It's natural to go from victim to victor.

[Kire]

Bittersweet Revenge
It's natural to go from victim to victor.

By Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn
"I can't believe who I've turned into."

That's a phrase I hear occasionally from ex-victims of emotional abuse. They've been through a marriage that's been hurting for a couple of decades. They stuck together because of belief in each other, true love, compassion, fear, financial need, or depression. The abuser works with me for a while, earnestly trying to be a better person. He — frequently it's a "he," but not always — begins to learn what abuse is and how terrible it is. He revisits his own pain growing up and realizes that he's been spreading that same pain around to unwanting recipients. He starts to sharply curb his tongue. He starts to feel his wife's and his children's pain. He gradually becomes sensitive, compassionate.


And just at that moment when he "get's it" and you'd think the happy couple will go riding off together into the sunset, the "victim" pulls a fast one.


It's always unexpected. Here she was, patient through years of abuse and tears, waiting, wanting, praying. And now, just when there's the first spark of hope, the first sign that things can be better, she jabs him in the ribs with her elbow. A sharp elbow. A hard jab. The shock of it takes your breath away.


She takes revenge.


She takes revenge for all those years of hurting. She can get away with it now and she wants him to suffer. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense (which doesn't make it right). The same sense as the little kid who's a goody-goody in school being, shall we say, exuberant, on the playground. That kid listened when he didn't want to, answered questions he didn't care about, and studied hard, all to please his parents, or maybe out of fear of his parents' reaction. Now he's outside and free. The grownups can't see everything. He can be HIMSELF! So he is. Maybe he knocks down a smaller kid; maybe he trips someone running. Who knows what he'll do? All we know is that he's sick and tired of the goody-good mask. It isn't him and now he'll prove it.


Same thing with the abuse victim.

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