Photographer: me
When someone abuses you, you feel dirty and guilty and wonder why they have singled you out. There must be something about you that clearly invites this. Is it your looks? Is it your demeanour?
Not long ago someone wrote they hoped I would stop breathing in my sleep. Since then I have had this nightmare of being strangled. I wake up in the middle of the night and I am gasping for air.
Today I had an opportunity to do some self portraits again at a photographer friend's studio. At some point my nightmare came back, uninvited. I asked my friend to take a shot, I could not. This is the result.
Photographer: DG
Alex, I know you will have heard, read and intuited this many times, but it can't hurt to see it again: YOU are absolutely NOT responsible for your abuser's actions. I say it again: You are ABSOLUTELY not RESPONSIBLE for his actions! His actions are always, ever and only his choice. It may be that there is something in you that drew him to you--but always, always, always it is his choice to abuse or not, to gratify his abusive animal self or to rise above it in true, disinterested compassion.
ReplyDeleteWell, enough of that! Thank you, and thank you again, for putting these two pictures up. They portray so vividly what many of us who have been in abusive situations (yes, I'm talking about myself too) feel or have felt, and just seeing them may indeed evoke a first step for some still in such prisons. (Thank God that I have gone beyond this! But I've had more than a decade to heal.) The power of such art to heal is in how it brings into the open what many feel in their hearts but have no artist's skill to put into words, music or images.
Thank you again, and blessings upon you.
Love the self portrait! That says it all.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you touched on this.
ReplyDeleteClearly, you've recently been through some awful stuff.
A few weeks ago, I was indirectly involved in a case where a close friend of mine was violently assaulted by someone. She had similar feelings, wondering what about her had made her deserve to be assaulted in that way.
It's emotional, helping someone to deal with those misplaced feelings.
From my perspective, it's very hard to know that knowing the real reason why your friend was abused isn't going to provide them with any closure because it was for one reason: the attacker is a psychopath. There is no reason.
Sorry, I guess I had to get that off my chest.
Time is a great healer, as they say. Sometimes people attack out of fear or for self preservation. Sometimes hate is so blind they may forget the target of the abuse is also a person. Sometimes...It's even worse when the person who hurts is someone who at some point loved you.
ReplyDeleteI know what your friend feels, you always, always think it must be you.
Thanks for commenting.