I had a thought triggered while watching "Being Mary Jane" about my own life and the Native community at-large. Do Native women also feel not worthy of being loved and in a good relationship? Too often we see Native women being in abusive relationships. Too often we see Native women experience sexual assault and violence, and are those experiences permeating into our mental unconsciousness? Do we feel we are unworthy of love, a good and healthy type of love.
I have experienced being verbally and physically abused in a relationship, so I can understand some of my personal psyche. At the time I was young and did not know better. I thought maybe this is how love is supposed to be? I was naïve. I was clueless. I was in love. I dealt with a lot. However, I knew that what I was experiencing was not right - it did not feel right and I cried a lot. I know for a fact that 90% of Native or more experience or have experienced verbal and/or physical abuse. If this is considered a norm in our community, how do we change it? How do we talk about it? In our community, talking about domestic violence is considered taboo, because we do not want to "rat" out people who do wrong things. We do not expose what is going in our household. However, that could be considered part of the issue. At the end, do you feel as a Native woman should you receive the best?
I also had an enlightenment from my own thoughts. Personally, I have been challenged with the rough world of academia. The academy constantly tells, especially women in color in science, that we are not smart enough-good enough-well trained enough. I wonder if the consistent harsh environment has seeped through my psyche unconsciously as well? In some aspects, it's as if the whole world is telling you that you're not good enough and how does that impact our personal relationships? How does it impact mine? Or does it? (A question I have to ask myself)
When we find a good man, do we also possess that imposter syndrome? The imposter syndrome is a thought that we are an imposter and do not belong here and this term is often used in people of color who are in academia. As Native women, do we psych ourselves out by finding something wrong with a good man because he is too good, and make excuses for the not so good men because that is our norm? If we do, then how do we change our personal framework and demand-expect-receive-believe better?
Although I agree wholeheartedly with your comments, I think the Native community needs to be aware of NPD. Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I have been with my Native man for 39 years it wasn't until 2012, I realized he was not the man I married. Clean cut, handsome, very stable, a hard worker. As the decades have passed and our children, grandchildren were no longer in need of a caregiver. My disabled brother regained enough strength to live on his own. My parents long since passed on along with my aunt who had no children of her own. I learned words such as "gaslighting" "covert narcissism" "hovering" "crazy making" the list goes on. I always pushed back the feelings I had after each shouting match. I read something early this morning that explained emotional abuse very clearly for me. This is for adults because children it is different. There is an unwritten contract between the victim and abuser. The abuser projects onto the victim his/her hurts. See the abuser REALLY BELIEVES their small problem was made much bigger by the victim. The victim feels they need to help the abuser to feel better. That is the victim's role to help the abuser change. But the abuser will never change or at least the cards are stacked against them. This type of abuse is growing in America. I plan on researching why, see I have four grandchildren that need to be aware of such trickery. There are many books, facebook pages & live groups to join. The victims of this type of abuse are severely emotionally, mentally and physically adhered for life. I suffer from chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, depression and anxiety. Now looking back I wonder all the operations, pills, chemo, IV drip therapies, counseling sessions, and PTSD were from nearly four decades of physical and emotional abuse. Please google these keywords and go into the light of all the therapies and groups that are listed. You will learn that it isn't you! It never was you! It has nothing to do about you!
ReplyDeleteHello!! I am just no reading this! I agree that there are many forms of NPD and I am familiar with that experience as well. I think all forms of abuse are valid, emotionally-mentally-verbally-physically, which goes hand-in-hand with what you experienced.
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