Who's Warped?
November 22, 2008
My friend told me about rainn.org. I checked out their National Sexual Assault Online Hotline, but it was busy so I called the phone number instead.
The hotline helped me confirm one of my beliefs. I told the man who answered the phone that I was raped at 14, then married at 20. I told him that I felt I had pretty well worked through most of the rape issues before I was married. I wasn't mad at the rapist, I didn't hate men, I wasn't afraid, etc.
I told him it was possible that I was still suffering some PTSD at the time of the wedding, but I didn't remember that being entirely true. Any PTSD I suffered at that point was probably because of Will's abusive behaviors. For the most part, I had put the rape behind me.
So then, I told the hotline guy what Will has told me off and on over the years (as recently as a few days ago when he printed out a sexual assault victim's "symptoms list" and said - "LOOK. THIS IS YOU," and threw the paper at me) - in a nutshell, Will says that I am and have always been a nutcase. Ever since he met me, he says I've been depressed, anxious, paranoid, etc.
I told him that those were also symptoms of people suffering from PTSD and verbal abuse.
Will says that I never got over the rape OR the fact that my dad didn't talk to me about it, that I hate my rapist and therefore, my relationship with him is wrapped up in my warped view of men in general.
Hmph. I never thought so. And the guy at the other end of the phone tonight validated my feeling.
He said that what's happening to me now is a FACT. (I explained the type of verbal abuse going on.) What Will is doing is trying to control my reality - by making me think that I MIGHT be hung up on the past, he's better able to convince me that the present verbal abuse is a figment of my imagination.
In essence, THIS verbal abuse is a FACT; Will's insistence that I am crazy is FICTION. The hotline guy said that this is classic controlling behavior, and that I am right not to be fooled.
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