I was asked to publish online, and I realized yes, the time is right.
Why? The issue of domestic violence is hot right now in the Deaf Community, and it happens that is part of the story of "Miss Tea."
The subject of domestic violence is important to me for personal reasons. The first stage is verbal or emotional abuse.
Now, I want to tell you that sometimes family and friends can recognize an abuser when you can't. Abusers do wear a mask with others, but it doesn't always stay on that well. I was involved with one: I was hit twice, but it was mostly emotional abuse and controlling behavior. I think I was lucky compared to so many women I've known. But it was very difficult.
He'd fight with me for hours over little things (this is controlling abusive behavior) then apologize and analyze how things would not have happened that way if I had behaved or talked to him nicer. Seriously. He also refused to see my friends, backstabbed them, claimed they weren't really my friends. He made up stories about his friends' opinions of me, too.
He was trying to make me paranoid, gaslighting me. It didn't work because I am not naturally a paranoid person, unlike him, but it over time, still hurt my ability to trust and made me feel very lonely. He also didn't like what I liked, he wanted to get rid of my books, he wanted me to do what he liked. I stopped writing creatively during that relationship. I remember how I was finally out, on my own, lonely and scared, and I started writing again and it was wonderful, to be with myself again, without his constant negative opinions in my head.
Anyway early on, I was really in love with him, just fell suddenly, and I was naive. I told a male friend about that. He had met this man just once, but he had already pressured him on something he didn't want to do.
"He's a bit pushy for my taste," he said.
I said "okay, I don't need for you to like him." I just thought it was personal dislike, which I understood.
But wow, he was right. He spotted a major warning signal I had overlooked; he was not respecting others' signals to stop discussing things; he was pushing for what he wanted, hard. But what seemed like nothing, escalated. He wore me down. He put me down. He argued. He gave his friends distorted image. He distorted everything I said (and some friends said) just to win an argument.
But I will tell you one thing: this kind of behavior didn't happen immediately. It happened, slowly, over months. I remember some turning points, where I could have escaped the relationship, and I had doubts about getting in deeper. But I was naive, young, wanted to be in love. I ignored my gut. I didn't see any danger yet.
Okay. I was lucky. But I have also known women who were killed or nearly so by their boyfriends. I've known a man who had to leave his life overnight, taking his kids with him, because his wife woke him up one night, pointing a knife at him, talking about killing him. I have known many people who never felt recognized for themselves or appreciated by their own families. And even after that, I did not see myself as emotionally abused. I was in denial. It was just a really awful relationship that didn't work out.
That changed when I read the Washington Post one day, and found out my old classmate Erika Harper had died. I was stunned by how she and her two children had died. But I was also even more stunned by how I reacted to it. I hadn't seen her more than once since she was 15, and in my head, she was always 15, and all that happened to her. That I understood. That her boyfriend was mentally ill and she loved him. I understood.
But where was this crying coming from? Why couldn't I stop thinking about her, how she died, from a boyfriend she loved? Why? When I learned more about domestic violence-- and I hadn't really studied it before-- I learned about emotional and verbal abuse. It hit home. I was nodding to everything on the list.
I realized it wasn't just my seeing domestic violence happen to others, it was about me, too. My denial broke that day. Most importantly, I was already out of the relationship long ago (he cheated on me. Most abusers cheat) and I only had "friendship" with him and he still was trying to force his opinions of my life on me. I broke off ALL contact. Made sure my family and friends understood. And with that safety at last, I could begin to recover from my experience, see what happened for what it was.
Miss Tea was first drafted just months before that experience hit me. I wanted this story online, because I wanted it well-read. I wanted people to feel what she feels.
Sadly, emotional abuse is calculated to stress you so much that you can't think about leaving. It really is. It's designed to stress you so much that you can't ask the right questions, think straight. The abuser won't leave you alone. Everything has to involve him, because he doesn't want you to have mental freedom from him. He will gaslight you, make you doubt your own abilities and confidence, to that end, too. He will trap you by humilating you, if he can.* Emotional abuse is worse than any bullying, because it happens in a situation of trust. It is calculated to shock, terrify, confuse, strike to the root of who you are.
Miss Tea realizes this. "No bully had ever said anything that bad to her."
This story is not at the point of the relationship where the gaslighting has fully happened, but as you can see in the story, Peter tried to get her back, use a friend to soften her sympathies, get her to minimalize what happened, even doubt her own emotions.
Jenn
* I say "him" but abusers can be women, too. Most abusers grew up abused in some way-- emotionally, physically, verbally.