Love hurts.

I’m not big on abuse.

And yet, somehow it seems to linger in my life like this ridiculously annoying cough I’ve had for the past month and half. It doesn’t stay long and it doesn’t show up thaaat often but when it does, it’s usually shrouded with sketchiness.

As most instances of abuse are.

Case #1: According to my father, I’m a candyass. 

Not all instances of abuse are physical. My father did irreparable damage to my trust, amongst other things, and most of the abuse he subjected my mother and I to was of the non-tangible variety. One of my most clear memories of him was the night I finally noticed my parents didn’t really like each other anymore.

I was in bed sleeping and I heard my father’s drunken yelling coming from the kitchen. I crept downstairs to discover my father screaming into my mother’s face. And teenage-something me did not take highly to my mom being pushed around that way. 

So I started yelling at my dad. My dad started yelling at me and calling me a candyass. My mom threw a can of peas at my dad and then my dad called my grandfather to tell him that both my mother and I were crazy.

I’d like to blame him for any and all instances of me actually acting crazy but alas, I’ll just blame him for emotional damage and neglect and leave it at that.

Case #2: The guy with the swastikas drawn on his forehead.

It was obvious this guy was whacked out of his mind by the fact that he had self-drawn swastikas on his forehead in permanent marker. But bat-shit crazy isn’t a very good excuse for finding a girl alone at a party and punching her in the face.

Oh, didn’t I tell you?

It was the summer before I went to my first year of university and I was at a party at some abandoned house in the country with a girl I knew only sort of well – clearly not well enough to know she’d ditch me the second she found a guy to hook up with in the bathroom.

I made friends with some random guy who happened to be the drummer of the band that was playing live at the party and when they started their first set, I sat down in a chair close by and began drinking myself into oblivion.

And out of nowhere, this guy with no shirt and swastikas drawn all over his forehead approached me, looked around to see if anyone was looking and subsequently punched me in the face so hard I fell backwards off the chair I was sitting on.

And no, it wasn’t an instance of him picking on me because he liked me. Obviously.

My eye swelled up so much in the 5 minutes thereafter that I couldn’t even see out of it.

I’m fairly confident the extent of his punishment was being chased out of the party by a couple guys who actually witnessed what happened and he was never heard from again. At least by me.

MUAHAHAHAHA. [No, I didn’t kill him.]

Case #3: Breakup = Beat up.

I’m making it sound worse than it is. [Official abuse victim mantra]. But I actually am. I didn’t get beat up at all.

In university I casually dated this guy who I didn’t really care to put in effort with anymore. After him-hawing around the topic of breaking up, I finally decided to pick a fight with him so he would break up with me instead. [It’s always better when you get to be the victim, after all.] But he wouldn’t. And instead he showed up at my house wanting to talk it out.

After what seemed like hours, I had finally convinced him it would be better if we were just friends [cough, bullshit, cough] and went to give him a hug. And instead of hugging me back, he pushed me pretty hard into my bedroom door and stormed out. 

Case #4: No, actually, I don’t like being slapped in the face.

If you think “Like… in a sexual way?” in answer to “Do you like being slapped around?” actually means pretty please slap me in the face, please raise your hand.

No one?
Good.

He was a friend of a friend of mine and it was the first night I’d actually spent any amount of time talking to him. He seemed nice, we didn’t have trouble making conversation and I didn’t even really think it was that weird when he asked if I liked being slapped around. [Some girls do! I don’t judge.]

Until he actually slapped me. And then slapped me again, harder. And then again. And then somehow I was on the ground, by the front door of the house and was still being slapped in the face. 

Slapping back didn’t help. Saying “stop slapping me in the face” didn’t help. So I grabbed my coat and promptly left. And I never spoke to him again. 

Honorable mention goes to the following:

1. The girl who wanted to beat me up in high school for walking with my feet turned inward.
2. The guy who got so drunk on his birthday and kept head butting people (ie. me) that we had to force him to wear a helmet.
3. The guy who, on our first date, took me to a scary movie and screamed “YEAH BURN HER EYES OUT” out loud, in the theatre. He didn’t actually abuse me but the excitement he got from watching a girl’s eyes get burned out with a blow torch lead me to believe that I may end up mysteriously dead if we continued to date.  

Yes, I’m trying to make light of things. It’s easier than dealing with the fact that I’ve somehow managed to get myself into at least 4 different scenarios where some guy thought it was okay to hurt me. But in all actuality, I’ve been pretty lucky considering approximately 23% of women in Canada each year have reported experiencing being choked, beaten or threatened with a weapon.

And in case you didn’t know - which I did not - November 25th is International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. 
Girl power, bitches. *wink*