DV Class
Posted on Saturday, June 20th, 2009 at 7:30 amDavid
This is the post I’ve been thinking about the past couple of days…how do I describe DV class to you so you get the picture. Well, I’ve decided to start out by telling you what it’s not. It’s not a support group…in fact, our facilitator, explicitly told us not to discuss our individual cases with each other. It’s not a place to give advice: Only after you have been a “survivor” for a year over two years can you think about becoming a facilitator/counselor. It’s not a place of promising statistics: 1-5% of abusers can/do recover. It’s not a place to bash your abuser: The focus is on us. It’s not a place I want to go back to: But, I’m glad it’s there if I need to, I can repeat a single class anytime.
So what is it? Length: 1-2 hour class, every week for 8 weeks. Format/Class: The class cycles at 8 weeks, but never closes…so although there were a few of us there for most of the eight weeks, others dropped off (completed), while others joined in at different weeks. There were never move than 10 of us in the class at any one time. We sat in a circle and we listened to the facilitator. She gave us hand outs and each week we reviewed a different topic. She was serious, tough and kind. I was one of the few in the class that took notes. Topics ranged from the Injunction Process to Safety Planning to Healthy Boundaries to Self-Care. I was just looking through my notes now…I’ll share one of the first handouts I received about Harbor House Outreach:
We are honored that you are here with us! We are here to listen. We are here to help you discover what you are feeling. We are here to help you identify your strengths and options. We are here to discuss steps with you. We are here to help you discover you can help yourself. We are here to help you learn to choose and to provide you support for change.
It was difficult for me at times, to hold back from interjecting…to just listen…to be a student…to leave my opinions with me.
There was time for small talk before and after the meeting…only women attended…young to middle aged. Some had already divorced…some were in the court process…some were still with there abusers…I don’t know that any were on the road to reconciliation. One woman, drove to the location early, drove around for a while to make sure her husband wasn’t following her…her three children were in foster care because of the calls regarding abuse in the home (to her)…she didn’t have a job (he wouldn’t let her work)…etc…etc… I could see her answers…thank God I had…as they say, “some program in me”…she was in the right place to figure it out for herself…and she did…by the end of the eight weeks, she was a different person…she had a job…started to wear a little make-up…had left her husband and was finding out what made her happy…she had also been arrested…apparently she turned on her husband one night when he was chasing her and started to hit him with a 2×4…she had had enough! I didn’t like this part of her story…I was happy that she was finding some happiness, etc..etc…, but when the women in the room nervously laughed at this…I…well I don’t know what I felt…I understood the desire to physically hurt the person (you) who was hurting me…to fight back…but I also felt…haven’t we learned something here…people! Violence begets violence. And, here the group is cheering on the very behavior that they are against…the behavior that got them to the room in the first place! It was weird. But, she found a way to break the cycle for herself and was ordered to attend BIP class. She didn’t care…she was free of it, and it was worth it. I’m feeling confused right now…not really sure where this was going, or why I wanted to relay it to you. Was arresting you my 2×4? Maybe…I can tell you, I wasn’t laughing that night…but it did begin to break the cycle and even with all the uncertainty, fear, anger and tears that night brought…it felt good to be freed.
Well…gotta go for now…birds are calling and so is Camper Ellen. Off to pick her up this morning.
Jen
Hi David,
Thanks for your response…and for the details of your saving grace…I could see you in it all…I’m glad you stopped when you needed to (or had to)…hydrilla…mmm…maybe I should send the city an email and thank them for giving you something to do that helped to keep you in the moment. But really, it sounds like the city tried to do a good thing in a really bad way. I am sorry that I didn’t write as promised…sorry that my unkept promise sent you reeling to the future. The best thing I’ve done for myself with these blog entries is to not assume…it helps keep me in the moment.
Well, Ellen’s home and it’s good to have her here…we had a great ride home and now I’m off to Publix so I can feed our camper!
Hasta. Jen
PS – I will be interested to know what BIP says about the 1-5% statistic, too…being in that number is up to you…I think you can be…because I believe you want to be…I know I want you to be, too.
Jen: One to Five percent? That is spooky. I’m going to ask about that in BIP.
Will I be in that number, when the saints go marching in?
Yesterday I wanted to do something physical to distract my mind, to burn off calories, to wear myself out. I couldn’t stop thinking about your broken promise to write me and I didn’t like being possessed by the thought. Repeatedly, through the morning and early afternoon I victimized myself with explanations for why you had not posted to the blog much of anything all week, why you had not commented on earlier posts. I victimized myself further by projecting my thoughts into the future – the future I didn’t want, the doom your disinterest surely forecast. I imagined just which steps I would need then to save myself, and what type service work I might do to survive. And occassionally I would stop to remind myself the present is where I was and where I needed help. In those moments, a little voice reminded me to “Just keep swimming.”
I almost took the advice. I went down to the lake to pull weeds from the water.
The city has sprayed chemicals into the lake to kill the hydrila. Now its dead, floating everywhere, decaying rapidly, spoiling the clarity of the water, and heating it up enough to promote bacterial growth.
When I had pulled from the water all I could from shore, or by wading out in my swim trunks, I flipped the row boat off its stand and into the lake.
It didn’t take long to fill the boat with dead hydrilla. And at last nothing but this simple, stenuous task was on my mind. I returned to shore with the near capsized boat loaded with green, rotting hydrilla. Arm load after arm load, I hauled the weeds from the boat and spread them thinly on the lawn so that they would dry the next day in the sun. By the time the boat was empty I was soaring: my breathing was deep and excellerating; by heart pulsed strongly; my body was wet with persperation; where I was was where I wanted to be.
I launched the boat again into the lake to get a second load. By this time I was giddy. Perhaps, I thought, I could take the dried hydrilla to Buddy Dyer’s house, and put it on his lawn. Perhaps he lives on a lake and I could put it there, let him see it, let him smell it. Or, perhaps, I could send a thank you card to all the neighbors, a card that would thank them with a lie, a card that would say something like, “I just want to thank whoever it was that convinced the city to pay me to remove the dead hydrilla from the lake and dry it on my parents lawn.” That I was sure, in my adrenalin drunk state, would prompt someone in the neighborhood to call the city and stir things up. I laughed loudly from the middle of the lake pulling arm loads of hydrilla into the boat.
When I’d spread the second boat load of hydrilla on the lawn, I decided to stop. I was too tired to lift the boat back onto its rack. But, “There are thieves,” I thought. So, I tried. I tried a second time. I tried again. “Am I fifty? Is this what it means?” I tried again. I paused. I sat. I felt my heart. I felt my chest heaving.
Then I saw the fingernail on the middle finger of my left hand. It had nearly grown completely in. It was a measure of how long I’ve been away from home; I smashed it in with the door of the shed early March twelth. And I remembered shouting at you one day, two days, everyday I worked myself like this at home. And I worked myself like this every chance I got.
“I’ll ask Mary Jane,” I decided, “if there’s a connection, if it’s the rapid breathing, if it’s pushing the heart rate off the charts, if I have to give up another addiction.”
One to Five percent.
I am glad you weren’t here yesterday.
But I miss you.
I am sure that I am controlling. And I am sure you both invite and provoke control. But I don’t know what else to say right now, except thanks.
Thank you for writing.
David