Betrayal
Posted by Boo , Thursday, April 28, 2011 7:16 PM
When I was married, I would write words on things. All kinds of things. Everywhere. Like other people doodle. Faith. Fidelity. Kindness. Grace. Friendship. Words like that. Words that meant love to me. Things I craved. Rare things. Rare for me, anyway.
My husband liked to date. He liked to hit. He dated when we were dating. He hit when we were dating. Marriage and a baby did not discourage all of that. Can you guess which one hurt me? Sure you can. The dating.
Betrayal.
Betrayal, to me, is breaching faith. Lying. Cheating.
Hitting it what people do. I can take a punch. Lying. Cheating. I'm a little girl who doesn't belong, who is not welcome. Who is alone, scorned, unwanted, betrayed.
Violence, in the upside down world of the abused, is a connection. All that rage is focused on you. An explosion that's about you. You matter enough to hit.
Fucked up, right? I know.
Lying. Cheating. They sever connection. They are abandonment. They emptiness. They are disintegration. They always happen. I will never be safe from them.
Betrayal.
My new therapist is a cool customer. I nattered on about the twisting impact infidelity has on a spirit for awhile. The psychic hemorrhaging it causes. The emotional gangrene. She listened, then tentatively suggested that hitting is a betrayal, too.
It did not resonate. I looked at her like a Labrador struck by the sound of a a dog whistle. I cocked my head. It was a new concept. I don't feel it. My brain says of course it is the truth. My heart doesn't hear it.
Hitting is hitting. Infidelity is betrayal.
I have to work on this. I have to let my hearing brain have a chat with my hardened heart. Hitting is betrayal, too.
Hitting is betrayal. Hitting is betrayal. Hitting is betrayal, too.
Please don't hit me anymore.
Right now that is kind of how I feel about Domestic Violence being a part of my childhood. It is a new idea that I am only just beginning to get used to. Just like I did the first time that I said I was raped by my uncle and my dad. It didn't feel like incest was as bad as rape or that they could be the same. I was a little girl, not a sexual object that these two men made me into for their pleasure. There was no violence so how could incest be rape. Incest is rape because it was without my permission. I was a child too young to be able to make that choice. I was never asked and even if I had of been, I was a child. No child should ever have to make that decision. Incest is betrayal too, just like rape is and just like hitting is.