JoyB @ 42

I want to say that the one thing I am trying harder than anything else to do raising my daughter, is to respect her feelings, know them, and to teach her to do the same. That isn’t to say that I’m not a pretty firm and bossy mother, but when my girl is mad or angry, that’s how she feels. If some kid bothers her and she doesn’t want to play with him, guess what, I support her in all of that. I think believing that being angry or disapproving of what makes you uncomfortable makes you a “bad girl” got me into that situation, and it’s not going to happen to my daughter.

I’m a fellow survivor, or whatever the term is now. I’m so glad you’re okay now.

You’re right–we have to let our children understand their feelings, and own them. That doesn’t mean they can do anything they want with them, but that they know they’re there, and need to work through them. The reason I found myself in a domestic violence situation is because I wasn’t allowed to feel at home. My feelings were constantly invalidated–so you didn’t get that toy, suck it up. So someone doesn’t like you, suck it up. Don’t you dare cry. I was literally told not to cry, not to be angry, not to be jealous (and especially stop making eyes at those boys–I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t interested in boys as boys that way).

Anyway, it became second nature to sublimate my feelings, rather than dealing with them. And so I was an easy target for a man looking for someone to control and intimidate. The ultimate irony is that my mother pushed me not to cry or show emotion, so that I wouldn’t be seen as vulnerable. I spent a lot of years enduring egomaniacal control feaks until I figured out why.

LJ/Aquaria, that is one hell of an irony, and it’s spot on. After I got spanked, I was ordered to “SMILE!!!” or “WIPE THAT SOURPUSS OFF YOUR FACE!!!” by a yelling father who could otherwise be so generous, and have a concern for others. Set me up beautifully to be a flight attendant. And, a wife of an abuser.

What Hilzoy wrote about the attachment is true. I spent years trying to “earn back” the respect of the adorable and vulnerable guy who “fell hard” for me in the first couple of months I knew him. I had no idea it was a syndrome.

You know, what basically got me out of this hell, started before I was evacuated. I had already told him it was over, and I was divorcing him (so, I was in the most treacherous situation, trying to stay in the house, which was originally mine–I’d bought it with my VA loan when single). Despite all the hell (which involved so much more than the yelling), the thing that kept me there was my sense that he’d be “devastated” if he couldn’t live with his little girl. I knew I sure would be. So, I stayed.

When I came home after work and from her daycare, to find him out gardening and a nasty porn video in the DVD player (instead of Prince of Egypt, which my two-year old and I expected), after I flusteredly got the thing out of the machine as she asked what she’d seen, I realized:
- he was a creepy presence in the house (this was 6 PM)
- and no way was he anywhere NEAR as connected to our child as I was. To watch the thing, and then just rise and leave it there? I KNEW he would not be devastated.

I called the lawyer the next morning and mobilized.

The thing is, the connection might not be that you think the abuser is so great, but could be something to do with not upsetting your kids, or your parents, or empoverishing your kids. It’s not just romantic attachment. There are all kinds of attachments to break when you must break them.

If anyone is reading this and feeling trapped, can I tell you that it is so much better out here, free? He left me with all of his debt. I still have to hear him yell on the phone (until I hang up). I have a sense that he will never see real justice. But I’m telling you, it does not matter. It is so much better out here, my fanny hanging in the breeze, walking a tightrope, paying his stupid bills, being my, perfectly myself, passing my own decisions through the filter of, “Is this good and is this right?” Not “will this keep him from screaming at me?” Find your reason for attachment, and seriously question it. I believe that no abuser actually merits the faith we try to put in them.

Sorry about the long, probably epu’d post. I want to send money to Pretty Bird. I could send my usual little $10. It’d do me good.

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Although I don’t think it specifically deals with women who are victims of violence, I wanted to mention a program in CT called “Growing Through Sewing” that caught my eye in the NYT.

According to what I’ve been able to find out about it online, it teaches sewing skills to women who are recovering drug addicts, living in shelters. The goal of the program is to teach these women marketable skills, but I think it’s also great that they’re being given an outlet for creativity, too, which I think we all need. Here’s another article about the program.

Firepups, it’s shaping up to be a glorious day in SillyValley. So what better kind of day to fire up the smoker and do some REAL barbecue.

I’ve got a seven pound brisket and a slab of pork spare ribs that just went in. THe ribs will be dinner today, I’ll do the brisket until midnight. You just can’t overdo the brisket as long as you keep it low and slow.

The hickory chips are smoking already and the wood smoke already smells glorious.

Anybody else got some low and slow cooking planned for this weekend?

God, that sounds divine. Unfortunately I am in grading hell for the next couple of weeks and only doing quick and dirty cooking in the interim. Once the semester is over, however, the smoker is going to fire up.

I’ve got a seven pound brisket and a slab of pork spare ribs that just went in. THe ribs will be dinner today, I’ll do the brisket until midnight. You just can’t overdo the brisket as long as you keep it low and slow.

The hickory chips are smoking already and the wood smoke already smells glorious.

Anybody else got some low and slow cooking planned for this weekend?

Ask Moyers to do a show on Iran and the media. Why has the MSM allowed the claims about an “alleged” nuclear weapons program to go mostly unchallenged. (Chris Matthews has been consistently challenging these claims). The rest of the MSM allows the unsubstantiated claims to be repeated over and over again.

Polls report that 70% of Americans now believe that Iran posesses nuclear weapons instead of a nuclear energy program. This belief did not happen via osmosis.

Please contact Bill Moyers so that he does a show NOW on the media and Iran not in two years after the Bush administration pre-emptively attacks Iran! Moyers can help stop aN illegal, and immoral pre-emptive strike on Iran by digging for the truth instead of repeating the “cakewalk in Iraq” liars inflammatory rhetoric about Iran.

CONTACT MOYERS
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/jour…..dback.html

This is a great article and I agree with it to some degree. Moyers did not mention how much anti-invasion info was on the web, and did not show very much coverage of the anti-invasion marches( we know the MSM did not)
http://www.axisoflogic.com/art…..4430.shtml

Even Gonzo agress that it’s $ 200 billion we (Dept of Indian Affairs, Nat Resources, and various industries) owe to Native Americans. Some estimate the true figure, reflecting accurate record keeping, interest and penalties, could top a trillion. Indian Affairs says getting real numbers would be ‘too hard’ and Gonzo’s DoJ has recommended settling for $7 billion. Does this have anything to sdo with which AG’s got fired? Could very well be, many of them are involved with Indian issues, as Rayne has showed.

Shez, absolutely, take the money and run. Indians have been fucked over since day one. It’s more than poetic justice that most of the $ comes from white pockets, too. But I feel uneasy about it, I have seen gambling eat homes and families, but perhaps I’m too sensitive.

Kirk Murphy’s summary here, w/links to Wampum and other native American sites/blogs that have been tracking this.

Our current situation under bushco is like a cycle of violence. They abuse anyone who disagrees. They reward those who are docile and do their bidding.

You are correct that this applies to so much.

We continue to live up to our ugly U.S. history. The pre-emptive invasion of Iraq and the Bush administrations (looks like planned) failure to establish order there created an enviroment for a genocide to take place. While multi national oil companies move into position to privatize the second largest oil reserves in the world. Diane Rehm hosted a very informative program on the oil situation in Iraq last week

http://wamu.org/programs/dr/07/04/26.php#12837

The U.S.’s addiction to a cycle of violence continues. The world body needs to conduct an intervention on the U.S.