The power of redefining abuse trauma

Ever heard the story of the frog? It's said, dip a frog in boiling water, and it jumps out immediately and lives on. Put it in warm water, slowly raise the temperature, and it stays until it dies.

I write this on 16th December 2023, the 11th anniversary of the Jyoti Singh rape case of Delhi in 2012 aka the Nirbhaya case, wondering if women are like frogs too.

Most, if not all women experience some kind of physical abuse in their lifetime. Public Transports, those perverted cousins and uncles of the family, and for some unfortunate women their fathers and brothers.

As a woman, I can say, that physical abuse is easier to recognize. There is no confusion in the minds. If a random hand comes close to your private parts in public transport, the reflex response is to block it, clear away, shout for help, but fight back nevertheless. Much like throwing the frog in the boiling water.

But break a woman emotionally to kill her slowly.

It's not that one uncle, but when she opens up to her own brothers and fathers (and mothers too) and they abandon her, when they don’t stand to protect her and let her abusers go away claiming "they are family"; that's putting the frog in the warm water. She stays for the love of her family.

She turns to her friends. They judge and joke.

"You are always whining and playing a victim”.

"You are weak. You should have fought back."

Some even misinterpret the need for empathy as an "asking for it".

"She came for my shoulders so I can go for vag***"

This ignorance and misunderstanding raise the temperature.

She slowly begins to be by herself and develops hate. But she still stays.

Her love holds her and compensates for the hate.

Then one day, someone breaches the walls she built around her; she finally finds love and learns to trust again, only to see the man flip into his egoistic and insecure self.

Despite it all, she tries harder for the new hope of jumping out of the vessel. But it was only a disguised narcissism.

It's a battle of trying to love people who ar killing her. 

Majority wins.

One day, she dies.

Who killed her?

"all men." 

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Isn't all the hate, distrust, and rebellion from women who suffer justified?

But the real question is, is she happy? Does she miss herself?

If you have had a near-drowning experience in the ocean, even a swimming pool makes you nervous.

But settling for a pool doesn’t help in the long run.

The temporary peace after chaos can be attractive at first but soon after when you get comfortable in the safety of the pool, you’ll miss the adventures of the ocean. You’ll compare, regret and blame that experience for making you settle for a pool.

And secondly, it’s unfair and disrespectful to the pool, that it’s made to feel he is ‘not enough’.

You have to go back to the ocean. For your sake. You deserve the ocean. Forget the entitlement; don't you want the ocean? And when have we gotten anything without working for it?

The trauma is not your end. It can't be.

We don't always control our experiences but we do hold the power to end the negative effects of that experience. Hurt people need not hurt people. It starts a chain of hatred. Hurt people heal themselves and others.

You don’t return to the ocean immediately; you take small steps with calculated risks and lessons learnt.

Think about all the possible what-went-wrongs now with a "what part of it could you have controlled", and "how to improve"?

Were you underprepared for the ocean? So you go practice harder this time.

Did you go in with a faulty boat? So you check and test all your equipment on the next trip.

Was it trusting the wrong fellow sailors? So it would help if you learned to judge right (and not run away from people altogether)

Don't give yourself the option to quit.

You need someone who knows your experiences but is disassociated with your feelings to help you rationally. Creating an alter ego may help to do this root cause analysis by self-distancing and adding more objectivity. This rationale will also help you forgive yourself. Alter Ego gives you the power to redefine your story. Release the hurt and resentment for your self growth. Forgive yourself.

At this point, it's also important to understand that you’ll never be that same self again.

You’ll change. And you SHOULD change.

Remember how excited you were when you first went to the pool with the swim ring? Now you don’t. Trauma matures you, just like age and academics, a little too fast.

No matter how hard you try, you can’t go back into oblivion and forget the lessons you learned on the way.

That however doesn’t mean you can’t be wowed again. As an adult, surfing in the ocean or snorkelling with the big fishes will excite you. You overcome trauma when you find these new things that make you feel the same old way, or even better. That’s when you win over the trauma.

This time you go back to the ocean prepared and healed. This is your wiser version. A more un-f*ck-with-able version. There is a fair chance you might fail again. Just like the frog who tried too long and died at the end. But mind you, the frog died of trying, not quitting. When she was misunderstood, she stopped expecting; when she was judged, she started explaining; she always knew, yet she always chose love. Now, she is made to believe she could have quit earlier, so she has, but she is also unhappy. Though scared and skeptical, she is still love.

More than the waters, it’s about you. Like we say at the Alter Ego Community, your dreams deserve your hard work. All men, more than 4 billion of them, don't matter. Only a handful of them in our lives do. Trusting yourself again to trust right is the key to someday confidently saying "not my men".

We don’t know our end like we know the frog's but we know someday it will happen.

And how would you like to be known then- the one who died trying or the one who quit?

You have the power of redefining abuse trauma. Trust yourself.