bruised petals as metaphor

It was pointed out to me the other day (and not for the first time) that many, many of the women I have been involved with have been on the mend from abuse. Whether they were rape victims or incest survivors, battered spouses or emotionally terrorized by dysfunctional parents, the odds are that, if I am in the room, they'll find me, we'll talk, and somewhere down the road, something will happen.

I think that is a gross generalization...I am sure that there are many, many women who have been in the same room with me and don't even remember me (and I am sure some of them came from abusive backgrounds).

Of course, there is a school of thought that suggests abuse is so prevalent in our society, it is next to impossible for a woman to reach maturity without having been through some sort of abuse, that all are needing the faith healer aspect of my personality, the poet who listens and allows one to vent out the pain. Just as a "cutter" often is doing it to take control of their emotional pain, so does a writer bleed their words to cleanse the wound and ready it for healing.

I am no holy man. No miracle worker. I am just someone who listens and cares. I have dealt with so many people who were molested, assaulted, beaten, threatened and coerced and I have offered them a safe haven. That this therapeutic aspect often blossoms into a relationship is not lost on me. I do not consider it codependent, although I do draw some healing of my own wounds (Yes, I have them) from the knowledge that I am helping someone out of a bad place, emotionally and spiritually.

Some come to me admitting their pain, some hint at it but never confirm it. Some deny it, for a time, then one day blurt out their story, a story I had long suspected as I know the scent of bruised petals.

Most abused people carry one or more of the following traits: Compartmentalization, aversion to examination, a need to take control.

Compartmentalization merely means you take aspects of your life and put them in specific compartments, often isolating them from those things you place in other compartments. These people wear one face by day, another by night. They keep secrets, they erect walls, sometimes walls that become their prisons instead of their protection, as often the walls are a reaction to damage already done.

Aversion to examination is just an attempt to keep people from getting too close, asking too many questions, looking too closely. They are afraid of being "found out". They can be explosive in temper if they feel you probing them for the reason behind their secretiveness.

The need to take control is very common in abused people, particularly rape and incest victims. The individual will try to take back the lost control in the past by acting out, sometimes self-destructively, in the present. You'll see them create a very controlled environment, but often in a strange and twisted manner. I have known more than one rape victim, for instance, who became extremely promiscuous, as they wanted to be in charge of their own sexuality, to take back the control.

The bottom line for me is that most women I have known close enough to be friends or lovers with are to some degree victims of a society, a culture, that thinks it is okay to abuse women, to treat them as things, not people. There are times it infuriates me like nothing else I can imagine.

Does this empathy, this compassion, sometimes lead me into relationships with women who are perhaps too damaged to sustain a healthy relationship? Perhaps. But to walk away from someone in such need of a kind voice, a considerate mind and a patient friend would be far worse.