Now I KNOW someone wants to give me the old trite saying "hit me once shame on me, hit me twice shame on you"... My response to that??? boo-hiss.....Can we say victim blaming? Let me elaborate....we have a saying at work...."you only have to hit me once to get me to do what you want me to do after the first hit"...If say Regina walked up to me and punched me in the nose...I would certainly be surprised....but then the next time I saw Regina I would be watching her....do I see the same look on her face as I did when she hit me??? If I did and I wanted to avoid getting hit again...I would do whatever it took to get her not to hit me again...(note Tom's use of the Psychological premise....people will avoid pain more than they will seek pleasure???? Anyone remember that?)...wanna know why?????
(these are gross simplifications btw) because, after the first punch....he feels better, he immediately starts apologizing and promising to never do it again...dv is a cycle....called the cycle of violence....main points...
batter/physical (feels better) ....
goes to Hearts/flowers....like it was when she first met him...all lovey dovey...he isn't going to do it again...loves her....is on his "best behavior" Just like dating
SOS (same stuff different day...day to day life..no fighting/but not so lovey dovey either..)
carping....(he starts to nag...isn't happy about the way things are going...she didn't do this right or didn't do that right....She is "walking on eggshells" she knows something is going wrong, but may not be able to pin point what it is...she is still trying to "fix" whatever is making him upset..)tension building phase...
Like I said there are more steps these are the highlights......sooner or later the hearts/flowers stage and the SOS stage will be deleted...and physical stage and carping will the only stages left........
at that point all her self esteem is gone....she has had it beaten out of her.....
Is this making sense....I better take a break...I feel hypo-clycemia coming on:)
B