say it with me now
emotional
abuse
is
still
abuse
do not fucking tell me someone with abusive parents “had it easy” just because the abuse wasn’t physical or sexual
just don’t
So this morning, I was physically prevented from leaving the house.
I wanted to go speak to the hiring manager at a local McDonald’s, then visit a friend. My mother intervened before I could leave, physically getting in my way and forbidding me from leaving the house except at her say-so. In case you were wondering, I *don’t* have her say so.
I would also like to take this opportunity to briefly discuss my mother’s abusive history. My mother and I have been locked in a power struggle for a very, very long time. Our relationship has always been one of abuser/abused: gaslighting, mocking, beatings and scratchings, shaking, and constant yelling and nitpicking are a common, weekly thing in my house. My mother attempts to exert as much control of me as possible, and that includes letting me think that I have room to breathe before yanking my “leash” back. She has refused to get me medical or dental care, even though my dad wants to help me: I have what may be PCOS, and a tooth is rotting in the top right corner of my mouth. She also believes that my depression and anxiety issues are bullshit, because “everyone gets sad.” When I’ve tried negotiating with her calmly, she frequently pulls a “you’re hurt? What about MY HURT?” and doesn’t let me go further, nor offer any sort of solution beyond me being a perfect daughter. Which, by her standards, I will never be.
But I’m writing all of this now because today shook me awake. I NEED to get out. I haven’t been able to find work, and I have an overdue phone bill which means I may lose my primary ability to get out and STAY out. It doesn’t help that I now have frequent panic attacks, have trouble sleeping and lack the energy to get up in the morning when I can finally close my eyes. And living in this house has been hell.
I *get* that a lot of people in my corner of Tumblr don’t like me. But I am asking for as much support, potential donations and referrals to resources as I can get, from anyone, because it is finally too bad for me here. If you:
- know of domestic violence shelters in New Brunswick, NJ or NYC
- know about free clinics or therapy in central NJ or NYC
- know about the process of getting welfare and food stamps in NJ
- are able to donate (all funding is pretty much going to getting me the hell out of this house, then my phone bill, then a dental visit - in that order)
- can’t donate, but wouldn’t mind helping me cast my net out wide
Please contact me/reblog. Donations can be sent to theveiledwarriorisbroke@gmail.com via PayPal, and I can be contacted there as well. I can confirm my identity if needed, although the circumstances that are pushing me out make me REALLY skittish about putting my first and last name out too frequently. My parents are computer-savvy, know that I have a Tumblr (although they don’t know what url I am) and will start trawling the internets once I disappear.
Thank you so much. I’ve just hit my rock bottom and I need as much help as I can get to crawl out of this okay.
HELP PLEASE. Reblog, boost contribute as much as possible.
Okay, I wish I would NEVER have to make a post like this.. but here it is.
That’s Emily, a girl I’ve known for about 10 years. That’s her face a couple of days after her boyfriend beat the shit out of her. She has to get facial surgery for broken bones, a titanium plate inserted for her “pulverized cheekbones”.
She has been amazingly open about her experience and very optimistic, retaining her sense of humour, but her ex-boyfriend hasn’t been caught yet. He beat her in Arizona but he might be out of the state by now.
His name is Chris Young. He’s a raver and a DJ. I’m not friends with him on facebook, so I can’t get any better pictures than that. But you can see that she trusted him. And he broke that trust in trying to break her.
If you see him, please call the Tucson Police. IF you know ANYTHING about him, call the police.
It’d be great if people could reblog this for her.Yes, reblogging this WILL make you blog look ugly because domestic violence is ugly. Reblog it anyways.
this breaks my heart :(
Damage
This is not my usual post. But it’s something I had to share. As you read this, imagine how your reaction would differ if this story were being told by a woman, talking about how her husband treated her.
I have been separated from my wife for over a year, though we continue to share a house. We live on separate floors. We share the house because we need to parent our son together, and because we can’t afford to maintain two households.
I’d like to tell you a story, illustrating one reason why I am divorcing her. This is an example of the treatment I have received over the past fourteen years.
This evening, while she was drinking her wine, my estranged wife took exception to the fact that I wanted to talk about how tense she’s been. She said she didn’t want to talk about it.
I left the room (so as to comply with her request).
I went upstairs to use our tiny guest bathroom. She began to yell and throw things around the kitchen, then eventually charged up the stairs and into the bathroom, just as I was finishing and getting ready to leave. She confronted me there, holding her half-full wine glass in her hand. Her voice got louder, her gestures wilder.
She complained that I had upset her by wanting to talk when she had told me she didn’t want to talk. As I began to feel uncomfortable, I said, “You’re saying it’s my fault you can’t express your emotions responsibly like an adult?”
She said, “Yes!! It’s because you want to go off and take a vacation with your girlfriend!” Then she threw the contents of her glass in my face and smashed it against my bare chest.
The results are pictured here.
I stood there, with shattered glass at my feet, glass shards sticking in my skin, bleeding, for five minutes or so. I asked her to move so that I could leave. She waved the broken stem of the glass in the air and said, “Leave!! Who’s stopping you?”
I told her she was standing between me and the door. I felt threatened.
She laughed and said, “You’re 6 foot 3 and 250 pounds! You can’t feel threatened by me!”
I said, “You just broke a glass on my chest and cut me. You’re standing there with the stem in your hands. Yes. I feel threatened.”
She said, “No, you don’t.”
I asked her to move out of the way and let me pass. I didn’t want her to think I was pushing her or threatening her.
She held her ground, waved the broken stem and shouted, “Go on! Leave! I’m not stopping you!”
After I asked her repeatedly, she finally moved a bit and I left, carefully stepping over the broken glass.
I have posted this here as evidence, and to help those who may think that size and gender make a difference when abuse is concerned. People who, like my estranged, think some have permission to feel threatened and some don’t.
Abusers come in all sizes and genders.
She and I went to a half dozen therapists over the years. At each initial session, every therapist took a look at me, then at her (5’4” 150 lbs.). Then he or she would gravely ask my wife, “Do you feel safe?”
None ever thought to ask me.
Thanks for listening.
he should’ve beat her fucking ass oh my GOD I AM SO FUCKING ANGRY NOW
This is important!
SIGNAL BOOST
Reblogging again because I need this fucker’s picture to be on the post. FUCK. HIM.(Innocent until blah blah fuck it)I was getting off the Red Line at Harvard Square on Tuesday when, out of the corner of my right eye, I saw this man slap a woman across her face.
The woman, a tanned, fit Asian lady in her mid-thirties, immediately punched him right in the face, at which point he yelled, “DID YOU SEE THAT? SHE JUST ASSAULTED ME!”
She dashed out of the car and, as he began to follow her, she shouted that she was getting the cops. As I walked down the ramp behind them both, I watched him smirking as he looked at her stomping away. His smirk faded as she grabbed a T inspector, and he tried to blend into the crowd as she whipped back around to look for him.
“He was just here!” I heard her say, and he was. He was right in front of me. And he had slapped a woman across the face for what had, to me, seemed absolutely unprovoked. Fuck that motherfucker.
I ran over to him, pointed, and said, “Yo. This is him. Right here.”
As the inspector held the two of them and waited for Transit Police to arrive, he asked me if I’d actually seen him hit her. “Not clearly, but yeah,” I said.
“Would you mind giving a statement?” he asked. I said it wasn’t a problem and called my shrink to say yo, giving a witness statement, sorry I’ll be a little late. (“Totally fine. Don’t bitchslap women. It’s a basic rule,” he replied.) As we waited, the man turned to me and said, “Did you really see what happened? I don’t think you did.”
“Yep. I saw it. I’m not talking to you,” I replied, because I don’t think you did are you fucking kidding me?
“She assaulted me, you know,” he said, as he pulled that day’s New York Times out of his bag and calmly read section A while we waited.
There are multiple sides to just about every story, as you all damn well know. You’re not kids. This ain’t new.
She says he was taking up two seats on the T. That she tried to sit in one of the seats and that he shoved her. That she put her backpack in her lap to assert her space, and that he pushed it out of her lap and onto the floor. That as she got up to exit the car, he stood up, said, “You can’t do things like that,” and slapped her across the face.
He says he was punched, unprovoked, by this crazy lady, and that he hadn’t done a thing to deserve an assault.
I know I saw this dude slap a stranger out of the blue, that she hit him right back, and that she was not going to let that shit slide. That I wish I’d seen it more clearly, but that I’m almost positive that’s what happened. “Good for her,” said the cop taking my statement, with a grin.
“I don’t want to press charges,” she said. “He keeps staring at me. It creeps me out. I don’t want him to know who I am. I just want someone to tell him he can’t do things like that.” I saw him. I understand.
“Officially, if there’s no victim, there’s no crime,” the cop said. “We’ll contact you if she changed her mind. But I’m gonna talk to him for a little bit. Tell him it’s not okay to do that kind of thing.” Because it’s not.
$10 says he does it again.
WOW THAT IS NOT OKAY. PLEASE REBLOG THIS POST SO THAT THIS MAN DOES NOT GET AWAY WITH VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN.
It’s not often that I sincerely, in my heart of hearts, wish physical violence on someone I’ve never met.
But.
REBLOG THIS.
Scuuuuuuum
I can understand her not wanting to press charges because he sounds like a complete psychopath, but at the same time I want him to get more than just a scolding, because what will make him listen to that, honestly? Arghgsdakdghsa I just wish there was something I could do about it. Either way, REBLOG THE SHIT OUT OF THIS.
This is not my usual post. But it’s something I had to share. As you read this, imagine how your reaction would differ if this story were being told by a woman, talking about how her husband treated her.
I have been separated from my wife for over a year, though we continue to share a house. We live on separate floors. We share the house because we need to parent our son together, and because we can’t afford to maintain two households.
I’d like to tell you a story, illustrating one reason why I am divorcing her. This is an example of the treatment I have received over the past fourteen years.
This evening, while she was drinking her wine, my estranged wife took exception to the fact that I wanted to talk about how tense she’s been. She said she didn’t want to talk about it.
I left the room (so as to comply with her request).
I went upstairs to use our tiny guest bathroom. She began to yell and throw things around the kitchen, then eventually charged up the stairs and into the bathroom, just as I was finishing and getting ready to leave. She confronted me there, holding her half-full wine glass in her hand. Her voice got louder, her gestures wilder.
She complained that I had upset her by wanting to talk when she had told me she didn’t want to talk. As I began to feel uncomfortable, I said, “You’re saying it’s my fault you can’t express your emotions responsibly like an adult?”
She said, “Yes!! It’s because you want to go off and take a vacation with your girlfriend!” Then she threw the contents of her glass in my face and smashed it against my bare chest.
The results are pictured here.
I stood there, with shattered glass at my feet, glass shards sticking in my skin, bleeding, for five minutes or so. I asked her to move so that I could leave. She waved the broken stem of the glass in the air and said, “Leave!! Who’s stopping you?”
I told her she was standing between me and the door. I felt threatened.
She laughed and said, “You’re 6 foot 3 and 250 pounds! You can’t feel threatened by me!”
I said, “You just broke a glass on my chest and cut me. You’re standing there with the stem in your hands. Yes. I feel threatened.
She said, “No, you don’t.”
I asked her to move out of the way and let me pass. I didn’t want her to think I was pushing her or threatening her.
She held her ground, waved the broken stem and shouted, “Go on! Leave! I’m not stopping you!”
After I asked her repeatedly, she finally moved a bit and I left, carefully stepping over the broken glass.
I have posted this here as evidence, and to help those who may think that size and gender make a difference when abuse is concerned. People who, like my estranged, think some have permission to feel threatened and some don’t.
Abusers come in all sizes and genders.
She and I went to a half dozen therapists over the years. At each initial session, every therapist took a look at me, then at her (5’4” 150 lbs.). Then he or she would gravely ask my wife, “Do you feel safe?”
None ever thought to ask me.
Thanks for listening.
