I wanna be a crying, screaming, ranting, begging banshee
Nope, warning you about the physical danger of verbal abuse didn’t make the knot in me disappear. Damn it, I was hoping that it would. I really don’t want to go back into the expectations thing, but here I go.
Patricia Evans talks about how victims of abuse are not abused because of who we are. We’re abused because of who we are NOT.
I am NOT whatever person my husband wants me to be or thinks I should be. And because I am not (an can NEVER BE) a person who my husband has imagined, the abuse will continue.
One of the horrific effects of being abused is that usually, the person doing the abusing is very important. We love them, or we need them (our husbands, parents, etc.). So we try desperately to be the person they “expect” us to be. In the process, we lose and consideration for who we expect ourselves to be.
In the end, we don’t know who we are, who we want to be, or even who we could have been; the prospects for becoming someone (other than a failure) dims.
The only thing I want to be is someone who is loved, valued, cherished by my husband. I didn’t used to care what I had to do to be loved; I’d do anything. Sexual acts that make me cry, feigning happiness so he isn’t embarrassed, trying things “his way” for “once”, keeping my mouth shut, trying to be less emotional, more focused, less conversational with my boys, …It’s painfully obvious that I am not loved by my husband, but why? I made the mistake of thinking something was wrong with me, missing in me, … I was not enough.
But remember, the person I’m trying so desperately to be loved by abuses me because of who I am NOT.
I am NOT his princess nor his ideal mommy. Sadly, I am NOT the woman he married either. Often, I am a crying, screaming, ranting, begging banshee who flies off the handle and cannot carry a logical conversation. I need to be in a straight-jacket. Seriously. He worries for our children’s futures as men because their mother is such a flake.
All I ever wanted to be was loved, honored and cherished for who I was the day he married me and for who I had the capability of becoming.
Trust me, becoming a crying, screaming, ranting, begging banshee was not on my wish list of “people I most want to be like when I grow up.”
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