Comments
Please wait...
Comments are closed.
Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.
is a proud member of the
media network
media network
All contents © Index Newspapers LLC
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Reverse the genders and maybe change the ages a bit, and this is almost certainly at least one David Rees novel.
For a long time I felt like a half-dead mouse being toyed with by a cat who didn't want the game to end. Good fucking riddance, I tell you!
You are being a doormat. Stop it.
DTMFA.
I was on the Board of Directors for an organization fighting against LGBT hate crimes and domestic abuse. Domestic abuse does occur in LGBT relationships, and often goes under-reported (just like men abused by women is under-reported). But it's an absolute lie to say that they are more abusive. Cite a fucking source, asshole. And get a real login instead of posting anonymously, you fucking cowardly troll.
Round up Team You, buy a bunch of ice cream, and re-watch But I'm a Cheerleader and The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love. You'll be a better person for it.
I don't believe they knew what they were doing--they really just didn't know any other way to be close to a person--and they probably still think I am a heartless SOB for walking clean out of their lives and their reach. But I"m fine with that.
If the LW takes Savage's advice, and some time to ruminate, she may find someone new that will make her present ambivalence look like what it is: charity given to the undeserving, with no result but a waste of what she could give and receive from someone who isn't a train-wreck.
Tl;dr: A-fucking-men.
DTMFA as Dan would say! Cut off ALL contract, unfriend her, block e-mails, calls and texts. DON'T let her control you any more. There are others out there, MUCH better (and more mature) than her. And you deserve better!
Perhaps a copy slipped in the mail slot when perp is at work or away?
Because nobody should have to live with that kind of manipulative bullshit.
And for what? A little anger and violence? Come on, I've lost count how many times I've been punched, shoved, slapped, kicked, imprisoned, or hit over the head with a backpack full of books by various girlfriends. When a woman hits you, that's a sign of her passion! And you probably had it coming.
I was such a doormat that I didn't know it was ok to say things like this: that guy's a lying piece of shit, what a bitch, I can't believe that motherfucker just did that, etc. I was so into being the nice girl or taking the high road that I had a lot of trouble setting and policing my own boundaries.
It's not that I think anyone who disagrees with me is a lying piece of shit- it's just that when I first started setting boundaries I had to be a little over the top about it to even let it register in my head that I had a right to be angry. I never had a strong enough sense of self esteem to understand that I had value. So when anyone degraded my value or stepped all over me, I made excuses. I just had no idea how to even begin to push back and say no, I have rights and feelings and I am a person too.
Name calling is a helpful tool at first. For all you doormats out there- stop making so many excuses for shitty asshole behavior and see things in black and white for awhile. Call someone an asshole- to their face if it's appropriate (not at work clearly. haha). It really clarifies a lot to call it like you see it.
It wasn't until my bff and I were roommates and she just treated me like absolute garbage while I kissed her ass that I learned my lesson. For the year we lived together: She was the biggest fucking psycho ass, bunny-boiler, bitch-face cuntrag I've even known. I moved out, cut off all ties, learned to say things like "bitch be crazy", and decided to figure out exactly how I could learn to shut the door to people who are fucked in the head. And that's what I've been doing every since- I say what is socially acceptable when someone is horrible, but in my head I'm thinking- damn. bitch be butt-fucking nutters ass crazy as hell. Or something like that. lol.
I'm the type who always liked to take in strays, b/c I was the underdog myself. Unfortunately, I made a few bad bets on some stray humans I tried to domesticate. oops. I needed all the friends I could get and that's how the losers, crazy people and psychos got into my life. Deal with that shit long enough and something finally will click that it's not ok for anyone to treat you like that. That's how I learned to set limits and something tells me that after going through all of that shit, the LW will start to realize she shouldn't be such a doormat.
http://rohrbaughassociates.net/pdfs/same…
"Although reported incidences of intimate partner violence, or IPV, are widespread, especially among women and certain ethnic groups, reported IPV was SHOCKINGLY high among lesbians, gays and bisexuals in California, who are almost twice as likely to experience violence as heterosexual adults, researchers said.
"Specifically, 27.9 percent of all lesbian or gay adults reported experiencing IPV in their adult lives. In contrast, only 16.7 percent of heterosexual adults reported incidences of IPV.
"This is not a group commonly associated with violence," said the study's lead author, Elaine Zahnd, a sociologist and senior research scientist at the Public Health Institute, which partners with the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research in conducting the California Health Interview Survey. "These findings should cause us to reconsider our assumptions about the root causes of violence, even as we redouble our efforts to eradicate it."
Miller, Greene, Causby, White, and Lockhart asked lesbians to complete a survey about the nature of their relationships and their experiences with violence and aggression.
46% of the 284 respondents indicated that in the past year they or a partner had threatened physical aggression, and 14% reported being subjected to physical violence by a partner.
The most compelling report on lesbian domestic violence was compiled as part of the National Lesbian Health Care Survey which used a 10-page questionnaire to survey 1,925 lesbians about a wide range of social issues.
The fact that the information about domestic violence was embedded in a questionnaire about other health issues should have minimized the tendency for overreporters of domestic violence to respond to the study.
Using this diverse sample and more extensive questionnaire, 12% reported at least one incident of being “harshly beaten” by a lover.
* The average gay abuser may have access to more victims than the average straight abuser. Gay people may have more eligible partners in their social circles (from what I've seen, most gay women prefer other gay women as friends, and most straight women prefer other straight women as friends.) It also may be easier for a gay abuser to gain a victim's trust, because they're already on the same side, so to speak. There also may be different patterns of abuse -- if gay abusers are more likely to move from victim to victim rather than abusing the same person for a longer duration of time, you'll see more victims.
* Gay people may be less likely to recognize the signs associated with abuse and get out of that situation before abuse can happen. Some might just think this situation doesn't apply to them (gay women may think that women can't be abusive, and gay men may think that men can't be abused). They also may have less of a support circle to help them see that their partner is a douchebag who they're better off without -- gay people are less likely to be able to talk to their families about their partners, for one thing, and may lose or grow apart from friends after coming out.
* Gay people may be more likely to hit back after being hit, because there are less likely to be major size/strength differences and there aren't any gender roles about hitting. Men who get hit by women might not hit back because they're bigger and stronger and can take it/you don't hit girls, women who get hit by men might not hit back because they're smaller and weaker and know it won't end well for them if they do. If both partners hit each other, then no matter who started it, both can report that they were hit by their partner.
* If there wasn't a very large sample size, the survey could have accidentally picked up a greater percentage of abuse victims than found in the general gay population. Hint: 284 people is not a good sample size.
* Gay people may not report abuse at the same rate as straight people, and other demographic differences between gay and straight people may affect how likely they are to report abuse. The general straight people demographic includes straight men, who notoriously under-report domestic violence. Gay people in different age groups are out at different rates -- are the age groups in which gay people are more frequently out more likely to commit abuse than other age groups, or more likely to report abuse than other age groups? Any other demographic differences (religion, political leanings, etc)?
* The study may be including gay people's straight relationships that they had prior to coming out. Closeted gay people are more likely to make terrible, terrible choices in their straight relationships (look up teen pregnancy statistics for gay and lesbian youth) because they're busy trying to prove that they're totally not gay. When no straight relationship ever feels quite right, it's harder to recognize that a straight relationship is not-right in an abusive way.
* Lastly, if mental illness rates ARE higher in gay people than in straight people (and by "mental illnesses" I mean "things that are mental illnesses according to mental illness experts who study mental illness for a living and are very informed about mental illness", not "things that are mental illnesses according to people who think homophobia is a really fun spectator sport"), would that necessarily mean that only crazy people are gay? Wouldn't an equally reasonable interpretation be that experiencing homophobia is bad for your mental health?
People are complicated and there are plenty of different factors in EVERYTHING. There are probably a ton of different reasons for abuse rate disparities, because a ton of different things are influencing who becomes an abuser and who's vulnerable to abuse and why. You see a bunch of abuse statistics and immediately jump to "BECAUSE STRAIGHT PEOPLE ARE BETTER THAN GAY PEOPLE," and claim to be the scientific one? That's pathetic.
Lovely, made me laugh.
And cringe. Because I've also been the person who found it "normal" to be ill-treated (through words and seemingly random acts, not any recognizable violence) because either "I was worthless" or "it was just his ways because he had been ill-treated as a youth". And once I was in that brainwashed state, only two events that could not be explained in any other way that by him beeing the vilest POS (though he tried to explain them away) could help me out, and then years of being comparatively better treated by people I knew gave me my brain back, well, most of it. It's a long journey.
And while one is still brainwashed, no amount of obvious irony is obvious enough to open one's eyes over what one is living.
What most helps abused persons is : exactly name the abuse.
For some people, their credo is "It's not enough that I'm happy. Everyone else must be miserable."