We don’t have a script in this society for healthy responses to abuse. If you don’t talk about it at all, you’re pitied and looked down upon for not being vocal. The other side is to constantly speak about it, be a capital V victim, to have that as your main identity.
I’m going to tell you a story, and you can let me know what your gut level response it to it, and we can talk about why that might be the case. Cool?
<backstory>
From November of 2003 to November 2005, I lived with a man named Corey Smith. The first year was in VA, the second in IN. He was emotionally abusive. Anyone who knows me will know how crazy this next part is – he had convinced me that I was bad with people, didn’t know how to dress or about music, that I shouldn’t dance, and many other things. I was forced into an introverted, mousey personality. Some argue that he was also physically abusive, but I fight back, so that’s a whole ‘nother conversation.
After that was done, he dated and abused my best friend. While she and I lived together. During that time, he also bled many of our friends for money he promised he would pay back, just as he had done to me. When he moved away, we were glad of it. “Die in a fire” was our motto for him – we wished him ill, but he wasn’t worth our time.
That’s not the end of the story, unfortunately. It ends up he was cheating on my best friend with a lovely woman in New York. And she reached out to me for reassurance that she was doing the right thing the day she went to court against him. For beating her head into a way until she lost hearing. We now hang out, and a great friendship has come out of this, but – here’s where things get sticky Script-Wise – he had moved to Baltimore and started associating with people I know.
</backstory>
<story>
So where does that put me? I am violently protective of my friends, but also feel very strongly that people 1) can change and 2) should be allowed to form their own opinions. But this one… he is charming, manipulative, and dangerous. What I did was to write an e-mail to my friends in Baltimore that simply said “I will never talk about this again, unelss you ask me to, and then only the facts: You need to be aware that a man named Corey Smith has moved to your city. He has been harmful to me and mine. Please be careful.” And that was that.
Until.
Ends up he’s on tour with a long standing favorite band of my social group, Android Lust. Who we’ve all wanted to see. So do we not go? Drama is, of course, the last thing we want. Well, potential harm to people we care for or respect must be balanced with that. So New York Girl went in New York, to dance. And Libby went in Seattle. And here’s the thing.. we know people. A person who had played with the band looped them in on being careful of this guy. And Libby ends up in the greenroom, geeking, they want her to do a photoshoot, all the while, he’s in the merch booth sinking. And at breakfast the next morning, they ask her for actual details.
So tonight, I went to see them in Sacramento. Corey didn’t expect to see me. But members of the band wanted to meet me, too, about their sketchy merch booth guy who’s been “borrowing” money. And I went, in my comfortable clothes with his oldest friend (and one of my dear friends) and another accomplice. At the end of the night, I handed him a lighter tagged with #diaf, so he can light his own damn fire to die in.
</story>
Does this make me vindictive? If I smashed his face in (which I am more than capable of doing), I risk going to jail, which is just not worthwhile for me right now. Not over him. But going out to *specifically* confront him in this way. Are there better ways?
Bl00 it is all very interesting isn’t it…. Perhaps not.
I think that by definition it makes you vindictive, for even though one might say you “merely gave him a lighter” the truth of the matter is that your intent was to curse him.. so to say. You most likely were a bit “gleeful” to know that you could give him the lighter…
You imparted him a symbol, and the hash tag was in essence your secret message, the only bridge between your intent and the reception thereof. I know in the rational world that this is harmless, but our brains are affected by more then reason, and at times these things become much much abstract in terms of what they mean to us.
You brought him a symbol of a threat, a symbol of ill will. And here on the internet is stored the pondering of further action (smash his face in) of that nature. In my mind you have signaled a type of war with this person. This cycle of war will never stop until one person is able to truly leave behind the “reasons” and… most importantly… the incentives for a war. War is profitable, even socio-emotional wars. It gives context, it GIVES a back story, it gives substance to reflect upon… In the end we have to candidly look at the sources which drive us.
Basically… Were trying to overcome the bullshit that has waylaid all of us down.. from the individual to the national to the global level. If vibrant young and productive people arn’t going to do it… then perhaps a time will come when those devices of war will emerge again to show just how joyously destructive the next generation in power can be… and behold for our destructive tendencies are more robotic and heartless then ever before.
Kyle – so I just ignore all the things he’s done, and let him continue doing them to people I care about?
Nahh..
I’m not trying to say what should be done, just what is necessary for war to cease…
and ignore is not the word i used, i am a firm believer in never ignoring what comes up. “truly leave behind” is not akin to “ignore”…
Put it this way, even if you were to leave in-operable the body of him… you would have to kill his reserves (if he has any) and after you remove them then other people will want to destroy you for being violent. And in the end the cycle will not cease. So it is a very serious issue that i am certain reaches out far beyond your specific circumstances.
You want him to stop hurting your friends: confronting him and calling him a douche bag wont do it… Warning your friends is only preventative and unpredictable as to the effect.. and kicking his ass will leave him bruised and battered but he will re-coop and what will his state then be?
If you go to war with him do it with honor and just beat his as 1v1 and you-tube that shit.
P.S: beating ass doesn’t always mean physically.. like you could own him on a poetic discourse of what the purpose of life is.
Eh, I’d just used the blog entry, not the lighter. Assume someone tells someone, and quickly he and his circle of friends/employers are here reading this.
Bl00, what you did was measured, productive and appropriate. The handing off of the lighter was indeed aggressive, but if it gave you any pleasure at all it is pleasure you are so very entitle to. It was not ‘war.’ We call far too many things ‘war’ today. Regardless, you should rest assured you have allies everywhere.