Conference turris::womannotes-v1

    There sure IS "emotional battering"!  It is every bit as devastating
    as the physical kind.
    
    I was always the same kind of woman who said "No WAY I'd put up
    with a man hitting ME!"  But I did the same thing you mentioned
    in the base note and took a LOT of emotional punches.  Why?  Now
    I can answer it with some authority (and believe me--you can't believe
    "it" can ever happen to you until it DOES happen to you)--in my
    case, anyway.   Maybe it will help someone else.
    
    I wanted and desperately needed someone to love me so badly that
    I did anything, forgave anything, and overlooked anything JUST DO
    THAT PERSON WOULDN'T LEAVE ME.  A more emotionally-stable woman
    would not have found herself in the same spot, but that was me at
    that time in my life.  This person was not a bad person;  merely
    suffering in another way.  I just thought that any price was worth
    it to have this "love" in my life.
    
    But there is an end to everything.  Even in my
    desperately-seeking-security state, I finally had enough abuse,
    and ended it.  It wasn't easy, it wasn't pretty, but I had to do
    it to survive, and gain some self-esteem.
    
    I didn't mean for this to go on so long--this note took me back
    a few years.  The beatings our feelings take are every bit as painful
    as bodily beatings.  Fortunately, we have it within us to stop both.
    
    Jane
    
    

    Hmm, well, sometimes you don't even recognize you're making a trade:
    bruised feelings for security.  What I mean is, to some, bruised
    feelings are the way the world is.
    
    Which is why these notes are good, even if spooky to the posters--they
    may help out those folks who don't even recognize their dilemma.
    
    Because they need counter-examples.  There are too many pictures
    of emotional abuse as life in books and television and the movies;
    and for dark secrets like these, fictional examples may be the only
    parallels.  Sometimes we turn out the neighbors' fights, or imagine
    other reasons for the divorces.
    
    I wish we had more examples on television of people getting out
    of abusive situations.  'Til then, don't blame your old self too
    much.			Don't blame me too much either!  :-)

    I think that Pricilla showed courage in showing the reality.
    
    Perhaps it wasn't until she got sucess herself that she felt
    secure enough. 
    
    Perhaps she thought it might help someone esle.
    

    I thought that Priscilla did the movie strictly for the profit and
    in the process ruined alot of fan's ideals about their hero.
    Elvis didn't look anything like the real Elvis.  At least she
    could have gave the good things he did equal time.
    
    I couldn't believe he was into pills as "young" as the movie portrayed
    him to be.  It also didn't emphasize his supposedly vivid images
    of his dead twin brother.
    
    I didn't like the movie but maybe I'm a partial fan and maybe the
    truth hurts, who nows?
    

    
    	re: 5
    		I think I know what your saying and I agree with you.
    From seeing the ads for the movie made up my mind I wasn't going
    to watch it.
    
    	Dave
    
    	BTW, Me and the boys watched Rambo First Blood part II

    hmm. yes, but the note is really about our reactions to the show
    and the topic of emotional abuse.  (we now return to our regularly
    scheduled conversation...)
    
    liz

    I once found myself in a relationship where I was the loser.
    Looking back I can hardly believe the things I did to keep it going!
    I got so fed up I went to see a counsellor and she listened for
    a long time and then said that one day I would just not want this
    person any more.  I said that wasn't EVER going to happen! But she
    was right.   Some time later I just woke up and realised I had had
    enough. I went to his house and got back my things I had left there
    and just said "You are a rat, etc." and left.
    
    Later we met and he told me he KNEW he could have won me back. But
    I KNEW he couldn't.   After we separated, my life became so much
    more fun, more fulfilling, and I became more confident.  I had allowed
    him to hold me back in many ways out of fear of losing him.

    ooooooooh yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah!
    
    Except in my case, he did the breaking up (his secret honey was
    moving into town)...that afternoon!
    
    He ignored me for a couple of years, but once he saw me with a new
    friend, and so he started trying to get in touch.  I remember a
    phone call when in the midst of my "uh huh"s he said, with great
    feeling "I don't know why _we_ ever broke up."  [italics mine]
    I was silent for awhile
    because I was laughing into a pillow to hard to speak.
    Gee, what a subtle attempt at the old manipulation game! AHAHAHHAHA!
    
    But I didn't become hostile until a friend came to me one day and
    said, "I didn't realize you were _Greg's_ Lisa."  Evidentally she'd
    dated him briefly; maybe she was shown a shrine of my abandoned
    record collection or something.  Somehow, I'd died and gone to heaven, 
    transforming from the Dope of his life to the Love of his life.  
    What a maroon!  Still, if felt pretty nasty if even in the afterlife
    I was being used to manipulate other dupes.
                          

    re .8, .9
    
    ooooooh, do I know what you mean!!!
    
    The last love of my life did a particularly bad job dumping me,
    and by the time it was all over, I was pretty sick of the sight
    of his face -- and he was sick of me, too.
    
    Lo and behold, the poor soul found himself without a bevy of admirers
    this summer and was not surrounded by his friends (he has been overseas
    for a while now), so he decided to write me and declare his unending
    love and admiration for me.  He outlined all that's wonderful about
    me and how he keeps wondering why we didn't work out, why we aren't
    together anymore, what was wrong.
    
    Huh!  Walk all over me, lie to me, but when you're feeling all alone
    and knowing I'm feeling great, reach out, reach out and drag me
    back.
    
    I never decided what to do with this abysmal letter.  I suppose
    I should keep it around for the next time I need toilet paper...
    
    Snarl...
    
    Lee

Yep, people sure can talk themselves out of touch with reality...

Would it have made any difference to any of you if the other person had come up
to you and owned up to having been a jerk, and saying that they think they've
gotten better?

Jim. 

    re: .8-.10
    
    	My first love is still keeping in contact with me, spouting these 
    	exact same lines!  "Why did we break up", "Sure wish we could try 
    	again", etc.  Those many years ago I found out he had a new girl-
    	friend by reading it in the paper (he was a semi-famous athlete).  
    	Those sort of things are painful at the time, but oh do they give 
    	you lessons to learn!  The experience of being "dumped" allows 
    	you to grow in *knowing* you'll do everything in your power to 
    	NEVER endure this sort of thing again.  It also makes you wonder
    	just where your head was at the time.  But you learn, always you
    	learn, and that's where the true test is...
    
    						Carla
    	

    re: Jim B-
    
    it wouldn't be something I'd want to generalize about and say I
    always would do one way or the other...
    
    In most cases, though, I would not be any more interested if the
    person came back to me and said that they realized they had acted
    like a jerk.  There's a growth factor which occurs, and once I've
    outgrown a relationship, I'm not likely to want to restart it.
    For me, it would be better to take me chances on the stimulation
    and challenge of a new relationship.
    
    Holly

    Back to Elvis and Me.....
    
    Yes, maybe Priscilla did want to make a profit but she also said
    she wanted people to know the truth about Elvis....he wasn't just
    a pill taker, but a loving individual.....I saw the Movie and think
    the book is much better showing his individual loving generous side.
    
    I know - "What loving side- he took advantage of her"....your right
    he did...and seeing the movie and reading the book made tons of
    emotion come into play for me...but we have to realize that the
    drugs did him in.  Yes, he got into drugs quite early - according
    to the book the US army was responsible for that.  They took uppers
    and downers when the needed to stay awake or go to sleep.  Elvis
    was a different person while his mother was alive (he had this thing
    about his mother) and when he got out of the Army - drugs was into
    his life that by the time Priscilla saw him again in 1960 she even
    realized that he had changed....but she was so young in love with
    the man that it took her years to realize she was giving up herself
    to please him.  To me she helped lots of people.  Because at this
    point - emotions from my 1st marriage came rushing back and Elvis
    and Me became more personal than just looking at a famous person
    and his wife.....
    
    I don't think if your an Elvis fan you should think badly of him
    or think what Priscilla wrote is hurting him.  I think you should
    see Elvis as a man who became famous young - had problems (he had
    an obsession with his mother) drugs came into play and took over
    his personality to the point where he got down so deep that he realized
    at the end that the most important thing in the world was his wife
    and daughter and it was too late to get them back cuz he realized
    he couldn't help himself.  I think it's sad and I'm sorry that instead
    of people giving him what he wanted that someone couldn't have helped
    him....everyone was a victim here including Elvis.....Elvis was
    human....and as Priscilla said he was a man a very special man....
    
    Bobbi