Thoughts

The recent re-spat of abuse posts has me thinking about chess.
Yes, that's not a typo.

I'm a singularly brillant chess player. I will lose almost every time - but you will have to fight for your win, every time. Why? Because the man who taught me how to play chess, one of my stepfathers, loved to play it - and loved to win. But not win easily. So I trained myself to not think ahead too far, to challenge my opponent but ensure that I would not actually win the game or drag it out more than an hour. It was a survival skill since Jay wore a 2" leather belt and used it to beat me if I disappointed him (lost too easily, won, or any other reason he could think up).

To this day I will have a raised level of anxiety if I try to play the game. Years ago I attempted to ease that by learning other strategy games, thinking that if I could learn to enjoy them I could perhaps learn to enjoy chess. It didn't work but I particularily enjoyed Goh, especially with Hanashi as our instructor - the sessions were relaxing, kneeling in front of the board, playing in our 'ranks', drinking tea. His praise of my ability was a balm and the very-not-American environment of the gaming classes took it out of context for my memories of abuse. I can play Goh and enjoy it very much but I've found that only with a few select men can I let myself see beyond the first few moves. Still.

I cannot play any form of Tafl. As a Viking-era reenactor, that sucks rocks but there it is - it is actually gut-wrenching to sit across the board from a guy and try to learn it. And that saddens me since there is a friend who would love to teach me the game and who probably has no idea that it is old ghosts that keep me from playing it with him. In fact, it is difficult for me to play anything requiring concentration and skill one-on-one with a man*.

It is in the little things, sometimes, that past abuse makes itself known.


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*Oddly, that is not a problem with "Navy Battleship", which I played a lot while on late boring watches as a Radioman. But we didn't usually face each other across a table for that. And while it did require strategy, it mostly required tabulation skills. Unlike 'regular' Battleship, the Navy version had a mutually-agreed-upon grid size and fleet, and each player "shot" a salvo of 5 missiles at a time. The opponent would merely report how many hits were in each salvo - it was up to you to figure out where the hits were and concentrate your next salvo there. A fun game... if you're a pencil-geek.

... I don't hug because I'm broken.*

Recently "hugs" have been high on my radar. The subject has come up amoung my friends and in my daily interactions. Pointed remarks have been made about "we have to force you to hug us" with overtones of "there's something so wrong with you, you cold person". Guilt has been flung in my direction for 'denying a hug' to a friend or acquaintance. In front of me, discussions have arisen about how they will 'just have to teach her better'. Those were apparently bonding moments for them. They were moments of shame and anger for me.

I am comfortable casually hugging a very, very small pool of people. My husband and sons, Treestone, Gaffer, Ro, Kevin of Thornbury, Mungoe, Nick, Kiri, and, and... um.... I think that's it. Anyone else, no matter how close and I'd have to do an internal comfort-check before I could do it.**

I grew up in a world where public shows of affection were reserved for family. Blood-kin. And they were rare even then. We showed our affection and love for each other and others with our smiles, our eyes, a soft touch on a hand or arm, a tone of voice - no more than that. It is the language I am comfortable with. We respected the personal space of our friends and it was a special and rare instance when an offer would come to be welcomed into that space for a hug. Physical contact is very, very intimate in my world even when it is non-sexual. When you speak a language where a shrug, a special smile, a fingertip on the back of one's hand is significant, a hug has far more consequence than it does in the world of "lay one on me, baby!"

I have am having issues with personal space right now, more than ever before in my life so the subject is especially difficult for me. Force me to hug you and you may walk away feeling like you've conquered something (I guess) but I will be struggling with emotions you never meant to invoke. And those emotions may spiral and deepen throughout the hours until I will be sitting up late at night in an emotional windsotrm, hearing my grandfather's voice saying, "You're just so beautiful I can't help touching you." Boy's and men's voices echoing, "but your body was made for pleasure, I can't help it. You have to let me. It doesn't really hurt, it can't, you were made for this!" An ex-husband saying,"but you're my wife, how dare you not let me touch you any way I want to, whenever I want to - I love you! How can you spit on my love by denying me right now?" ***

The lesson, "Your body is not your own." will reverberate for days.

I'm not the only person with a reserved upbringing or even with those internal voices in your social circle. There are likely more of us than you are aware. The next time you open your arms for a good ole hug from a friend, think about the person you are approaching and be ready to acknowledge their right to decline without making them feel like they are sub-human and defective, cold and unnatural. It may not be they way they express their caring for you. There is nothing wrong with that. Or them. Look for the 'I treasure you" sparkle in their eyes or the smile on their face. Learn their language and give them the opportunity to choose to speak yours.

And for God's sake, if you know they are a survivor of abuse - back the fuck off of them if they can't hug you the way you want. It's not that they don't love you. It's that your demand to be in their personal space and handle their body is causing them emotional pain by triggering a cascade of feelings they cannot control easily.**** It may be a little thing to you but I can assure you that it is a big and bitter thing to many more people than you'd expect.

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*And that statement shouldn't be true - NO ONE should have to chose between surrendering control of their personal self or hurting the feelings of others. A hug, like a kiss or shared seat, is a gift - not a right.


**Part of the shortness of the list may be due to the fact that some of my favorite people aren't huggers or are sensitive enough to not push it so it hasn't come up.


***Yeah, Yeah, I'm not beautiful now and ain't no-one gonna say that to me any more. I know that. Every ask yourself why I grew that protective layer of fat? And those same old voices are making it danged hard for me to shed it now that I'm old enough to not be on anyone's 'sexy baby' radar!


**** If they hug you against their will, they are surrendering control over their bodies to another (you), ceeding authority over the one possession they should be able to have control of at any time. If they don't, they are hurting the feelings of the people they care about in order to maintain that control = 'being selfish'. They are stuck with a negative outcome no matter what. They must instantly chose between their sense of personal integrity and your pain/scorn. Your demand, your expectation, is triggering their fight/flight/freeze response. You may notice this if you pay attention to their body language. Not everyone forces themselves to be public in the way that I am with this post so the signs may be very subtle - few folks want their friends to know that their customary 'bonding ritual' is uncomfortable to them. We teach our children that it is okay to say, 'no' but we rarely extend the same basic right to our friends.

[This is a self-awareness post. It is not a cry for affirmation - y'all have given me plenty of that. But I need to write this, and own it, make it solid so I can force myself to step up and change. And I thought, if you are a parent, you might appreciate the warning inherent in this entry. Although I can't think of a single person on my friend's list who would need it.]

( resources and the internal dialogue )

My hands are shaking, I am so, so... I can't describe it. I can't.


Angry.
Hurt.
Frustrated.
Angry.


It will pass. I've had plenty of practice making it pass, centering, remembering that it is far in the past and not my present. Not my present.

I have a loving husband. Beautiful sons. Supportive and talented friends far more than I will ever deserve. I can see the joyful moments and hold them close, closer than those other times. I have long outlived the bastards, by god. They are not in my life any longer and never will be again.

But every once in a while something comes up out of the blue and reminds me that for a good part of my youth I was a helpless and abused girl who had to live without justice, whose family and friends said, "If you won't tell the grown-ups, the teacher/the police weren't called, it wasn't real, it doesn't count. You're not really hurt" or "Stop being a goody-two-shoes. It's not that bad. It's not like you were really hurt. No one would believe you anyway."

Or even, "You must have liked it since you never told."

Fuck them.

And (to whoever) thanks for the returning nightmares...