I’m 99% confident I misrembered this quote. I also am unclear on where it originated, but am equally unconfident it is from The Princess Bride (the movie, not the book).

Life update: I am finally in the process of formally getting assessed and diagnosed for Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), meaning the tedious process of relaying my childhood trauma, abuse, neglect and connecting it to more recent trauma, abuse, and failed relationships is in full swing. There is great annoyance in me that clinicians were convinced that the unwillingness to place unabashed trust into a stranger meant there was an absence of trauma and applicable conditions.

Update atop: Apparently being assessed and diagnosed means being met with the legendary feedback that the clinician is unwilling to document their own findings because they feel my disorder/issue is outside their scope of practice. While I have very little desire in me to convince a therapist that they are more competent than they think, the best advice a professor ever gave me was in the form of a compliment: “You are extremely competent within foundational and applications of concepts.”

Where does this leave us?

Currently, my brain is spiraling as my panic ensues and my ability to think beyond autonomic functions congruent to breathing becomes more apparent. It took a stupid amount of time to begin the g-ddamn healing process. Motherfucking bullshit levels of courage and dumbassery were apparently prerequisite.

I just saw the new Sydney Sweeney biopic Christy about the life of a boxer, the first well-known and widely acclaimed female boxer, apparently. Spoiler for y’all: her husband in the film is outlandishly abusive and violent. My heart pounded so vibrantly during the expertly crafted cinematography. My body was transported. Damn.

The first scene that tore my soul?

Christy is trying to get help from her mamma, and her mom remarks that Jim mentioned Christy was using some drugs, and that he was worried about her. Christy is told to clean herself up and not make a scene while the family eats her birthday cake.

See, I hate to pretend this is far-fetched. But … also … the fact that people were more alarmed with Jim remarking that he’d kill Christy if she left him … cut the tension.

I heard this man on screen damn near draw a fucking diagram and plan in front of his beloved wife on how he would end her life. That part meant nothing. That moment, that redundant moment, was the only thing that made me wonder if Hollywood really found it so impossible to define the husband as abusive without overtly calling it out.

I hate to say it.

But the guy who throws his hands around your neck and gets mad at you for losing consciousness isn’t scaring you by saying he’ll kill you. Truth is, while dumbass researchers and morons who think they know better claim that’s terrifying – that open-ended event is the most compelling reason to keep going.

I wasn’t scared of some idiot because he threatened to kill me.

For what it’s worth, I didn’t think he had it in him. Christy captured my heart when Jim stated he was going to murder her and the words out of her mouth were simply, “You do what you have to.”

That is the truth.

I very easily fought my way through being battered, bruised, shattered, and pounded to a shell of a human. The issue never had been I didn’t think I was enough. The maniac in me that lived off of adrenaline wasn’t worried about losing a fight. I simply had this innate fear that one day, other people would conclude the very sentiments he threw into my face, short quips that shut me down before I could even breathe.

For me, being told that I didn’t mean anything without him and that I was desperately in need of serious help – those swirled in my head and became the only features of myself I found any solace in holding true.

Some people would say this is coercive control.

Others could say this is codependence.

One of them defines a power dynamic of abuse that often masks violence.

One of them defines an unhealthy relationship structure that may or may not be violent.

While one shows empathy toward the struggle, the other aims to promote equal blame through disambiguation of a highly unexplored area of expertise in clinical practice. While many people can point to research surrounding domestic violence, the research itself focuses on public programming and legal rammifications. These barely account for what goes on, since the reported numbers are the only ones that have a chance of being studied further.

Services are geared toward people with the freedom to seek help.

It’s really easy to assume abuse is only like that depicted in Christy in extreme circumstances when news repeats endlessly that her experience is the least likely to ever recieve adequate support from outsiders. Because movies show a girl being slapped so lightly not even the glasses on her face move as severe violence.

The point is not to suggest someone has to accept that behavior.

Yet, if we ignore that a spectrum of experiences will definitionally equate to comparative statics on harm rendered? Who are we helping?

Yours truly,

Dorothy B

XOXO