WHY I am doing this and what qualifies me

Like anyone with an illness, the symptoms of abusive men (and women) are the same. We all know that anyone who may have diabetes shares the exact same symptoms, no matter what their background, race, sex, age or lifestyle is. Money makes no difference. While some suffer more than others, while some may have more severe forms-diabetes is diabetes. It is easily diagnosed. The “symptoms” of an abuser-whether they are narcissist, sociopath/psychopaths, etc-are the same. They employ the same methods of control and it is truly uncanny how alike they all are.

The evilest part about it however-is it is only those truly close and intimate with the abuser who sees this “side”, that sees and feels their “illness.” Women are left to feel that they have to “prove”, “defend” or simply accept with a dejected resignation, and go along with the charade that he’s really a nice or great guy. She will never win in proving otherwise. Often, she is re-victimized and maligned by many when she even tries to assert what she is experiencing. Then again the question is asked-if he’s so horrible, why are you/did you stay so long? She is then left with a sense of having to defend herself further, coupled with the complication that she too, doesn’t always understand why. Let me reassure anyone-when your mind has been hijacked and molded like a lump of clay-you no longer have much control on whether you leave or stay. You have become a marionette on strings, with the abuser being the malevolent puppeteer.
You also see women who come forth to tell their stories, afraid of sounding like a raging, bitter “ex”, and they don’t mean to “bash” their abuser, but they need to get the story out. This is because often when a woman speaks out, she is portrayed just as that. Bitter, scorned, vengeful and “psycho.“ Again women find themselves having to defend the fact that they’ve been wronged, and make apologies for seeming to be bitter. Yet if you went through the psychological hell we did-you’d be bitter, too.

Naturally, there are people from all walks of life that thrive on vengeance and retribution. Typically, whoever is the abuser. Often, abusers will accuse their victims of crimes against them, when in reality, the person being abused is acting in self-defense. This of course, further victimizes the target.
Sometimes, people ARE bitter and have vendettas and falsely accuse others of wrongs they didn’t do. Some women in particular use the “system” to their advantage, knowing that they will be given the benefit in doubt, because it’s better to err on the side of caution and to believe an allegation of abuse then to have her end up dead. This is another reason why I feel it is crucial to truly dissect the motives of abusers-and to take you through the same journey a women who’s suffered abuse has been through because really-this stuff is hard to “fake.” While anyone can accuse anyone falsely of anything-its is incredibly difficult to fabricate years’ worth of abuses and deceptions. Unless you are truly gifted with imagination and creativity the likes of Clive Barker, no one could really come up with the horror of being abused, if in fact they hadn’t been. This is why my number one advice to anyone-male or female, who questions whether they are in a healthy relationship or not, is to document, document, document.

An additional hurdle in women coming forward is that anyone who has dealt with these abusive types of people knows that any attention given to them-positive or negative, essentially “gets them going.” If you shower them with love and adoration, they walk all over it. If you “rage” and become “crazed”, not only do they “win” in their attempts to have painted you out to be that “crazy” one, but your anger, pain and hurt also is a twisted victory for them- because you are actually paying them some attention, or became the bad person they “feared” you would. They “got to you.” You are thinking about them. You “care”. They have “affected” you, though we know it’s more like “infected”, as if they are a man-made biological weapon of war, meant to invade and mutate and consistently wear you down and make you as sick as them. For many reasons, this is why women are torn to even come out with any anger, stories or exposure, because its attention paid to the abuser-and the abuser likes that. In their minds, negative attention is better than none, they’d rather be notorious than forgotten.
It is important though, to be able to disinfect your life and soul from these pathogens of men by exposing it. The “Lysol” needed to be able to rid yourself of them, the “cleansing” that is needed to purge yourself from the effects, is to no longer worry about what he wants vs. doesn’t. He is still controlling us, if we don’t speak out.

My mother was a narcissist,/alcoholic, my father a physical abuser. My best friend of 18 years was shot and murdered by her husband of ten. I worked on and off in ER's and saw the denials of abuse to women, children and the elderly. And I have had too many girlfriends who have either in the past or currently, are caught up in the abusive cycle. That's my qualifications. Why I do it, is that I too, have been a target to abusive men-3 in my life-who were uncannily alike in their abusive tactics. I have 2 teenaged daughters that I want to have know the red flags and the ways to avoid what many of us women find ourselves in. It's not just all about having low-self esteem. These manipulators are good. That's why it's called "abuse."
Id like to introduce the artwork. This piece was done by my friend Jasmine Cook, out of Phoenix, AZ. I will be using a lot of her stuff. Contact me if you are interested in it.