Challenges force people to either rise to the top or sink to the bottom. I mean, you can only tread water but for so long right? After that you either have to swim to safety or give it up and accept drowning as your fate.
A friend of mine was recently beaten by her boyfriend. It stunned me, but it also showed me a lot about myself. Before I had two special needs children I could easily afford to be judgmental of other people. And I was. Look at that child having a tantrum. . .my kid would NEVER embarrass me like that. Or look at that poor woman who can't control her kid or jeez why can't we pack PB&J just because this ONE child has a peanut allergy?
The lessons I've learned as a mother have made me a better person. Expanded my ability to understand things that on the surface, don't make sense to me. So instead of feeling superior, I felt true compassion for my friend--a woman who may very well be trapped. Though the trapping would be of her own doing, it is part of a larger issue that somehow makes her believe she is less than she is. I want to help her. I want to change her. I'm afraid that I can't do either but at least I know that now I can still care about her instead of writing her off as stupid or hopeless.
When it comes to battery especially, I can say that try as I might I will never understand it. That is MY personality...I am a fighter. I have personal boundaries and I have made that clear all my life. The idea of someone crossing those boundaries and hitting me the way a parent would spank or beat a child; the way a gang member might assault someone who owed him money and didn't pay; none of that computes.
I have always felt fully formed and individual as far back as I can remember. I think that sense of self might have been one of the most difficult parts of being a parent to a kid like me. But that is who I am and ever shall be. My friend expressed sadness at how awful it must be for her boyfriend to be such a bully and again I was dumbfounded by the importance, caring, and thought that was focused on him, her abuser, rather than on herself.
This is a disease for the abuser and the abused. I guess no matter how many Lifetime specials, True TV crime stories and after school specials air, there will always be a segment of the female population who will be beaten; will forgive; and will risk the likelihood of being beaten again. But for THIS young woman, I plan to be there for her in every way I know how in hopes of helping her to see her own significance in this big nasty world.
Wish me luck!
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