Oct 26, 2020
- Peer support is centered around being an active listener. One thing that I learned during peer support training is that being an active listener is actually really difficult. It requires you to be fully present in the moment, and to try to absorb the nuances of the conversation. Since conversations around mental health (and life in general) can be complex, being an active listener takes up a lot of brain space. When you’re actively listening, there’s not much time or brain space to “judge” the other person.
- If there’s any judgment going on, it’s the peer support volunteer evaluating themselves as a peer support volunteer. The peer support volunteers have undergone 40+ hours of training to be having that conversation with you during peer support hours. We get evaluated twice, once by other peer support volunteers, and once by our mentor at the Student Wellness Center. We really believe in the value of peer support, and are invested in constantly improving as peer support volunteers.
- We know that judging doesn’t help anyone. We’ve all had the experience of opening up to someone about something personal, and then feeling shut down because that person makes unhelpful judgments. All the peer support volunteers have been on the other end of peer support themselves, because we practice with each other during training. We’ve personally experienced during training how unproductive it is for a peer support volunteer to be judging us, so we actively strive not to do it ourselves.
The bottom line is that we’re not judging you because judging isn’t helpful to anyone.
~Amanda V. Chen ’21
Oct 23, 2020
Content warning: emotional abuse, abusive relationship
On my daily walk, I was listening to my Spotify Daily Mix and Hilary Duff’s “Stranger” came on. I hadn’t heard the song since I was in middle school. Now, a decade later, I was struck by the way the lyrics connected with the experiences that a friend had shared with me, regarding her time in an abusive relationship.
In honor of National Domestic Violence Awareness month, I asked this friend if she would be willing to discuss these lyrics as a way to share her experiences with a broader audience. She agreed, so we listened to “Stranger,” and talked about her previous relationship.
*Here is the final part of “Stranger,” a four-part series that is updated every day from October 20 – October 23. Lyrics will be centered and italicized. Comments from me (Amanda) will be denoted with an A; comments from my friend will be denoted with an L.**
___________
A: There’s no closure to this song, so we’re going to try to offer some closure.
L: I haven’t found closure.
A: Do you think you’ll ever find closure?
L: I haven’t thought about closure, because I don’t know what it looks like. Usually you look forward to things that you can actually visualize. For example, you’re graduating this year, and you can visualize the stage and the black robes, and the ceremony. What would closure look like for me? Would it be when my stomach acid finally goes away? Or when my jaw stops clenching? Or is it something more abstract?
A: What are some ways that your life is different now compared to when you were in the relationship then?
L: You know, you’re not bad at this peer support thing. Maybe you should consider offering your services sometime.
A: Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll look into it.
L: To answer your question, I can do a lot of things now without him criticizing. For example, I can use hair conditioner and not listen to him gripe about it being a waste of money. That being said, though I haven’t talked to him in a long time, I always hear his voice in my own head.
A: Has that voice changed in the past year and a half since you ended the relationship?
L: The voice hasn’t faded as much as I would have liked. When I speak up in Zoom class, I get short of breath because I automatically anticipate his criticism of what I’m saying. I start sweating a lot as well.
A: What are some coping mechanisms that you’ve developed?
L: I’m still figuring that out. But the people in my life have been really understanding of the changes that have happened to me. I haven’t told them details about the relationship, but they are considerate of the fact that I now startle more easily, am more sensitive to loud voices, and stress more easily. I know that the next step would be to work on self-compassion — I’m not there yet.
A: Earlier, you talked about having to rebuild your dignity. What has this process looked like for you?
L: The process is very early for me still. I’m still reminding myself I’m even worthy of dignity. I don’t have a deep answer to this, but one basic way I’ve been doing this is by taking care of my body even though my body doesn’t feel worthy. I hydrate when I’m thirsty, and I try to sleep when I’m tired. After I’ve done that, it’s like sending a message to my body that it’s worthy. So rather than wait for motivation that will never come, I take care of my body and in the process I realize my body matters.
A: Do you think there’s any reason for the abusive person to stop being abusive?
L: No. The person being abusive has it pretty good compared to the abused person. There’s no reason for the abuser to stop being abusive, really.
A: And there are always going to be people who are vulnerable to falling into an abusive relationship.
L: To be honest, they should be teaching about abusive relationships in school, at the very least the concept of gaslighting. If they can be teaching about Sex Ed, they can be teaching about abusive relationships. People are like “safe sex to protect your body,” but no one talks about protecting your mind.
A: Thank you for taking the time to talk to me about this.
L: This experience has been challenging but informative for me personally. I learned a lot — I wasn’t aware that I had all these thoughts. I hope this will resonate with some people.
________
From the National Domestic Violence Hotline: “Domestic violence (also referred to as intimate partner violence (IPV), dating abuse, or relationship abuse) is a pattern of behaviors used by one partner to maintain power and control over another partner in an intimate relationship.” https://www.thehotline.org/identify-abuse/understand-relationship-abuse/
Thank you to my good friend, L, for taking the time to talk through these lyrics with me and for sharing your story with a broader audience. Thank you to Todd Gibbs for providing the list of resources for Dartmouth students below.
For Dartmouth students, here are some resources and initiatives regarding sexual assault, sexual or gender-based harassment, dating or domestic violence, or stalking:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n-NF475K0QoLxzi6AtAvaWFt64iT1bbDh15lyo2cd2c/edit?usp=sharing
~Amanda V. Chen ‘21
Oct 22, 2020
Content warning: emotional abuse, abusive relationship
On my daily walk, I was listening to my Spotify Daily Mix and Hilary Duff’s “Stranger” came on. I hadn’t heard the song since I was in middle school. Now, a decade later, I was struck by the way the lyrics connected with the experiences that a friend had shared with me, regarding her time in an abusive relationship.
In honor of National Domestic Violence Awareness month, I asked this friend if she would be willing to discuss these lyrics as a way to share her experiences with a broader audience. She agreed, so we listened to “Stranger,” and talked about her previous relationship.
**Here is part 3 of “Stranger,” a 4-part series that is updated every day from October 20 – October 23. Lyrics will be centered and italicized. Comments from me (Amanda) will be denoted with an A; comments from my friend will be denoted with an L.**
_________
Verse 2:
Did I ever do anything that was this cruel to you?
Did I ever make you wonder who was standing in the room?
A: These lines were actually what made me think of doing this interview in the first place. It reminded me of the mind games and guilt that go into abusive relationships, people thinking, what did I do to deserve this?
L: In the first few months of the relationship, I still had some fight in me. I would say “I don’t think what you did is right.” “That made me uncomfortable.” By the end of the relationship, if he told me that the sky was purple, I would have believed him. One of the reasons that I left is that I had a really bad feeling that it was headed in the physical abuse direction. He was starting to raise his voice more, and he was starting to hit things. Not me, but things, like furniture. And I was afraid that I would let the physical abuse happen because I felt like everything was my fault. Like no matter what he did, what I did was worse.
A: But you said that you had less “fight” at the end of the relationship. So why would he have to raise his voice, start being more aggressive?
L: I was giving more and more and he was able to tolerate less and less. He was entitled. At the beginning, he probably felt like he still had to work for some things. As the relationship progressed, it felt like not fighting him was crucial for my safety because we were living together.
You made yourself look perfect in every way
So, when this goes down, I’m the one that will be blamed
Your plan is working, so you can just walk away
Baby, your secret’s safe
L: The last line is a cheeky line. It’s very clever. It’s true that his secret is safe. After the relationship was over, I told the bare minimum to my closest friends, and I specifically told them not to tell anyone. You would think it would be the opposite. I was paranoid about keeping it secret, as if I were the perpetrator. To this day, I can’t explain it. I’m telling this to you now because it’s anonymous.
A: Yeah, I really appreciate your willingness to share this with me right now. It can’t be easy to talk about a dark period in your life. We’re good friends, but I’ve kind of realized that I’ll never really know what happened during those two years or so with him, even though you’ve told me bits and pieces before and we’re doing this interview right now. I only know how it’s still affecting you today.
L: I think it’s worth noting that I’ve talked more about it in this interview than I have collectively in the last year and a half since I ended the relationship. The lyrics really helped guide this conversation. My friends used to ask me what happened and I couldn’t really answer. He redefined my reality every day and so my memory’s messed up.
I spoke to a friend who used to be an alcoholic, and I asked him what it’s like when he would black out. And he said you’re still living, responding to people and stimuli. You can hold a conversation. But the thing is that your brain has stopped recording it. And that’s the closest analogy that I can think of. And this might not apply to everyone who experienced abuse. If he did 1000 bad things, there are maybe 20 that I remember very clearly. The rest are blurry, I could probably remember if I tried hard enough, but I don’t want to go there. I don’t think my brain wants to remember all the bad things he did. What’s interesting is that the more time has passed, the more memories come back to me. Sometimes I’ll be using my chopsticks and suddenly remember the time he berated me at a restaurant for holding my chopsticks the wrong way.
Bridge:
Such a long way back from this place we are at
L: The most powerful lyrics. No one goes into a relationship looking for a bad time. We just want a happy ending. Maybe I was so fixated on the happy ending, that I turned a blind eye to the dark stuff.
A: I remember towards the beginning of your relationship, you would share a few romantic things that he did for you. Like you were long distance for a while, and he knew how to code, so he coded a compliment-bot. You write “hi” or “hello” to the bot, and it would spit out a compliment or some flirtatious comment very specific to you.
L: “Such a long way back.” Great lyric because it shows how much things can change in the course of a relationship. When I think way, way back to the beginning of the relationship, it was like a romantic movie. And then it would be disrupted by some horrific moments. But in the first few months, the ratio was still 90% romance and 10% horror or psychological thriller. Because he was testing the water. And then 2 years later it got to the point where it was romance one day and horror the next day, or it changed hour to hour. It happened so often that eventually I thought of romance and horror as the same genre. And I didn’t question it because it became my new reality. And there was no more sense of good or bad. How I interpreted it at the time was that every relationship is different, so maybe that’s just how my relationship was.
When I think of all the time I’ve wasted, I could cry
L: It’s been a year and a half since I moved out, and I still punish myself for the 2 and a half year long relationship. When I was younger I always thought the worst thing that could happen romantically was a breakup. But now I see that the worst thing was losing all that time because time is irreplaceable. I also lost a sense of my own humanity and dignity. I didn’t feel like a person. When you lose your sense of dignity, it’s very hard to rebuild. Dignity is a very abstract thing. Ideally you build it up over the course of many years through supportive relationships, education, work opportunities, etc. So when you lose that, the thought of having to start it up again and start from the beginning is overwhelming. For example, I had to rebuild my connections with family and friends. And now I have to think about what I like, now that I don’t have to spend time anticipating his mood swings. And how should I spend my time now? I feel like I have to make up for all that lost time.
______
From the National Domestic Violence Hotline: “Domestic violence (also referred to as intimate partner violence (IPV), dating abuse, or relationship abuse) is a pattern of behaviors used by one partner to maintain power and control over another partner in an intimate relationship.” https://www.thehotline.org/identify-abuse/understand-relationship-abuse/
Thank you to my good friend, L, for taking the time to talk through these lyrics with me and for sharing your story with a broader audience. Thank you to Todd Gibbs for providing the list of resources for Dartmouth students below.
For Dartmouth students, here are some resources and initiatives regarding sexual assault, sexual or gender-based harassment, dating or domestic violence, or stalking:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n-NF475K0QoLxzi6AtAvaWFt64iT1bbDh15lyo2cd2c/edit?usp=sharing
~Amanda V. Chen ‘21
Oct 21, 2020
Content warning: emotional abuse, abusive relationship
On my daily walk, I was listening to my Spotify Daily Mix and Hilary Duff’s “Stranger” came on. I hadn’t heard the song since I was in middle school. Now, a decade later, I was struck by the way the lyrics connected with the experiences that a friend had shared with me, regarding her time in an abusive relationship.
In honor of National Domestic Violence Awareness month, I asked this friend if she would be willing to discuss these lyrics as a way to share her experiences with a broader audience. She agreed, so we listened to “Stranger,” and talked about her previous relationship.
**Here is part 2 of “Stranger,” a four-part series that is updated every day from October 20 – October 23. Lyrics will be centered and italicized. Comments from me (Amanda) will be denoted with an A; comments from my friend will be denoted with an L.**
Verse 1 (cont.)
You treat me like a queen when we go out
Wanna show everyone what our love’s about
All wrapped up in me whenever there is a crowd
But when no ones around
L: He did a lot of performative things. If we were with friends, he would make a big show out of paying, even though he’s one of the stingiest people I ever met. Being overwhelmingly affectionate with PDA. It made me feel like a pet. Everyone ooh’s at how cute the dog is and how much the owner loves the dog. I remember people were generally charmed by how he treated me, like it was so wholesome and so sweet. He was very aware that people were around. And he wanted to make it clear to other people how great he was to me. But then he was uncomfortable with me actually expressing opinions. So he would talk about how smart I was but then be uncomfortable with me actually asserting myself.
Chorus:
There’s no kindness in your eyes
The way you look at me, it’s just not right
L: There were times when I would look into his eyes and it was like two black holes. There were times when I felt like he legitimately had no concern for my well-being. It was shocking because he was nothing like that when we first started dating. But things got worse as time passed. For instance, one winter, I was cold and he wouldn’t let me buy a blanket. We were living together at the time. The radiator was broken and he said I couldn’t order a blanket because the room was too small. The truth was he was just mad at me about something. I don’t remember exactly for what. But it doesn’t matter because his reasons for being upset changed everyday. It was psychological warfare.
I can tell what’s going on this time
There’s a stranger in my life
A: Why do you think the song is called “Stranger”?
L: Well, it’s that awful realization that the person who’s closest to you can be crueler than strangers. I’ve had strangers on the NYC subway express more genuine compassion for me at my low points than he ever did.
A: Can you give an example of this?
L: Once, there was construction on one of the trains, and I nearly missed the correct train. A stranger helped me on the right train and helped me with my suitcases. He just asked me about my life and never pushed his agenda or imposed his opinions on my life ever. With my ex, he was always pushing his agenda. Any chance he got to shape my thinking to be more like his, he took it. But “Stranger” could also refer to how when I got to know the person, he was nothing like I thought he was. I realized that he could be really nice to me, but only if he felt like it that day.
You’re not the person that I once knew
L: People always ask “well why would someone put themselves through that?” It’s like the fable of the boiling frog. In the fable, the frog doesn’t know it’s being boiled because it happens so gradually. It won’t notice and will remain in the water until it’s boiled to death. So of course in the beginning he was not like that. In the beginning, it was a lot of words and promises and compliments.
Are you scared to let them know it’s you?
If they could only see you like I do
Then they would see a stranger too
L: This is a common phenomenon. I think his friends would be really shocked if they knew how he treated me. We had a mutual friend, and that friend was stunned when I told him some of the things my ex used to do. He called it “eerie.”
_____________________
From the National Domestic Violence Hotline: “Domestic violence (also referred to as intimate partner violence (IPV), dating abuse, or relationship abuse) is a pattern of behaviors used by one partner to maintain power and control over another partner in an intimate relationship.” https://www.thehotline.org/identify-abuse/understand-relationship-abuse/
Thank you to my good friend, L, for taking the time to talk through these lyrics with me and for sharing your story with a broader audience. Thank you to Todd Gibbs for providing the list of resources for Dartmouth students below.
For Dartmouth students, here are some resources and initiatives regarding sexual assault, sexual or gender-based harassment, dating or domestic violence, or stalking:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n-NF475K0QoLxzi6AtAvaWFt64iT1bbDh15lyo2cd2c/edit?usp=sharing
~Amanda V. Chen ‘21
Oct 20, 2020
Content warning: emotional abuse, abusive relationship
On my daily walk, I was listening to my Spotify Daily Mix and Hilary Duff’s “Stranger” came on. I hadn’t heard the song since I was in middle school. Now, a decade later, I was struck by the way the lyrics connected with the experiences that a friend had shared with me, regarding her time in an abusive relationship.
In honor of National Domestic Violence Awareness month, I asked this friend if she would be willing to discuss these lyrics as a way to share her experiences with a broader audience. She agreed, so we listened to “Stranger,” and talked about her previous relationship.
*Here is part 1 of “Stranger,” a four-part series that is updated every day from October 20 – October 23. Lyrics will be centered and italicized. Comments from me (Amanda) will be denoted with an A; comments from my friend will be denoted with an L.**
_________
Verse 1:
Nobody believes me when I tell them that you’re out of your mind
L: When I think back on the relationship, a recurring theme was that it was always my fault. I’ll give you a small example. He wasn’t confident in parking curbside because he had bribed his driver’s test person to let him pass on that portion. I think it was $50. Anyway, one time he threw a fit when he visited me at my parents’ house because my parents had both parked their cars in the driveway, which meant he would have to park curbside. He was furious and told me that if my parents weren’t so materialistic and owned so many cars, then he wouldn’t have to park by the curb. I was so overwhelmed by his anger that in the end I apologized to him. That’s how most of our arguments ended. I was always saying sorry. But after the relationship ended and I told this to my friend, she was really shocked. I guess he didn’t seem like the kind of person who would act this way.
Nobody believes me when I tell them that there’s so much you hide
L: This is about isolation and secrecy. Very early on, I remember one of the things he kept repeating to me is “it’s us against the world so don’t tell people about our problems because they won’t understand”.“Us against the world” is highly romanticized in pop culture. There’s this common sentiment of “I don’t care what my friends and family say, I love you anyway,” which normalized it for me. He repeated that phrase a lot: “Us against the world.” The power of repetition. It was basically brainwashing. He talked about how special our relationship was, when it wasn’t; it was just really isolated. But he would say our relationship was unique and he was unique and that’s why no one would understand our problems.
I was always good at respecting people’s privacy. When he told me to respect his privacy by not talking about our issues, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that. It was my first relationship, and I thought being in an adult relationship meant that you and your partner deal with things together, without outside help or judgment. He didn’t like that I was close to my friends and family. So I began to disconnect from my support network. And that was a big problem. In a typical day, you would check up with your friends and tell them updates and use them as a sounding board. But I didn’t have that anymore. So I started to lose a sense of what is real.
A: I didn’t know that anything was wrong with the relationship, but I felt on some level that you weren’t doing well. I remember during that time, I would insist on weekly hour-long phone calls, even though sometimes you would ask to put it off because you weren’t feeling well or because you knew I had stuff going on. It’s true that at the time my life was crazy, I was founding MHU and I was taking Orgo and doing all the premed stuff. But I remember feeling like if I didn’t adhere to our weekly phone call, I would lose you completely. You would just float away.
L: Yeah, you were religious about those phone calls. Those calls were a weekly reminder that another person cared about me, cared about what I had to say. I had lost my voice in the relationship. And in these calls with you, I had to express myself. My whole life was “How was he doing?” and you kept asking me how I was doing.
___________
From the National Domestic Violence Hotline: “Domestic violence (also referred to as intimate partner violence (IPV), dating abuse, or relationship abuse) is a pattern of behaviors used by one partner to maintain power and control over another partner in an intimate relationship.” https://www.thehotline.org/identify-abuse/understand-relationship-abuse/
Thank you to my good friend, L, for taking the time to talk through these lyrics with me and for sharing your story with a broader audience. Thank you to Todd Gibbs for providing the list of resources for Dartmouth students below.
For Dartmouth students, here are some resources and initiatives regarding sexual assault, sexual or gender-based harassment, dating or domestic violence, or stalking:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n-NF475K0QoLxzi6AtAvaWFt64iT1bbDh15lyo2cd2c/edit?usp=sharing
~Amanda V. Chen ‘21
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