Will you let me hold your hand?

I had an interesting day today.

I met someone through a mutual friend and she turned out to be a wonderful conversationalist, AND she was smart as hell. We had a great time discussing the cognitive psychological reasoning behind eating disorders and how they prove detrimental to CVD’s (cardio-vascular disorders, and that’s nutrition majorspeak, for you unenlightened beings). And yes I’m a humongous science nerd and I aint’ gonna lie about it. So for those of you sniggering in the background and generally acting all ‘oooo...shes sooo not cool cos she’s like a science major, hyuk hyuk’, I have two words for y’all.

Zip it.

Anyhoo, I couldn’t help but notice that she had her shades on the whole time. Aite, they were Versace and I sooooo wanted them, but *ahem*, my fashion indulgences aside, she never took them off. AND we were sitting inside a café! So me being the *cough* ‘lady of situations’….I asked her albeit a little too unnaturally if I could look at her glasses. In retrospect, I should have known that my cover was a trifle shoddy, and anyone could have seen through my pathetic attempts at incongruity. But I digress.

She smiled wanly and took her glasses off. And that’s when I did a double take.
She had this gigantic, monstrosity of a bruise around her left eye. And worse, it was a deep shade of purple and it was turning black in places. I couldn’t look at her, but perversely I couldn’t take my eyes off either. Before I could muster enough courage to croak two words out of my mouth, she sighed and she told me not to bother because she knew what was coming, and she’s better off telling me herself anyway before I start judging her.

I didn’t react, because frankly I thought it was disrespectful to her. So I let her talk. And talk she did. About how her boyfriend loves her, and how nice he is to her and how he cannot ‘help’ these episodes of ‘accidental rage’, and yes…that’s what she chose to call it – accidental rage.

The whole conversation from then on was one big excuse-fest for her ‘poor-wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly-but-has-occasional-violent-transgressions’ boyfriend. My anger-meter flared up at once, but reason set in and I calmed myself and I realized the emotional abuse she must have gone through to actually speak the way she did.

Because people, a long time ago I was exactly like that once. I was her, making excuses for my abusive ex, thinking that he ‘loved’ me, and somehow it was my fault that I made him so goddamn angry, and I was constantly covering up for him, mollycoddling and glossing over his mistakes. Every time he beat or abused me, there was a ‘good’ reason for him to do so, for I was the aggravator, it was MY fault, time and time again and oh, he made sure I never forget that.

I can see some of you shaking your heads already. I can see some of you say…stupid women, don’t they have a brain? Aren’t they educated? Why don’t they just get out of the relationship? Let me tell you very frankly, that it is infinitely easy for you to pshaw at someone who is under any kind of abuse, especially emotional, because emotional abuse is murky at best and it usually preludes physical abuse. It also continues throughout the course of the relationship, intertwining itself with physical abuse AND it is ALWAYS used as a tool to control the ‘abusee’.

I see an increasing number of women, putting up with abusive boyfriends and the operative word here is boyfriends NOT husbands. Yes domestic violence in a marriage is a huge (to put it mildly) issue and there are no two ways about it, but violence in an urban, yuppie, boyfriend-girlfriend relationship is a tangible problem as well. And it is even more baffling, because these girls (including moi) are educated, come from seemingly liberal backgrounds and are modern, by Indian ‘moral’ and ‘cultural’ standards. Why then do they behave the way they do?

Let me walk you through what I call the ‘sinking-in-a-quagmire-cycle’…..

Step 1: The first ominous sign:

You have a date tonight. This is your fourth date. You refused to see him today, because you have a 15 page paper, but he snidely remarks that if you have ‘other’ interests, then its best that he leaves you to your secret nefarious activities and then he hastily covers it up with an ‘ I’m kidding!’ tag. You find it odd that he makes a remark like that, and a strange unease settles in your stomach. But you convince yourself that he has been nothing short of a charming gentleman so far, and he MUST have been kidding. So uneasily you agree to the date, because you don’t want to hear that remark again, kidding or otherwise.
And THIS is where the first red flag comes up. Because a potential abuser can also come from seemingly modern yuppie backgrounds. But abusers don’t beat you to a pulp on the first date. In fact they’re the exact opposite of that. They will be so suave and so manipulatively charming that you will be swept off your feet. So even if you see a red flag bang in front of your face, you will choose to ignore it.

Step 2: The unforeseen spurts of jealousy and possessiveness:

You are at a restaurant with your new boyfriend. You guys are sitting at a table having a seemingly normal conversation when the waiter comes up to your table to take your order. He is polite and courteous, and you smile and thank him for his service. You turn back to your boyfriend, whose face is an alarming shade of green. You rack your brains, wondering what you did or said, for him to react this way. Coming up blank, you ask him what the problem is. He throws a fit and walks out in a huff. You sit there feeling foolish, hurt and embarrassed as hell, not knowing whether you have to follow him, or act as if nothing happened and sit there apathetically. You decide to follow him, and to your dismay you comprehend the fact that he has unceremoniously ditched you. You go home feeling much dejected and call him, albeit a gazillion times. He finally calls back and demands to see you at that very instant, no ifs or buts. It sounds impossible, and it’s at the ungodly hour of 2 am, but you know you have to see him. There is this feeling you have, this feeling which will later manifest itself in you as FEAR. But he’s been so darn kind and loving to you otherwise, and he makes you feel as if you are the center of his universe, so you brave all odds and meet him anyway. The meeting is a fiasco, with you profusely apologizing to him for god knows what, trying vainly to control his rage, and out of the blue, he breaks down and tells you how afraid he is that you’ll leave him. And THAT brings us to red flag number two. Red flag number two constitutes possessive, maniacal and perverse outbursts which might SEEM undisruptive, but it is the proverbial calm before the storm.

Step 3: The ‘friend-disownment’ stage:

This is a stage where, you spend all your time with your boyfriend. In a normal scenario, this is fine, you’re just getting to know each other, BUT when he starts carping every time you even mention spending time with your friends OR if he goes into one of his fits of maddening jealousy (mostly if you have male friends), you know that another RED flag has been raised. Slowly your friends start evading you one after another, because your boyfriend just does not seem to leave you alone. This finally leads to you being dependent on him ALONE, for emotional support and stability.

Step 4: The antagonistic reversals between moods:

This is the last nail in the coffin. As your boyfriend has successfully gained control of you emotionally, financially and of course physically, the appalling mood swings will set in. At one instance he will be the embodiment of love and tenderness and on the opposite end of the spectrum, he will abuse you with the choicest expletives, or bestow a barrage of blows upon you. Either way you know you’re doomed cos’ you can’t leave him, nor can you stay with him, and you’re left in a quandary.

And this is pretty much the blueprint of the ‘sinking-in-a-quagmire’ cycle.

The feeling of unease and that frightening sensation of helplessness will take over your life and sometimes your mind will entertain abhorrent notions of suicide. Even suicide in that juncture, might seem appealing to you.

As I sat there listening to her babble on about her boyfriend, my life flashed in front of my eyes, and I knew I couldn’t just sit there. I HAD to help her. But I knew that she had sunk deep in the mire, just as I had once, and I also knew that asking her to leave her monstrous boyfriend was not going to help. So I looked her in the eye, where the all too familiar bruise sat, and I told her that if she needed anything, just anything, I was ready to listen to her at any time of the day or night.

For that is ultimately what she needs; a person to talk to. Being emotionally scarred and forsaken can be harrowing to say the least and at that moment I knew that she needed a shoulder to lean on to and I was there.

Women, if any of your friends are in a similar situation; please…… I implore you, stand by them, comfort them and give them strength. Don’t start drifting away JUST because she spends time with her boyfriend all the time. I know it can be tiresome, but please.

And men. If any of your guy friends addresses his girlfriend as a ‘bitch’ or ‘whore’ constantly, or if he has frequent bouts of insecurity, please talk to him and ask him what the problem is. If there seems to be no tangible problem, talk to his girlfriend. This may seem like a no-no to you and your friend in his pathetic state of mind may even think that you guys are having a rollicking affair, but hold your ground. You know your friend needs help, but his girlfriend is in a depraved situation and she is probably at the mercy of your friend. So please, take heed.

I dedicate this post to the girl in the coffee shop. Please read this, girl-in-the-coffee-shop.

Words cannot describe how overwrought I am at your situation.

Post Script: I want to enlighten some of the folks out there as to my situation with my ex, before you start making half-witted assumptions.

1. I do not think about him. To me he is not even a memory.
2. Its been approximately four and a half to five years since this happened, and yes, I was around 17 then.
3. I have really moved on, in the truest sense of the word. And I will forever be indebted to my mom for that. She pulled me out of the slough, quite literally.......with not one family member lending her support. A 'Thank you' seems soooo inadequate, for the hell my mom must have gone through for me.

I love you mom.

P.P.S: Watch this space for updates on girl-in-the-coffee-shop. Right now I keep tabs on her, but she seems to be in a state of limbo, and I'm worried sick.