Basic Rights (in a Relationship) or, I turn thirty

In an interview with Rookie Mag, Sister Simone Campbell says the following: 

I think the hard part of being young is that you’re mostly looking forward, and whenever you look forward, you can’t see—it’s dark. Now that I’m a little bit older I can look back and see, Oh, my life looks like a straight line, it’s pretty impressive.

There's a lot of hope in that sentiment for me--that where I am now is a continuing point along what will eventually reveal itself to be a straight line. Although at the moment it all feels unsteady and looks rather murky. Rounding the corner from twenty-nine to thirty years old last month has got me thinking about myself. A little healthy navel gazing, I suppose. My path does seem pretty all over the place, almost like the steps that led me to where I am now--working a job I love, living alone, feeling content with myself in the world--were by random chance and weird luck. Mostly I find myself looking back over my twenties with relief that they're over, and with regret over the huge chunk of those years that I spent outside of reality. Seriously, my view of self was so distorted that it tainted the way I saw others and how I saw the world. Not all of me was traumatized, but my core was covered up, hidden, buried. It took years to scour away the tarnish and discover myself to be a happy, healthy, worthy person. In many ways, I feel like a survivor. I guess I am one. 

I'm not sure how helpful it is to place blame, especially in a hindsight sort of way. Luckily--for me in this instance--the past is the past. That doesn't make it less true, just less paralyzing. Now I can say that I spent four precious years in an emotionally abusive relationship, being manipulated, controlled, criticized, compulsively lied to, diminished. (I strongly encourage anyone who is unfamiliar with the term emotional abuse--as I was until quite recently--to read up on it). I don't say this to make people in my life feel bad (how could they have known? I didn't know!) or to stir up old shit or cause drama. I write this here, now, because I believe it matters. It matters to me a great deal, and it might matter to you reading this, and at the very least it matters that emotional abuse becomes a familiar term so that it is not tolerated. 

In very Good Will Hunting-like fashion, I want to tell the Kelly in her mid-twenties that this is not her fault, that no one asks for this or is deserving of it, that she did the best she could, and that that was enough. And I would tell her the following, whether she would be able to hear it or not:  

"You have been involved in an emotionally abusive relationship, and you may not have a clear idea of what a healthy relationship is like. Consider the following as basic rights in a relationship for you and your partner:

• The right to good will from the other.
• The right to emotional support.
• The right to be heard by the other and to be responded to with courtesy.
• The right to have your own view, even if your partner has a different view.
• The right to have your feelings and experience acknowledged as real.
• The right to receive a sincere apology for any jokes you may find offensive.
• The right to clear and informative answers to questions that concern what is legitimately your business.
• The right to live free from accusation and blame.
• The right to live free from criticism and judgment.
• The right to have your work and your interests spoken of with respect.
• The right to encouragement.
• The right to live free from emotional and physical threat.
• The right to live free from angry outbursts and rage.
• The right to be called by no name that devalues you.
• The right to be respectfully asked rather than ordered."

It's not possible to go back in time and erase the past. I wouldn't want that, really. It's not possible to be who I am and pretend that that chapter in my life doesn't exist. It exists, and it's sequential with the chapters before and those following that bring me to say of my life, "it's pretty impressive." I'm a little bit older, and looking forward doesn't seem so dark. 

RESOURCES:

Evans, Patricia. The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize It and How to Respond. Holbrook, Massachusetts: Bob Adams, Inc., 1992.