Battered Women Syndrome

It baffles many people. The fact that educated, smart, intelligent and otherwise empowered women get beaten up by their husbands. The shocking thing is that this abuse which may be verbal, physical, and/or sexual may continue for a long time, and women stay in these realtionships and don't leave. This 'not stepping-out', this 'not being able to leave the abusive spouse', this 'Hamlet-isic inaction' is what puzzles me and a lot of other people. Why does the abused stay with the abuser? and usually pretends or believes after every violent episode that this is the last one.

What baffles me is the naive questioning of people who have never been a victim of abuse of any kind let alone being abused by the very person who is supposed to love you and make you feel safe and wanted, by the very person you love from the core of your heart and is your link to your own identity and self, for isn't it that we define ourselves in relation to others?

People are cruel. They pass judgements, they analyse without the depth of experience and then they look down upon the abused as though she is weak and indesicive and somehow deserve this treatment. How horrific are we, how misogynistic!

I pen down the words od an abused woman, it is difficult to write them down, nay, it is actually very difficult to hear of her experiences. I can't look her straight in the eye, I feel as though I have been an accomplice in her mutilated self. I feel like the abuser, for I let this happen and idin't do anything to stop it. I can't stop feeling guilty for not giving a voiceto her unspoken words, I feel angry at myself for not being there to defend her from the blows that marred her body, I feel ashamed of failing her completely and absolutely.

Her story in my words:

"No one can ever understand." Why?

"Once a loved one, your husband, your companion, your security, your sense of identity, hits you - his hand turns into a slap, a punch, a push, pulling of hair - reality for you changes. What was remains not; what is, becomes mired in fog; what will be, becomes terrifying. For the first time he attacks me, for what reason I don't remember; and the furniture of my house, the walls, my bed, my paintings, and the things around me transforms into a parallel world, an inverse reflection of my house, of me, of him. All is in reveerse and is folding back into itself. Nothing seems like it was a while back. What happened? How do I go on living after he screamed at me the way he did just now? his eyes have taken on a indifferent look, as if he doesn't know me at all, in fact as of he hates me from the depths of his being and that hurts. My skin is bruised, it stings and my body is in shock - its reeling,the world is spinning in the wrong direction.

The reality is so warped that I accept what has happend as acceptable in that reverse order. The sorry's and apologies follow and are readily happily eargerly accepted, because the memory of that awful event has to me somehow erased by applying some blanko, some white-out, some kind of an eraser that removes all traces of ugly truths. But no matter what I do the memory pops up now and again, I see not him, but his hitting and violent self - but then right away I console myself on his inability to control his actions due to some childhood deprivation. I apply the band aid over my wounds in the subconcious and feel a little at ease, but uneasily at ease for something is pricking me from inside like a thorn stuck in my soul. I am like a wounded animal from now on, on the guard, walking on egg-shells trying my level best not to upset the situation and create choas. But the irony is I don't know what is CHAOS here and how is it created? It happens again this violent break outs and I know not how to predict these episodes of anger, screaming, abuse, pushing and shoving, breaking of things, cutting me into pieces verbally, completely ignoring me for days, sexually avaoidning me or harassing me whenever. I just cannot pinpoing a time, a reason, a particular thing that would trigger a violent attack. And I hate that uncertainity.

It is this not knowing that shatters my sense of who I am. How can I be sure of anything when I am not certain of my immediate enviorment and its state. I don't know what I do or not do, what happens around me or does not happen that would explode the situation in my home.

But things aren't that simple anymore. When there is another woman in your husband's life and she is bent on having him all to herself, when she directs the actions in my house in absentia, when he is there in person but absent in mind, soul and body. How can I be sure of anything...I am starting to analyse every word I utter, I begin to suspect every breath he takes, I plan out sentences in my mind in advance to say at the right moment which sadly never arrives. I am in limbo. I am aware of how unjustifiable it is to me, how unfair the situation is to me, how cruel he is to me, how mean that woman is. I realize all this - I know a woman must never accept violence of any kind from a man. This is ingrained in me from childhood, my home, my father, my education, my core beliefs, my values. Then why am I here? What is it that keeps me bound to this house, this life, this man?

There are many reasons for me which stop me from stepping out and never coming back. The doors are wide open, there is no physical bar on me from walking out any time I want and never looking back. I am educated and can support myself fairly well if I try. I have a supportive family which will be there for me, so what are the invisible chains that hold me and keep me a prisoner in this hell. It is I. I who has a dream of having a beautiful happy ideal life with a good husband an healthy child. I believe that I can put on a show for the world that all is not only well but ownderful in our home, our life. No matter how far from truth the reality it is, no matter how many people know of the affair, no matter how many people can see through the facade and the sadness in my eyes, I try to put on a show. How pathetic am I? I don't really believe he will change, but I believe that my hopes will comes true. I hope to hope! I try everything to make wishes come true realizing how impossible this may be.

I believe I can make my life better pretending it is good and happy. I don't care how I broken I am on the inside, I don't at this point consider the damage taking place within me, my soul tearing apart is soundless, my mind splitting in a million pieces is taking place in avcuum with the parts floating in zero gravity. I have lost all, except this hope that somehow, till my physical appearance, my body is in one place and altogether, till I am this I, I can hold my home, my life, my future all in my arms and stop it from scattering it.

How naive I was, how silly. One day when nothing dramatic happens, when life is just going on, I simply pick up my child and close the door behind me and never go back.

That life is finished and gone. But the man is there, the marks and scars are there and the wounds on my soul and person get raw and open once ina while and I bleed.... I continue, to hope.