Knock on wood

I look back at my last post and am amazed that it's only been 6 months. It should be longer, when your life gets turned half way around, time should speed up to match your emotions. I have learned in the last 6 months that I am an abused woman, I think, act, and react to situations like a woman who has been abused for years, and in a way, I guess I have.

It starts out in little ways, you know. A suggestion here, a request there, a look on a face, a tone of voice, and all in the name of keeping the peace you find yourself letting go of ideas and beliefs that  you KNOW are right. A comment that is said as a "joke", but is really a veiled put down.  An attitude that says, "if you'd just do it right, everything would be ok.", and you NEVER seem to get it right.  It's weird, how words and actions can make you feel beat up and beat down. The saying "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me" is an utter lie. Words hurt. They cut and pummel and break and shape you into a person you hardly recognize as who you once were.

And then, then you have a son who sees and hears the comments and reads the looks and his mentally ill mind interprets it just a touch different. Where he hears a joke that seems to demoralize women, he takes it as permission to totally disregard women and see them only as a means to an end. Where he sees a mother bend and negotiate with his father, he interprets that women don't deserve respect and can be pushed into your will. And he grows, until the day he is bigger than his mom and stronger, and that's when you go from being emotionally abused and mentally degraded to actual, physical abuse.

I found myself second guessing all of my choices, because I knew which ones would end up in a physical confrontation. And then it was that everything became a physical confrontation. I was wrestled to the ground with my arm behind my back, kicked in the ribs, spit on in the face, bit and verbally abused for taking my son's phone away. He did all of this in front of his 3 younger siblings. My husband never seemed to believe the lengths to which our son would go, the abuse and physical threats that were a daily occurrence in the house. Just another small abuse, to not be believed and to be told I was over exaggerating what was going on. However, this night, hubby called and heard what was going on as my daughter was on the house phone with 911 and my youngest son begged his brother to leave his mom alone and my baby screamed because she was so scared.

My son went to jail that night, in October, and he did not return home until January 11. Alot of work has gone on between my husband and I, the entire inner workings of our marriage and the way we communicate with and to each other and to our kids has had to change. My son has promised me that he made a promise to himself that he would never let himself "go there" again. So far, so good...knock on wood.