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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Oct 30, 2009 19:43:12 GMT -5
Shutting Off My Brain ~ Part 4 by Journey
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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Nov 5, 2009 23:39:28 GMT -5
Shutting Off My Brain ~ Part 4 by Journey This is the last NLQ Carnival Grandstand post: nolongerquivering.com/2009/11/05/shutting-off-my-brain-part-4/How do you like the graphics that I came up with for the series? BTW ~ you all will be as thrilled as I am to learn that Journey is our newest guest blogger. She will be continuing her story in future installments when "normality" returns here at NLQ.
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Post by krwordgazer on Nov 6, 2009 0:02:10 GMT -5
Journey, having finished your story to date, I'm speechless with fury. Spiritual abuse hardly describes it.
I remember in Maranatha Campus Ministries, the patient way the leaders would explain that they were right and you were wrong, and you were in sin just for thinking you might be right. Urg. The nausea is still there.
So glad we're both out.
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Post by redheadedskeptic on Nov 6, 2009 0:34:10 GMT -5
I remember the first day I followed his list. I was humiliated. It was as if I was a child again and he was the parent. I told him that, too (in a humbled and submissive way, of course) and he smiled and said, “Exactly. Your parents did a terrible job of raising you when it comes to cleaning, and now God has given you to me so that I can raise you and help you become the way you should be.”
Seriously?! I have been trying to think of something to say, but there are no words.
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Post by journey on Nov 6, 2009 1:06:07 GMT -5
Thanks, Vyckie, for being so welcoming---and, yes, way cool graphics! The hardest part about writing this is that it all actually happened. As I type, sometimes it's all I can do to keep typing. It just seems like it couldn't have happened...that it's just TOO much. How could I have not seen? How could I have let that happen? How could I have been THAT gullible? And yet it wasn't as if all those bad things happened and that was it. They were interspersed, of course, with good things, with nice moments, hopeful moments. This is why the woman who gets hit stays...because he hits her 1 day out of 30, but the other 29 days are pretty nice, a few of them really nice. It keeps you so confused... I used to not understand how a woman who was being hit could stay. I thought, "What is wrong with them? Why can't they just get out of there?" Then, I woke up and realize that *I* was being abused, too. Then I understood how and why she stayed...
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Post by justflyingin on Nov 6, 2009 9:20:51 GMT -5
Thanks for the posts, Journey. They are actually quite "awful". Did your husband ever help you with these chores that he had for you? (I find it rather unbelievable, though I do believe you!!!) I've just never met a man like that--at least not one that I know of-- You were far more patient to hold out as long as you did. It is difficult to imagine these days. Bleach the kitchen every day? Honestly...I'm in shock. I've worked in a children's home and also at a day care. I may have had to do something like that at the day care (I only worked there in the kitchen about a month before my husband lost his job (Anchorage) and we left AK, and we probably had to do something similar), but not in the children's home where it was more like a real home. I'm curious if you told anyone about this. Did you ever mention anything to your parents, your siblings (if you have any), etc?. Or were you never alone? What "spiritual reason" was there for not having a garden or animals? (if you have time or energy to answer.) Thanks for writing this up.
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Post by margybargy on Nov 6, 2009 9:55:17 GMT -5
Oh Journey, so glad you're free now. I'm looking forward to the rest of your story.
I think the scariest part is that this could happen to an intelligent woman like you. If this could happen to you, it could happen to anyone.
The great thing about NLQ is the detailed writing. It really helps people to understand what's really going on in these situations.
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em
Full Member
Posts: 176
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Post by em on Nov 6, 2009 10:04:04 GMT -5
Journey, don't blame yourself. It's not your fault at all. This abusive asshole manipulated you. He saw a way that would allow him to effectively control every single thing you did, every aspect of your behavior and he used it. It's not your fault. People like this are very, very good at appearing like a nice, normal, caring person on the outside. It's part of how they manipulate people into doing what they want you to do. (Think about Ted Bundy. Handsome, clean cut, polite ... and used all that to lure tons of girls to their death.) It's not that you were stupid to fall for it, it's just that he was so good at faking being a decent guy and saw how best to manipulate you.
On the one hand, I'm looking forward to more of your story. But on the other ... it's just going to make me sad. You really didn't deserve what that jerk did to you. Makes me mad for you that you had to go through it.
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Post by justflyingin on Nov 6, 2009 10:51:03 GMT -5
One more question for Journey, (and really any of those writing who came out of such a situation).
Were there any warning signs that you ignored before you married? I'm not asking to accuse, but help other young women who might be dating someone (but ignoring warning signals, or maybe not aware that some things might be warning signs).
They say "Hindsight is 20/20". Can some of you give us some of your "hindsight"? (maybe a new thread/post would be best for such a thing...)
I ask because I have 2 daughters, 17, and 14, and I wonder how to help them avoid this type of man.
Were there any specific types of things he did on dates that could have indicated he was so entirely self-centered or did everything only come out "after the 'I do's' were said"?
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Post by amanda on Nov 8, 2009 17:11:41 GMT -5
Journey, thank you for sharing this with us. I know how hard it can be to write it all out, in part because I have a locked blog (not the one linked to my profile) where I've gone through a similar exercise regarding my ex.
And I'll sit there, typing, and all I can do sometimes is shake my head and wonder why I didn't leave? Why, when I had children, did I not leave?
Then I consider typing out the things I've never dared to cover in written form, even though what I've committed to ink is substantial. And then my whole body starts shaking, not just my head.
My mother was discussing my situation with one of her friends (who witnessed him dropping the f-bomb on me repeatedly, first-hand), and both women felt it would have been easier if he'd hit me, because then I would have known it was abuse.
I was so clueless about everything. I knew if he hit me, I would leave. He knew it too. So he stopped just short... for years, just short of it.
You are an amazing woman. Keep it up. We all need to see that not only is escape possible, but so is recovery.
Blessings to you and yours.
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Post by tapati on Nov 10, 2009 14:30:54 GMT -5
When I read about his rules and his advice to just follow everything he said, I was reminded of a verse from Bhagavad Gita--with Krishna as the speaker:
Abandon all varieties of religion and simply surrender unto Me.
Some of these husbands must really want to be God, if only to one other person.
I know what you mean about it being hard to keep typing. Sometimes I get up and pace or walk into another room. The hardest parts for me is not detailing the abuse, but rather writing about my positive feelings for my abuser, or my begging him to stop, or going back to him.
But I was younger then. I know better now. I have to have compassion for my younger self and so do you and all other women here who have been abused.
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Post by journey on Nov 10, 2009 17:31:11 GMT -5
tapati, That verse is so excactly it. I do believe that NPD was at work, and that there was an aspect of my husband that believed he was a god.
One time, as I later began deconstructing "biblical patriarchy," I tearfully explained, thinking he would rejoice with me, that God had been showing me I'd been putting my husband in the place of Christ. His response? Fuming rage. I was shocked, and when I questioned him, completely confused by his reaction, he retorted that didn't I know that every man wants his wife to think of him as being on a pedestal, and that while it was nice for me that I got a better view of Christ, it would behoove me to give him some time to adjust to it and allow him to mourn the fact that he was no longer in that position in my eyes.
I was completely floored. This man was a minister who regularly taught others to worship and love God, and yet he was throwing a fit over the fact that I no longer viewed him as God----and he wasn't in any way fearful or ashamed or remorseful of the fact that he'd been blocking God for me.
I wish I could say that my eyes were opened then, but, no.... I literally could not understand or even comprehend that he could actually really seriously think that. I kept thinking that it was a strange glitch, a weird event, something solveable....
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Post by setfree on Mar 28, 2010 2:22:30 GMT -5
Yes, because what you 'should be' is, of course, his unpaid household slave. How very convenient for him.
Has he ever held a toilet brush and scrubbed a toilet in his life?
Who cleans the spilt semen?
I'm furious. I've read parts of this to my dh, he is feeling pretty red-faced and bad because he was very like Mark in the early days. I too, worried i was rebellious and was called a jezebel. But i fought, violently and irrepressibly, i somehow knew it was wrong and i fought and fought against the injustice. I could never fight enough to break through my dh's defensiveness and passivity though. We are still married but our intimacy is crap.
Is part 5 on NLQ yet? Dying to see how you got out.
I find navigating the different series very tricky, any advice?
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