A seemingly odd dynamic seems to be occurring in my life that I could not quite put my finger on until recently. Another affect of the abuse, of the control and perversion of “submitting” I submitted myself to perhaps. Another mask of who I pretended to be in order to get someone to like me has revealed itself.
One of the 21 of different ways that another tries to exert power/control over their partner is by using looks, words and/or silence to indicate to their partner that their behavior is unacceptable…that your behavior doesn’t match their preconceived notion of who you should be for them…that I wasn’t living up to the perfect image of the “trophy” wife – always doing or saying or being the right person. Come to think of it, in a way even our society and the church tries to exert this type of power and control over our lives…or at least we allow them to.
See, as a young 20 year old gal who didn’t have the privilege of a proper upbringing – I would often make comments and or jokes that did not quite hit their mark and left an awkward silence where I had hoped laughter would be. When I met my would-be-spouse, he was quick to “help” me correct this misfortunate misgiving about myself by the means that I mentioned above. In reality, it just scared me into being more reserved, to hold my tongue and….not to be myself. Sure I stood up to the sharp glances, the kicks under the table and the mean spirited words for a while…but eventually I “submitted” to this correction of my character. In reality, all it did was to help me put on a mask of “maturity” that I hadn’t fully developed on my own by learning to “fall down and get back up.”
I would have had NO idea this mask was even in place if I had decided to stay in my marriage. I would have lived my entire life thinking I was really a mature adult, of being fooled into thinking I was someone I was not if I hadn’t left.
But leave I did. With this leaving, I no longer have that external voice or look to “keep me in line”. I no longer have the fear of losing the “love” of the one I desire to keep me from making social blunders…and as time goes by and those not quite mature areas in my life decide to bubble, to pop up to the surface – I realize yet another area of work there is to lean into.
At first as this seemingly odd dynamic started to express itself in my life – of making social plunders, of feeling embarrassed, of my old insecurities of the opposite sex – I was extremely confused. Here I was, out of an abusive relationship, doing the work to grow up – yet in some areas I seemed to completely regress to that 18 year old girl that I so desperately didn’t want to be again. During my marriage, I felt I had gotten past the point of being embarrassed about who I was, of being able to talk to any man no matter how attractive I found him, of no longer blushing in any situation. I had thought this was because I had a man, I was married and thus that made me confident and assured and right.
However, as I have separated myself from my old identity of the wife and of being married…and as these masks have fallen off and revealed these not so shiny parts of my character…well, it has had me desperately wanting to crawl back into my turtle shell time…and time….and time again. I have kept asking myself where all the boldness I had last Fall went. Was that just another mask I had put on?
“Maybe I was really meant to live in this little comfortable shell of mine – meant to live a life of not speaking up where I seemingly making others feel uncomfortable or annoyed at my presence. Maybe I wasn’t meant for any great purpose. Maybe I just need to shut up and stop asking questions and not rocking the boat for myself. Maybe I just need to disappear into the background and hope people forget about me quickly.”
Gosh, how badly would I just love to disappear from my life right now. Honestly, with all that is going right now – even with a positive turn in my external circumstances – sometimes all this emotional introspection and doubt and pain makes me want to run to Timbuktu and to never return. I have to say learning to push into the uncomfortableness – of learning to challenge those deep ingrained subconscious patterns/voices by forging ahead into the very area that they are telling you to avoid – is not really my cup of tea.
Yet, as I look at my choices of either staying or going…of either growing or stalling…I know what my choice will be. Not because I am eager to find more masks, to make more social blunders or to have more confrontations with people that trigger me with their words or just their presence…but because I so desire to be more like Christ with each and every passing day. I so desire to not be defined by my past as an abuse survivor ….but to set a new path for my life – to be a thriver in every area. And I know in order to do so, I must continue to put away those childish toys and masks…I must continue to confront myself and give myself permission to mess up big time along the way.
For how else does a child learn to walk and eventually to run – if first she never falls down and scrape up her knees from time to time?
