Battered Women's Syndrome

[crazycatlady]

The stigma of this diagnosis tends to piss me off. Most seem to look at me like I asked to be beaten, abused, asked forit, could have left sooner etc...

What they do not understand is that a woman in such a volatile relationship CANNOT get out without help... and until 2011 I had no help... My family lied.... would not help me when I did leave.... My family really had not even been in contact with me for YEARS.... So when I left HIM I left them too....

IRC is my family because when I left it was my IRC friends who helped me.....

Sorry, got off topic....

I cannot stand the pity looks, or the looks that seem accusing.... sometimes my smart mouth shoots off... why not ask his current wife is SHE is able to get away from him? 

There are many stories or such relationships going horribly wrong. The Burning Bed, for example, did not depict half the abuse I went through. I knew I had to get out because I had gotten to a point where Martina McBride's Independence Day was looking like my only option....

Therapists can sit there and SAY the words, but truthfully, they have no idea.... and I have yet to meet someone who has been through the level of abuse that I experienced.

I will forever be physically disabled from the abuse. He destroyed my Lumber, Sciatic and Cervical spine. I have hearing loss in my right ear from all the times he slammed my head against the wall.  I am quite sute I suffered concussions too but he never let me get treatment for any of them. I had countless cauliflower ears after he slammed my head to the wall, thus the hearing loss. 

People look at me and say, but you're so young to have all these problems.... But if I try to tell them how the issues happened they look at me like they can't believe me.... His fingernail marks left scars on my right wrist where he would wring the phone from my hands when I would try to call 911.... But the interior scars are far worse.... I get jumpy so easy, when people fight or yell or I hear a man speak in THAT tone of voice.... and people look at me like I'm outta my mind....

I do NOT want pity, I never have. I want to END women suffering the way I did....

Online has been a lifesaver for me literally. And it is online where I try to give some of that back now.

[CCB]

Battered Women's Syndrone sounds a lot like cPTSD. Can you explain the difference? I'm curious.

[therealluna]

Wow until I read this, I did not even know this was a syndrome. Sorry you have had to go through this CCL, whilst i cannot fully understand the stigma you have been through it sounds like you are a very strong person.

[crazycatlady]

Oct 1, 2018 20:51:07 GMT -5 CCB said:

Battered Women's Syndrone sounds a lot like cPTSD. Can you explain the difference? I'm curious.

Battered Women's Syndrome is a lot like PTSD, has similar symptoms and can be mis diagnosed as PTSD. MOST mattered women DO suffer some degree of PTSD... but the main difference is there are factors that literally control our lives....

1. Choosing partners who abuse us... even AFTER leaving an abusive partner it seems like we are drawn to such partners like magnets...

2. The inability to define ourselves WITHOUT the abuse

3. Coping skills suck

4. Inability to function without the abuse (or some form of it)

5. Deliberately seeking out abuse or deliberately antagonizing partners into some form of it (which typically makes battered women not such good mates until we get our heads on straight)


It took me many years of therapy - but mostly my own research and education to figure out all this and address it in my own life - without relying on medications.... YES I am supposed to be medicated for my bi polar but my doc and I agreed to try OFF meds with low stress and diet... so far so good (except pain and the stress of late is setting of the bi polar again)

I will post more... been up all night doing some personal things and things for the radio.... also putting on a crock of corned beef.... so bout to head off for a nap

[CCB]

Thank you crazycatlady, for outlining those differences. Sorry I've been slow to respond. Battered Women's Syndrome sounds difficult indeed. Not having an identity outside of abuse is terrible. I feel for you that you go through this. Thank you for sharing with us.