Witnessing Abuse Turned Me Into An Abuser
The statistics regarding domestic violence are staggering. Often sharing my experiences has been hard since they do not compare to what others have gone through. The scares are not visible. There are no legal papers, police reports or any other documentation detailing violence or abuse.
However, talking with a guest on my show helped me realize that my story is still something that should be shared. Why? Because the things I saw caused me to become an abuser.
What? I’m sure you’re wondering how a person who witnessed such horrible things could inflict violence and abuse on someone else. Well, truthfully, it was never thought of as being abusive. It was considered self-defense. It was a matter of me getting him before he got me. Sadly, I did it for years. He never hit me back. I pulled knives on him, abused him in front of family members and didn’t think there was anything wrong with the behavior.
The truth is, I was traumatized by the abuse witnessed as a child. Many make the mistake of thinking that if a child doesn’t see abuse that they will be okay. Well, that is not true. Watching my mother patch up family members and friends was enough to turn me. I used to hear our neighbor being thrown around her house, then I’d see her running to our house covered in blood in the middle of the night. She’d get patched and cleaned up, then go to work in a few hours like nothing happened and she was a registered nurse.
Things like that solidified to me that those things would not happen in my life. I would never allow anyone to hit me without fighting back, even if it killed me.
It wasn’t until the one time my husband raised his hand and hit me that I didn’t hit back (up until then, I was always the one to hit. He yelled). We both ended up going to jail with court mandated anger management. During those sessions, I saw the error of my ways. I saw the monster in me. I cried for days on end. Immediately changes were made to correct the negative abusive behavior, physically and verbally. The marriage was about 20 years old at that point with the abuse occurring 4-5 times, but that was too much even if it only happened when anger was involved.
I realized what my children had been subjected to and this really made me evaluate my life. The things I said, how they were said and my actions and reactions, especially to my husband. I was used to be yelled at as a child so I did not do this with my children because I didn’t like they way it made me feel. But, I didn’t think about the things my children heard. Children study their parents and they are much more aware of things than we can ever imagine. It was scary to realize they could turn out like me.
In June of 2020 the 33rd wedding anniversary was celebrated between my husband and I. Permanent changes have been made by both of us. The therapy helped immensely. Admitting the problem was the first step and understanding the triggers made it easier to correct the behavior.
Now when I speak to persons in abusive relationships with children, we talk about the harm the children are suffering even if they do not see it. I call domestic violence a silent plague epidemic because there is no one who doesn’t know someone who is affected in one way or another by this.
I even wrote a book, Tales of Survival: Domestic Violence in order to help others with resources for all kinds of relationships. We have to talk about it in order to stop it. I hope this helps.
