheltered and loved by our mothers in a happy and healthy and peaceful home.