Dear Shve:

You are welcome!

“I did not realise I was abused. I knew something was wrong but could not put a finger to it… Sometimes I don’t even know how to express what I think is wrong… I thought he cannot do wrong to me because I trusted him… I was… taught (by parents) … to be docile and subservient” –

– When my mother hit me, screaming at me, humiliating me with terrible, piercing words, she also praised me, saying: the only thing I like about you is that (when I am beating/ screaming at you), you look down to the floor and say nothing, unlike children of other parents who talk back.

When she said that, she didn’t specifically teach me to be docile and subservient to abusive men. She taught me to be submissive to abuse. Fast forward, I knew only one way to react to abuse: submission.

When she hit me, etc., I instinctively felt angry and very, very disturbed, I knew something was very wrong, but I wasn’t thinking:  she is doing me wrong, this is abuse! I was not thinking much of anything; I was frozen in fear. After each attack, I started thinking, overthinking, tormented with anger at her on one hand, and guilt, on the other hand, lots of guilt for (believing that I was) deserving whatever it was that she was doing to me.

Fast forward, while in a situation such as what you described with that man, I felt disturbed (and soon afterwards, I felt very angry), but while it was happening, I wasn’t thinking.

“I wish I was taught how to assert myself when needed. It’s a skill that everyone needs to learn” – Yes, it is a skill that everyone needs, but prior to asserting oneself against abuse, one has to be able to detect abuse, to think with certainty: this is wrong, this is abuse!

“My father would be heartbroken to know this” – your father (and your mother) taught you to submit to abuse, “to be docile and subservient even if others do whatever they want“. So… your father is a third party to what happened even though he wasn’t physically there. He led you there, so he is not an innocent party to what happened. If he knew, and felt heartbroken about it, it would be a consequence of what he did (and what he failed to do).

I am not suggesting that you tell him or that you should try to cause your father pain; what I am suggesting is that your situation is not that of a guilty daughter vs an innocent father.

“I look to someone else to take decisions or do the right thing for me as opposed to me taking charge of my life. Do you have tips to overcome this?” – yes, take every opportunity you get in your daily life, however small the opportunity, to take charge and do things in ways that you feel are right for you.  I remember one of the smallest opportunities I took advantage of: I was folding towels a certain way, trying to do it the way I was taught, or the way I thought I was supposed to fold them…  I then stopped and thought to myself: wait, I prefer to fold these towels this particular way (my way, the way that felt right/ logical to me!), so I folded them in a new way, my way, and it felt liberating!

anita

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