Meursault's Journal

[meursault]

I'm trying to not be all crazy.  I think I would qualify as having anxiety induced psychosis right now.  I feel like I'm completely alone and have no friends or anything either.  Just trapped and not even a human being anymore.  Called the crisis line last night and they told me they were busy and they'd call ME this morning.  They called and the woman was pretty gruff.  I didn't talk for long.  Sorry if that fear and insecurity is spilling out here.  I'm probably annoying how I keep bringing all this stuff about my Dad up, so it wouldn't surprise me I'm irritating people.

My body feels like it's exploded and is scattered all over the planet.

Lawyer is going to have me come in several times this week to go over my testimony.  Several emergency people testified last year how I was calm, didn't smell like alcohol or appear intoxicated, was polite and had clarity for the situation.   I thought "good!  now they'll believe me!"   The cops are saying differently.  I feel terrible enough just knowing it was an accident, yet they are torturing me with this so much, and want me to then go to jail for so long too.  I don't know why this is happening.  One cop even got caught lying on the stand at the preliminary so badly the judge laughed, and she excused it at trial by saying "I'm a people pleaser and I was just saying what I thought people wanted to hear."  They had done part of the trial last year, but it got delayed because somehow the prosecutor failed to properly inform one of the cops she was supposed to testify, so it got delayed another 15 months.  Something terribly unjust is happening here, but everyone seems to think this is normal...

I haven't even been able to address the grief and loss and what guilt I feel for this, with this constant threat that I can be pinned in again in jail to be raped and beaten and victimized and trapped with no safe place to retreat to.  It's just been terror for six and a half years of it being out of my control whether I am going to be put in a cage and spend years being raped.  I don't understand how this is even happening.  My brain is being physically damaged by this, I think.  The trauma isn't even in the past.  It's ongoing.  I'm still pinned and trapped, powerless, with no safety, with an imminent threat over my head constantly.  There is no solid ground.

Damn, I wish I could see my Dad again.  I don't know what he would say in support, but it would be good to hear SOMETHING!  I'm so alone, and I'm just SCREAMING inside for some soothing and affection.  And I am so completely disgusting and unlovable to women, and I don't know why...

I'm so badly trapped and powerless and terrified and it's non-stop trauma.  And I hate how everybody says "you're in your own prison."  I'm not, I'm in a prison they've put me in.

Meursault

[Three Roses]

You're not bothering me and I doubt you are bothering anyone else here, Meursault. We all seem to feel rather warmly toward you You don't have to apologize for feeling afraid and vulnerable.    We will be here for you as much as the distance will allow.

I wish there was something I could tangibly do for you, to relieve your pain! I don't know why you're going through this, it's not fair. You did nothing wrong; I have hope that your lawyer will see that things turn it in your favor.

[sanmagic7]

i don't have words, but i hope you know i'm right beside you.  hang tough, meursault.  big hug.  i wish there was more i could do.

[meursault]

Thanks for your responses everyone!   I'm really grateful for them.  I get a lot of support from this place.  Last week, I asked my therapist to contact Kizzie if I don't make it through this stuff to thank people for the help I get here.  Even a couple of months ago, I felt I had some decent social connections IRL, but I'm feeling pretty alone now.  My therapist thinks that nobody knows what to do to help, so they just ignore it and put it out of their minds.  This place feels accepting (usually!).  It's good to have people who actually know what I'm going through.

It's weird.  My whole life I was just garbage to my family, yet they all support me (intellectually) with this.  They all think it's crazy too.

This has just caused so much damage to me.  Even 2.5 years ago in the psych ward, the psychiatrist specifically said I don't have BPD.  And last fall, I was enrolled in a DBT program, and they said I didn't either.  Now my therapist says she thinks I've been diagnosed with it, although she personally sees it as just a lot of trauma.  I feel like I've been living with this threat so long it's just broken me so badly. 

I think I'm just constantly immersed in both the situational trauma, and non-stop flashbacks....

I wish I could try to have a life.  It feels like I'm not even human any more.

Meursault

[radical]

All too human, all too precious, Meursault.

I've been badly broken by circumstances as an adult.  It's amazing what you can look back on.  I've been involved in 'David and Goliath' legal battles which extended over years.  I didn't think I would survive, I'm not sure how I did.  A therapist at the time gave me these words from a poem by Kipling (never been wild about Kipling and I'll never be a man, but they reassured me that she believed in me).  I'm sending them to you, because we believe in you:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:

[meursault]

Thank You, radical!  I always liked that poem!

[sanmagic7]

through all this, you continue to hang tough, meursault, using the resources available to you, and i give you a lot of credit for that.  what you're going thru, anticipating, and contemplating are all so horrible - it would be so fabulous if it would all be resolved quickly and smoothly and positively and allow you to go out and finally find a life for yourself.  that is my wish for you.  hangin' right beside you!

[meursault]

Thanks sanmagic!  It's really hard to remember that people care when I'm immersed in this.  It just doesn't connect.  Do you find that too when things are rough?

Meursault

[meursault]

The old brief treatment therapist who was really helpful a few years ago got together with me today for a late lunch to chat and just catch up today.  I spent several hours in with the lawyer going over my Dad's death and then met up with him.  It made me feel good.  He used to be a cop, and really helped reassure me that it looks like the case is so flimsy.  It was good to hear from someone who knows the system.  He said something like "cops all know the system is a joke and has nothing to do with justice....  It's just the public doesn't, and the cops like it that way so they have jobs."

I'm so exhausted.  And terrified about this all.  I want to have a life again, and START to be able to deal with losing my Dad.

I feel like I'm battling dragons right now...

Meursault

[Three Roses]

As sanmagic says, standing with you!

[sanmagic7]

when things are especially rough, i'm kind of in my own little world, so concepts like people caring for me sometimes doesn't even seep in.  but, that's gotten better since posting here, and since my hub has 'gotten' it.  i do rely on this forum a lot when i'm going thru a rough patch.

[meursault]

I'm not doing too well....

TRIGGERS for gender based issues, language related to sexual violence and childhood abuse...

So I was at a site today, and I did that ACE test (Adverse Childhood Experiences).  I could add a lot more that fall outside the questionnaire, but as it is, I got an 7 or 8 out of 10.  I was reading the lengthy thread of comments at the end, and generally feeling like I had some connection and community with the people responding.  Then the stuff that bothered me started to kick in.

One of the questions is specifically whether you saw your MOTHER abused by her spouse, and someone pointed out that they should have phrased it differently, since their experience was with an abusive mother towards their father. 

I understand how there is so much dismissal and invalidation in the world for the abuse women and girls often suffer, but it is pretty much universal when the abuse men and boys suffer.  And it seems like the excuses and minimization come largely from the people who are the strongest defenders and have the best understanding when it comes to girls.  I've seen the same thing many times, excusing abuse directed toward men and boys by women. 

There are several standard things.  It is minimized and silenced because it is not as prevalent.  The guy brought up some CDC study which showed similar rates between genders  for spousal abuse, which was ridiculed and called an out and out lie, despite the reputable source.  Maybe it is a poor statistic, I'm not sure.  It was mentioned that the abuser in early childhood is usually a woman, but that got explained and excused by saying that's just because women are around children more.  That seems as ridiculous as excusing male violence by saying men are stronger.  Any abuse toward men and boys is funnelled into discussion strictly about prison or military, like those are the only arenas where discussion of abuse of males is tolerated.  It seems like this huge cultural blindspot that people can't even recognize that they are excusing abusers and discounting victims.

I don't know.  I realize this is a separate issue from male on female abusiveness, but it's so disheartening that that issue is used so often to excuse the abusers of men and boys.  Attempts to address abusiveness to boys seems to face such hostility, ridicule and minimization it's completely demoralizing.  God does that make me feel so alone.

Someone in the comments mentioned "gender abuse", and I had this hopeful moment of "ah ha! That is the correct term for what I went through!"  Then I eagerly went to Google to search for stuff about that to not feel so alone with all the crap I had growing up, and maybe find some understanding.  No such luck,  The term is completely onesided, and is synonymous with violence against women.  Several sites specifically make sure it CAN'T be applied to men or boys, by defining it further as due to the cultural power imbalance between men and women.

I wish I had somewhere to help me make more sense of the abuse I went through, but there really doesn't seem like there's anything I can find.  The concepts have all been completely co-opted to work with males as abusers only.

But what do I do?  My mom HATED me, because I was male.  She absolutely crushed me emotionally every chance she could get, and hammered into me that I deserved it because I was male.  She regularly went into graphic detail, from age four onward (at least) about how I should be castrated, mutilated, tortured, raped, killed, imprisoned because I was male, and all from a very cogent and political radical feminist stance.  Her reasoning was basically an extreme of all that stuff on that page:  women have it worse, so you deserve this.  It was always a threat of rape with "Typical male!  You'll get what's coming to you!"  from her and my sisters.  She talked quite openly and gleefully how all men should be killed, and I grew up expecting to be killed at some point by her.  Threats of death and rape weren't  directed at me specifically every day, but they were a couple of times a week from four years old or so until I got kicked out.  Talking about how men deserved that generally WAS every day, though.  And it was all justified because of all the misogyny in the world.

It all comes down to "your abuse doesn't matter because you're male." when I see these abuse apologists.

I recognize and appreciate that this isn't uncommon for girls and women in our culture, but I feel so alone, and it often feels like there's nobody and nowhere that accepts like what I went through was important, abusive, or matters in any way.  I think a lot of girls have faced a similar situation to me, but there doesn't seem to be anywhere my abuse is accepted,  And the language and conceptualization of this stuff specifically excludes me.  That guy just pointing out that they should have phrased a question in a gender neutral way got half a dozen people actively minimizing the abuse of boys.

There's a "Men's Resource Centre" in my city, and I went through their introductory group thing last winter.  I was really hoping there was some place I could find guys who have gone through something similar and maybe feel less alone, and maybe get some understanding and wisdom from others about this specifically.  One guy was very hostile about his ex-wife, and used derogatory language about her.  I complained about it and wrote  that "my view of positive masculinity doesn't involve debasing the feminine".  I was supposed to continue on in another group after the intro one, but after that, they didn't want me in it.

It feels like I'm getting the message, almost universally, that what I experienced wasn't abuse.  I think it was, though.   Feeling like I'm even allowed to call it abuse without being attacked is really still the main struggle.  I trust my therapist a lot, but it's still a central issue I regularly work on with her.  Does she REALLY think it was abuse, or is she just laughing at me because  I deserved it?  Maybe that's as far as this will ever be dealt with.  The very places I've hoped to find understanding: those researching and addressing mental health, trauma, and abuse, which were really given voice by the feminist movement in a lot of ways, seem to be actively using the same techniques of invalidation that they have found so toxic.

Anyhow.  I got excited I might find something to help me make sense of all my crap when I saw the term "gender abuse'.  I feel pretty defeated.

Meursault

PS.  My legal stuff is still hitting me hard, but I wanted to express that stuff above.  I had such a moment of "Finally!  there's a word for it!"

[Three Roses]

Dear Meursault, I want to validate everything you just said. The views on abuse are completely skewed, and not just in this society. Thirty years ago, I had a friend who was physically beaten by his ex when they were married, and it's where I first had my views on this subject challenged.

We talked a lot about his experience; he had remarried and his new wife was a good friend of mine and he was very open about it. At first I balked at calling it abuse; how badly could she have hurt him? After all she was just a woman. He explained how badly, in graphic detail, and I was appalled! I'd never heard of a woman being so focused on actually causing damage to their husband! Sure, maybe women get mad sometimes and slap, right? But it was so much more than that - how, knowing she was weaker, she would purposely target softer spots; elbows in the ribs, kidney punches, wait til his back was turned, etc., and the pain was compounded by her verbal abuse. I asked why he didn't call the police and he said he had - once. They showed up and basically scoffed, leaving without arresting her. All he could do was cover and try to escape when she got violent. Defending himself could leave a bruise, holding her down or away might hurt her, and he knew she wouldn't hesitate to press charges. He felt betrayed by the person he loved & lived with and by our society in general. He changed my views on the violence that many men suffer at the hands of their girlfriends or wives.

I hesitated to relate this but I think you need to hear it, because of what you're going thru and how you've been treated. You were abused, Meursault;  no little boy should have to grow up under the threat of castration or death.  No man should have to bear being attacked and abused. That is abuse. It is violence. It makes no difference if it comes from a female!

The abuse I've experienced from females, I admit I see differently as from males, since females are supposedly the more "nurturing" sex and so for me this deepened the sense of unworthiness I felt. If a woman abused me, I must really be a nothing, a nobody!

I hope we broaden our views on this,  as a society. It will probably take men speaking up and demanding that their voices be heard on this subject.

[radical]

Hi Meursault,

What happened to you was severe abuse.  Your mother is an abuser. It was gender violence.

An ACE score of 7 or 8 means all sorts of physical and psychological suffering, and on average, a significantly shorter life.  It would be difficult to argue intent to kill (though I wouldn't rule it out)  but at the very least, it means the infliction of injuries, suffering, and a kind of manslaughter.  Only some of the ways people hurt and kill each other lead to legal culpability, but your mother is morally responsible for her behaviour, no matter how she chooses to justify, minimise and deny it.

I don't want to get into politics.  I think it is dangerous in this venue as we've seen before, but I think who is abused and how abusers choose to abuse is mostly to do with who is available  to them to hurt, who cant defend themselves, and who they can get away with abusing, and what kinds of hurt they can inflict without endangering themselves, and brings them the satisfaction they seek. 

I can understand your feeling invalidated, and your abuse discounted as a male violated and offended against by a female.

It is so important to know that your therapist understands, to be validated in therapy.  I hope you can talk to your therapist and that she gives you the reassurance you deserve.

You matter, your abuse matters.  You didn't deserve it and you deserve to be heard, validated, consoled and healed.

[meursault]

Three Roses:  That just made me realize something.  I have bought the idea, lock, stock, and barrel that women are more caring and nurturing, while also having this history.   There's some double think needed....  I have always been completely threatened and feel unsafe around male therapists, and distrustful of guys in general.  Just realized I work under the emotional belief that "If women are this dangerous, and they are more nurturing, how much worse are guys going to end up being...."  Probably something worth addressing eventually, but that feels far away.  I'm not even close to that.  It's why I feel more comfortable around female therapists I think.

Radical:  In my mom's case, it definitely isn't a target of opportunity sort of thing.  She works SUPREMELY hard to gain advantage and power over men in many avenues.  She thought a previous mayor of her town was "too big for his britches" and was disgusted that his poor wife was stuck with him, she actively campaigned, very tenaciously and successfully, to have him defeated because he didn't deserve what he had.  She just has that much hatred for men.  She has taken the provincial government to court out of her own pocket for gender inequality issues, spending years and risking her our family's finances fighting the government, just to put "those typical males' in their place.

I wasn't intending to have this be political.  In a way, it's like if some woman here complained about getting sexist treatment from her mental health worker, and how she feels slighted, they should know better, and she feels people were defending her abuser, and how the establishment reinforces that view.  The reasoning behind my treatment as a kid was (at least ostensibly) political, but I wasn't intending to have a political discussion, but it's really impossible to talk about it without some political element.  My Mom would ridicule me and delight in me shaking in fear or crying and would explicitly say it was *because* it's my turn since women have had is so bad historically.   Even four years old, I was being terrorized and humiliated *because* I was abusive since I was male, in her view.  What I was mentioning about that page is ultimately about having one's abuse dismissed, invalidated, and excused, and how demoralizing it is coming from people who seem to recognize it's wrong to do to every other group of people.  Apologies if it came across as trying to discuss politics! (I hate politics!)  I was trying to avoid that as much as possible!

I dread how screwed up I may appear sharing this stuff, but I know what I am.  It always baffled me how I didn't end up gay or misogynistic.  I think my last therapist had some pretty good insight when she said that she thinks I basically have Stockholm Syndrome with abusive women, but also only find emotional nurturing from women as well.  My good therapist seems to think that although I had traumatic attachment damage stuff involving my Mom, at lest there was SOME attachment, whereas I've never felt that with males at all.  She's mentioned that at some point in our work, when I am more whole, she is going to recommend a male therapist for a while, but doesn't think I'm nearly ready for that yet.

Sorry if this is an uncomfortable subject for people here.  Any gender discussion like this has got to get some people into alert-mode.  With all this legal stuff going on, I don't know why this stuff is coming out so strongly at the moment.  I guess everything is....  The fact that this legal stuff is keeping me crippled and powerless, and my Mom has a great deal of power over me again because of this (she's in heaven with it!), isn't helping me mentally at all...

Meursault