The Twitter hashtag #WhyIStayed is a must read (trigger warning)

[sufrommich]

for those who have trouble understanding why women stay with abusers.Some examples:

"After never having a solid & positive example of what a healthy romantic relationship looked like I thought it was normal #WhyIStayed'

He described to me how he would kill himself if I left #WhyIStayed


#WhyIStayed bc abusive parents taught me i had to earn any (faux) love by degrading myself, silencing my gut instincts, that i was unworthy


#WhyIStayed bcuz the fights were only once a quarter & of all the other women I was the only one he beat up. Didn't that make me special?



#WhyIStayed Because sometimes I really believed him when he said it was my fault.


#WhyIStayed because I believed in him and his willingness to change. I believed in us. People called us perfect. So we must be, right?


Bc about 75% of women are murdered by their batterers when they try to leave or after they left an abusive relationship #WhyIStayed


#WhyIStayed Because the time I tried to find someone who would let me stay with them, no one was willing.


#WhyIStayed because it took me a year and half of careful planning to get out alive







Another important hashtag to follow is #WhenILeft:


#WhenILeft he sent a postcard to my mother of with a butchered unicorn on it that said, "this is what Robin did to me."


#WhenILeft He showed up at my new apartment with no warning. I learned to circle the parking lot so I could scope it out before going home.


#WhenILeft He would get drunk at bars, then call me and scream that I was a whore.


#WhenILeft I lied about where I would meet him, emptied the gun safe, scooped up the kids, and put a mountain range between us.


#WhenILeft it was because my daughter reminded me of how much power I had. These I was worthy of being safe.


#WhenILeft I lost a lot of friends. They thought I was telling people for attention. Fuck them all. I'm so much happier. IT GETS BETTER!

[niyad]

1. a very depressed k and r

[TBF]

2. #WhenILeft

still tries to find me on the Internet - blocked him on Facebook a few weeks ago (there's very little that's public on my profile but he found it) - people, it has been nearly 20 years since I left.


^^That's not from Twitter. That's just my personal contribution.

[KitSileya]

3. These guys are seriously obsessive.

They are damaged in a way that our society doesn't recognize as damaged. Our society recognizes most of their behavior as romantic - the jealousy, the wanting to keep her to themselves, him wanting to control her career/social life/how she dresses/how she behaves.... Even if he gets violent, it oftentimes excused with him being passionate, that he "loves her too much". How many movies don't we see abusive behavior by men rewarded by him "getting the girl" (as if she were an object given away as a prize.)

Our society condones violence, and would much rather ask the victim why she stays, than ask why the abuser has a plethora of supporters. They don't want to acknowledge the fact that a lot of women are killed as they try to leave - and often their family and their children are killed too.

I am happy that you got out, TBF. The girl next door to me, a young college student, dropped out of school and moved away at the end of the spring term. She lost a school year, moved away from all her friends, got an unlisted phone number, and generally had to turn her life upside down because the shithead who ran her bible group decided she was his, and nobody else could have her. But she was lucky. Her family believed her. Our landlord believed her. Some of her friends believed her. And that is very often not the case.

[mountain grammy]

4. Very sad, but in our male dominated culture, not surprising..

I think of how far we've come, but how far we have to go. Not in my lifetime, but my granddaughters are ready for the fight.