Really great friends look at you when you tell them it's OK and tell you you're wrong. Because sometimes, it's not OK.
I had my hundredth nightmare the other night. This time, my ex husband beat the shit out of me in a public place. In my dream, no one did anything and, when it was over, I made my way back to my Dads house with our daughter. When I woke up, I locked my bedroom door and didn't fall back asleep again before finally getting out of bed, 5 hours later, at 7:30am. I've grown accustomed to dreams like that, but that doesn't make it any more enjoyable or any more OK.
I make jokes about my weekly therapy appointments, but the truth is, when you get out of an abusive relationship, you need help moving past some things, and more importantly, learning how to not get sucked back into them (or something like them in the future). You need someone to tell you that it wasn't OK. You need someone to break down the lies you've been told, and the lies you've told yourself. So, my therapist says nightmares are a pretty common reaction for someone suffering from PTSD.
I know what you're thinking. PTSD?! I never even considered that a possibility... Having PTSD from a marriage. In my brain, PTSD was reserved for people who have gone through horrible things like war, torture, plane crashes, etc... But then I have those friends who give my situation value by enforcing that my marriage was actually all of those things, just a little bit different in form and function.
It has taken me almost a year to be honest with myself about what my marriage was. Even after leaving, it took me a long time to say the word "abusive" and it has taken me even longer to be able to say it without some amount of guilt tied to it. Actually, I'm not sure I'm there yet. Initially, I felt guilty for using the word because it was harsh and it categorized my marriage, and my husband, in a group that I didn't want to be in. After we separated, I felt guilty using that word because when I said it, people would look at me with disbelief or question my definition of it. The astonishing thing about the word "abuse", is that it takes a certain level of physical harm to justify the use of the word in a lot of peoples minds.
If I am being entirely honest, I haven't protected the uglier details of my marriage for the protection of my ex. I've protected that part because when I verbalize the facts to people, my first emotion is embarrassment. Society breeds women (and men) who, by the time they are grown adults, are embarrassed to admit that they have had bad things happen to them. This embarrassment is not tied solely to domestic violence. It stretches to rape, finances, business situations, and the list goes on.
In my opinion, there is something legitimately wrong with a society that shames people into keeping their mouths shut about life altering occurrences.
I kept my mouth shut for four years. I'll never forget the first time a friend looked at me and said, "How could you have not said anything?!" Easy. If you don't verbalize it, if you pretend like it never happened, maybe it didn't. More importantly, maybe it won't happen again.
Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that not verbalizing it didn't protect me. Learning how to move quickly protected me. Learning how to make sure that I was more than an arms length away at all times protected me. Learning how to keep my mouth shut when there was no one else but our daughter around protected me. But pretending like it didn't happen, or worse yet allowing HIM to pretend like it didn't happen? That didn't protect me, and it sure didn't keep it from happening again.
So here is my piece:
If someone ever tells you that their significant other is abusive, please don't say, "Do they hit you?!" As if that is the only thing a person could do that would qualify as abuse... I could (and probably will at some point) go on an hour long rant about how the word hit means something different to everyone and how hit doesn't cover if they've ever been kicked to the ground, been forcefully held in a position for an extended period of time unable to move, had their arm almost snapped or their throat choked (for example...).
Please don't ever allow someone to be embarrassed by something that happened to them. This is such a broad item but it is so very important.
And most importantly, if you hear someone justify an unacceptable behavior by saying it is OK... Please, please give them some reassurance that it is NOT OK. Because you may be the only person to ever look at them and say that.