Inner dialogue around the questions of trauma, autonomy, gender socialization, and secure attachment in relationships.
I began living on my own when I was 13. I left my mothers home with loads of unacknowledged and unrecognized complex trauma and insecure attachment patterns that made me vulnerable to abuse, neglect, and exploitation as that is what had been normalized for me throughout childhood. I spent two years living on the street, in and out of foster homes, juvenile detention, and being exploited by adult men in exchange for shelter. I shifted from this reality shortly after my 15th birthday as I entered my first major intimate relationship after finding out that I was pregnant with my daughter, who is now almost 17.
This first major relationship was with an adult man who was heavily gang affiliated, a meth user, and physically violent. He persuadejMd his sister to let me stay with her because I was pregnant and had no where else to go. During my pregnancy he would disappear for weeks at a time and was in and out of jail. When he was home he was physically violent with me all the way into late pregnancy, as well as in the days and weeks after a highly complicated birth. Two weeks postpartum he sent me to the hospital in an ambulance as I hemmoraged after being beaten by him. His sisters would tell me that I had to be more quiet, be a better "wife", and not cause trouble. Neighbors would call the cops frequently and I of course would always lie and say that everything was fine. I was young, had no education, no money, no social services, no where to go, no family support system, no sense of what a healthy relationship looked like, and was being told by the adult women in my life that the abuse was a result of me causing trouble. Of course I lied. Finally, shortly before my daughter's 2nd birthday, the cops came for the last time. I told them everything, and he was given three months in the county jail.
During this time I was panicked about what was going to happen to me when he was released and how I was going to care for myself and my daughter. I was hardly 18 and was completely financially dependent on him. What happened next was the beginning of a pattern that I have lived out over and over again, until this last January. I jumped right into into another relationship.
This new relationship offered me protection from retaliation by ex, and from having to deal with the emotional and psychological pain of my experience. It also offered me financial security and kept me and my child from becoming homeless. But, as you can probably predict, the relationship was a continuation of the same patterns. Just with another person. And so it has gone over the last 17 years. Slightly different story lines, different people, various yet decreasing levels of IPV, but same outcomes. And while I refuse to internalize victim blaming mentality, I also am at the place in my life where I am committed to examining the ways in which my trauma has made me vulnerable to abuse and exploitation by cis males, before I am willing to involve myself with another cis male.
** In no way do I believe or support the idea that the abuse I have experienced and am experiencing was my fault. I am simply aiming to understand my own trauma patterns that make me vulnerable, and change them. In no way do I believe that survivors should be solely responsible for interrupting cycles of abuse. In no way do I resonate with the notion that survivors should take responsibility for their abuser's actions, regardless of their trauma patterns. A person who is aware of and exploits their partner's trauma must be held accountable for their abuse through a restorative process that includes mentorship and education and must be carried out in a way that supports their survivor.**
My abusers have ranged from men of color with gang affiliations, to white men from the activist/radical community, which leads me to conclude that a person's cultural background, affiliation or advertised social values is no safe guard against abuse. Nor is it an assurance of a safe partner. When my last relationship ended in January, I made a commitment to myself to interrupt my pattern of starting new relationships before I had an opportunity to examine, make sense of the abuse, and heal.
As I've honored this commitment to myself, I have never felt more confident in my capacities as a growing and healing person who will be able to articulate and honor my boundaries and needs in relationship. I am also delving deeper into attachment theory and making efforts to understand what it would look and feel like to be in healthy relationship with a life partner, and what I as a socialized female can reasonably expect from my socialized male partners. Part of this learning and exploration is an effort to clear the fog of gas lighting that happened in my last relationship in which I was told that my needs for secure attachment were unreasonable and my holding of boundaries were consistently labeled as invalid and nothing more than an attempt to control them. Where I was told that perhaps I just shouldn't be in relationship with men.
I would like to share an essay that I have been digesting this last week, reading and rereading a few times to really integrate the concepts. As we challenge and make efforts to interrupt rape culture, a culture that normalizes and excuses abusive behaviors, I believe that we must simultaneously bring into practice a culture of nurturance. And yes I believe that cis men must carry the bulk of that labor and practice, as survivors work towards processing and integrating trauma, healing, and developing healthy boundaries. As a feminist scholar these last eight years, I have spent so much time reading, discussing, and analyzing the ways in which patriarchy has shaped my life and the lives of everyone outside of the cis male identity across the world. And while I think that it is vitally important for people outside of the cis male identity to develop a feminist framework, I also think that cis males who identify as allies have the responsibility to dedicate themselves to this same level of engagement and analysis. I also think that as so many people outside of the cis male identity carry trauma from their lived experiences of abuse and exploitation, it is a responsibility of cis males to develop a good analysis and framework around the ways in which a lifetime of gendered trauma affects neuro and behavioral functioning so that they can be better allies and less likely to victim blame or apologize and justify abuse.
I humbly solicit and welcome your thoughts on this reflection, even if they diverge from mine. As I've never been in a relationship that was not abusive, never had a partner that was attuned and emotionally safe, nor been modeled how to be in healthy relationship, this work is important to me and is the motivation for this post. All best of intentions here for a dialogue that has that capacity to lead us towards a culture of nurturance and care wherein autonomy, interdependence, and attachment are secure and balanced.
Linked article : For Men Who Desperately Need Autonomy
"He doesn’t only treat women this way temporarily when he is excited about them or lusting after them or in love with them. They don’t need to do or be anything in particular to be treated this way. It is a quality in him, that he learned is normal from his parents growing up, so he doesn’t withdraw accessibility when he gets bored or when you fight or after he’s used up your worth to him as a conquest. That is not safety, and only a culture folded backwards on itself could possibly normalize using women in such a disposable way."