Rosimar Freitas
, Tampa Domestic Violence & Abuse ExaminerCan someone remain sane in the company of an abusive partner? Humanely speaking, how long does it take until someone crashes down due to physical, sexual and verbal abuse when they insist on staying in the relationship? What future awaits someone with damaged self-esteem and very little or zero self respect? According to MacMillan, from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, mental health among women who had been exposed to at least three different types of violence, the rate of mental disorders or substance abuse rose to 89%. Women are drastically more likely to develop a mental disorder at some point in their lives have been the victim of rape, sexual assault, stalking, or intimate-partner violence, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Soon or later, most victims give indications that their mental healths were affected.
According to the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center, Medical University of South Carolina, victims have considerable difficulty with disorganized sleep patterns, complaining that they cannot fall asleep, or if they do, they wake up during the night and cannot return to sleep. Those who have been attacked while sleeping in their own bed may awake each night at that time again. It is not uncommon for victims to scream out in their sleep.
In addition, a marked decrease in appetite is generally noticed by victims. They complain of stomach pains or describe loss of appetite or the food not tasting right. However, according to a victim interviewed at the Spring of Tampa Bay (2009) eating while crying is an expression of how hopeless someone feels while remembering the attack. The appetite can chance to no appetite to an uncontrollable feeling of need for food. The same victim stated something that perhaps a Therapist only would be able to comprehend “I eat to punish myself. Man does not look at me as much when I gain weight and I need the break”. This victim’s statement serve to show that mental physical or verbal abuse can change someone’s way of thinking.
Sometimes it is not a physical reminder, but rather a thought or emotion that triggers or stimulates a fear response. Certain people, places, things, or circumstances can trigger these thoughts. Other times, the thought simply enters the mind of the victims, apparently without anyclear stimulus. According to the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center, Medical University of South Carolina, many victims report that pictures of the event flash through their mind, even when they don’t want them to or when they try not to have the thought. These kinds of experiences—of having a frightening thought “invade” their mind—seem to be virtually uncontrollable at times and can certainly make it difficult to concentrate. This adds to the feeling many victims have of not being in control of their own lives. Furthermore, many people may have nightmares or “night terrors” (in which they wake up crying but cannot recall what they were dreaming about) related to the event. They feel that, even while asleep, they are not safe from frightening thoughts. These kinds of intrusive thoughts, images, and dreams may lead a victims to think they are “going crazy” since they does not seem to be able to control their dreams.
Sadly, woman are “going mad” since long ago, and the short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilmanin 1892 tells the story of a mentally troubled young woman, possibly named Jane. Everything that we learn or see in the story is filtered through the narrator’s shifting consciousness, and since the narrator goes insane over the course of the story, her perception of reality is often completely at odds with that of the other characters. On the Short Story published first by The New England Magazine, the narrator is in a state of anxiety for much of the story, with flashes of sarcasm, anger, and desperation. She complains that her husband John, who is also her doctor, belittles both her illness and her thoughts and concerns in general. She feels that activity, freedom, and interesting work would help her condition and reveals that she has begun her secret journal in order to “relieve her mind.” In an attempt to do so, the narrator begins describing the house”. However, her thoughts are interrupted by John’s approach, and she is forced to stop writing. By the end, the narrator is hopelessly insane, convinced that there are many creeping women around and that she has come out of the wallpaper—that she herself is the trapped woman. She creeps endlessly around the room, smudging the wallpaper as she goes. When John breaks into the room and sees the horror of the situation, he faints in the doorway, so that the narrator has “to creep over him every time!”
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