Our latest graduate, Boni H. went diving into the tutorial and had what I thought were some deep insights. She took her tutorial and her life lessons a notch higher and has prepared some educational videos in order to help others. They will be shared with our other participants once they come out--here is what Boni wrote about Closure:
I have created an educational presentation called Prevent Abuse-Become Educated. The focus is on learning how to recognized the subtle early warning signs of emotional abuse. It is currently being edited. I hope to have it available on youtube in a couple months. Like you, helping others has become my passion. This provides me with some of the closure I so desperately desire. A friend once told me that I need to acknowledge, accept, and adjust. It's tough but I am working on adjusting everyday.
Tassie from the UK had some peace after figuring out her closure, but I wanted to point something out about one lesson that needed some tweaking: Tassie gave a definition for Detachment, "Not allowing the behaviors of others to control me." It's true that controlling behavior is a major symptom of abusers, yet when trying to detach, it is more important, to not take responsibility for their behavior--rather than worrying about what they are trying to control.
Mai M is another graduate and I she had an interesting view of why Kathy let her abuse go so far. She wrote, "When you believe you love someone, and you try hard to create a life with them, it becomes very hard to see abuse as what it is, because it destroys your image of your relationship and the future. She was also afraid of him, and the abuse was gradual. She built a split reality." Abuse is like living in a split reality, you see yourself as one being--competent, caring, usually successful in one life and then your life with the abuser takes that all away and you become a bumbling, selfish, incompetent loser (via the eyes of your abuser which they manage to convince you of.) Mai has a very optimistic view on her closure--she wrote that she wants "a serious apology in front of other people, witnesses. This is to make up for how humiliated and ashamed I felt in front of others when he said and did certain things in public. I actually believe I will get this closure." I really hope she does, and that she will share that with us.
Maria F. started out slow saying, "Someone can only walk all over me because I let them. I am too weak." and ended up writing, "By doing my walk away, learned appropriate responses I focus on my self care and strengthen myself. This is not my fault as I was also abused as a child. Instead this will enable me to help and focus on my own health." I really like this phrase, "Doing my walk away..." Let's all remember to do that walk away when they get ugly!
Lindsey M. had a powerful response to how she would want to get closure, "I wanna know that he knows what he did and that he can recognize he actually did something wrong, and I can apologize for my wrong doings too and be able to move on knowing we both said everything we needed to." We always want them to know and understand what they did--that so seldom happens. It's sad--but wanting them to understand is still trying to control--we want to control how they think--sigh. It doesn't work as so many of us know.
And finally another from the UK, we have Nuala M. who learned something very important about personal power, "It makes sense because we give implicit permission to our abuser by tolerating their behavior. We need to respect ourselves and put boundaries in place. Take back our power."
Congratulations to all our graduates and now it is time to "Take back our power."
Excerpted:
