"Why do people do these things to me?" How I Changed This Question and Changed My Life

 Jean, Second Grade, 1946

 

The title question is one you may have asked yourself at times if you have been the target of abuse and violence.  I've asked myself the question many times throughout my life.  Have I ever gotten an answer that satisfies me?  No, I never have. The people who have targeted me may have their own answers, but I wouldn't know anything about that. Yesterday, though, I had an experience that changed my whole perception of myself, and I realized that I had been asking the wrong question all my life.  I also realized that I needed a new question and a new answer to that question. 

Here is what happened yesterday--I had my therapy session as usual, but I didn't arrive at my therapist's office "as usual."  No, I arrived feeling very nervous and feeling as if something was binding me around my shoulders, as if something was gripping my shoulders--and I was scared.  I told my therapist about this, and she decided that we needed to get to the source of this feeling.  I agreed. 

After a few minutes of EMDR work—EMDR is a very simple technique that enables a person to move emotional experiences from their right brain to their left brain so they can verbalize the feelings and understand them--I began to put the sensations in my shoulders and my fears and nervousness into words.  What my body was remembering, I realized, was the first time I was chased and captured by a group of boys while I was walking home from school.  I was in the second grade, and my route home took me past some areas where there were a lot of vacant lots overgrown with bushes and high grass.  I was a fast walker, and I could run faster than most other girls in my class, but the boys were faster.

The boys caught me and forced me into the bushes.  While several of them held my shoulders down on the ground, the others took some of my clothing off--by then the part of me that wasn’t physical had left my body, gone elsewhere: I had dissociated.  I knew what they were doing, but it didn't hurt because a part of me had mentally “checked out.”  Then the boys left. 

As I struggled to get back onto my feet, I worried about what my mother would say regarding the dirt on the back of my dress.  I was supposed to wear my school dresses three times before putting them into the wash because she had a very basic wringer washer and hated washing and ironing.  I also knew that I didn't dare tell her about the boys because somehow she would make the incident my fault, and she would use her wooden spoon on me.  I couldn't tell her when I was seven about what the boys did anymore than I could tell her at age five about the abuse I endured at the neighbor lady's house.  So I decided to tell my mother that I had been running through the vacant lot and had tripped.  That was why my dress was filthy and my hair was out of its braids.  I'd taken my braids out so I could use my fingers to brush out the dirt.  I can imagine that I looked pretty wild when I reached home, but my mother bought my explanation, got mad at me for getting so dirty, and let me go.
 
Years later, I found myself in the same position--on my back, being held down at my shoulders, and slipping out of my body.  Except by that time, I was in my early twenties.  The person pinning me down was my husband.  I wasn't in my body when he did what he did, so it didn't hurt.  I put up with twenty years of this because I didn't know what else to do.  I couldn't justify leaving him because nobody would believe that I was suffering--so I thought.  And in the 1960s and 1970s, when the legal system in our small town was still grounded in the mentality of "men rule," I well may have been wise in not doing anything about my plight.

Yesterday, at the end of my therapy session, I remembered that, in 1983, after I had ended my  marriage, I asked my former husband one day why he stepped up the violence in our bedroom.  His reply: "Because I wanted to know if there was anyone in your body."  He knew I wasn’t present in my body, yet the only way he imagined he could force me back into my body was by using violence!  Now, there is some twisted thinking.

After I left my therapist yesterday, I caught the first of the buses on my way home.  As I sat on the bus, I became aware that the man two places down from me on the bench seat was muttering, trying to get my attention.  I ignored him.  He reached over and touched my arm to get my attention.  I glared at him and said loudly, "Please don't touch me."  He recoiled, and then he stepped up his muttering, using the words "bitch" and "women libber" and a few more derogatory terms.  I said loudly, "I don't want to talk to you," and continued to ignore him.  He leaned closer and grew louder.  Then his stop came up, and he got out. 

After he had left, I took stock of my feelings and realized that I was ANGRY!  Appropriately ANGRY!  I'm still ANGRY!  Not just about the bus incident but about all the other incidents in which I have been bullied and victimized and abused.  I'll have to figure out what to do with the anger, but I'm glad now that I can feel it.  I guess I have the jerk on the bus to thank for that.  Now, there's an irony! 

So how do I answer the question in the title of this article now?  My answer is very simple:  People bully and hurt other people because they CAN!!  They act out their own "stuff" on other people because they figure they CAN and they can do so without consequences.  And they are often smart enough to pick victims who overtly, at least, show no ability to fight back.

Now, the next question is this:  How can I change "Because they can" to "Because they can't"?  If I change the answer, then I'll need to change the question.  So I propose that the new question be this: "Why don't people victimize me now?"  That would fit with the new answer: "Because they CAN'T!  I won’t let them." 

It’s taken me a long time—74 years, in fact—to transform my old question and answer to my new question and answer, but now that I have done this, I feel strong.  I feel as if I can truly take care of myself and protect myself from bullies and from people who want to stroke their own egos at my expense.  I’ve worked hard and long to change my question and answer, and I’m glad I didn’t give up.  Now, at least, I can live the rest of my life without wearing the word victim around my neck.