Doing a little self-therapy - trying to discover past times when I stood up to abusive behavior. I was thinking about how what we do can impact others - positively and/or negatively.
Have you ever impacted someone in a very certain way - due to their abuse of you?
What happened - specifically?
I'll go first.
A boy really liked me. We were in 4th grade together. His name was Patrick. Every day at recess he would follow me around, try to kiss me, tell everyone around that I was his girlfriend. One day, he scratched our names into some playground equpment. Patrick + ____ = love.
I went up to him, and I told him, "if you do that one more time, I'm going to punch your lights out."
Well, next day, he did it. Only with more drama. So.....I punched him. Down he went on the playground.
That evening, there was a loud bang! bang! bang! on our front door. My brother went to the door and opened it. There was a 12 year old, very angry boy....and Patrick standing behind him.
He said, "My little brother just had heart surgery. And your sister BEAT HIM UP on the playground today! What are you gonna do about it?"
My brother turned to me, a questioning look in his eye. "Yep, I did. I warned him. If he kept bothering me about being my boyfriend, I'd punch him. He kept bothering me, so I punched him."
My brother looked at him and said, "Yep, she beat him up. If you don't get out of here, I'm going to BEAT YOU UP!"
Boy did that validation feel good from my bro.
But, after a while, I felt bad about punching a boy who'd had open heart surgery. I honestly didn't know. Would I have behaved differently? Yes, I think I would have found a less dramatic way(!)
Dandylife