Abuse Has Many Forms

When I was a kid I was the target of bullying. I'm short and was downright tiny then, and I tend to march by the beat of my own drum. So, I may as well have had a flashing neon sign saying "Bully Me!!".

What I experienced was humiliating, but I didn't follow the Hollywood model of taking on the bullies directly, with that one punch that suddenly brings respect. I was bullied by people who were much larger, and really wasn't interested in getting the shit beat out of me in order to make a point. The opportunity did present itself once, but I clearly remember thinking, "No, I'm better than this." I chose to rise above their level rather than stooping down to it.

That sort of abuse is relatively easy for me to talk about, and for the first 27 years of my life that was the worst that I had faced. What isn't easy to talk about, though, is the emotional abuse to which I was subjected in a relationship that started when I was 26.

I'm a relatively normal North American white male. I have my quirks, but who doesn't? I grew up with the idea that abuse in a relationship is something that some asshole of a man does to a woman, and tragically that's true in many/most of the cases. Because men are "strong", they don't get abused by women. I was wrong.

I was never physically abused, save for one instance when a TV remote was thrown at my head. I was, though, subjected to a slowly debilitating form of emotional abuse that had me questioning everything about myself. I questioned if my family really cared about me. I questioned my ability to be a parent. I questioned whether I provided anything more than a paycheque to the relationship.

It wasn't until afterwards I finally started to realize that someone was placing a distorted mirror in front of me that some of the confusion started to clear, and I eventually ended that relationship. I can't say for certain how long I still believed that our problems were mostly my fault. Indeed, I may still carry that with me. I remember defending her long after we separated when others would say how badly she had treated me. "Hey, I'm no angel", was my euphemism for, "Hey, I deserved it".

That relationship ended in the summer of 2002. We had two children who I love more than anything, and have had a constant struggle to assert my role as a parent ever since. I wish I could say that time has healed those wounds, but really all it has done is create scabs that are picked every so often and continue to fester and bleed more than a decade later.

For more than a decade I have tried to live by that same core tenet that got me through the bullying when I was young: "I'm better than this." I've risen above the name-calling, and I cannot adequately express how difficult that has been. I've risen above using the kids as pawns in the "game", though there have been countless times I would have loved to say what was really going on. But what worked when I was in my early to middle teens doesn't necessarily work when you're in your 30's and 40's. I knew that there was a finite amount of time that I'd be bullied in high school before they & I would graduate. I don't have that luxury now, and it has been a significant contributing factor to my depression, and sure as hell plays into my anxiety issues.

I'm not perfect. I've made mistakes just like every other human being on this planet, but I don't deserve to be bullied or abused. No one does.

I recently read an article called "Am I Imagining The Abuse in My Relationship?" by Kellie Holly that really hit the nail on the head for me. Yes, the abuse I've faced is absolutely nothing like that faced by countless millions of women at the hands of men. But it's still abuse.

And it's still wrong.