boiling the frog
Some of you may have heard that old fable about cooking a frog. If you drop them straight into boiling water, the frog will jump out. But, if you put them in tepid water and slowly raise the temperature little by little the difference will be imperceptible and the frog will end up boiling alive.
It doesn't have much scientific standing but the analogy is very relevant to domestic violence. Survivors are often asked why they didn't leave sooner if it was that bad. If we saw the signs before we were in above our heads. When did it start? When did it get bad? Did you KNOW? And honestly in the weeks following my choice to leave, I drove myself a little insane trying to find the right answers.
The answers I have are honestly less than satisfying. There's hardly ever a distinct start to domestic abuse. There were little backhanded comments, boundaries that were crossed, requests that were ignored, but he insisted they weren't intentional. Did I marry him with the thought that in 6 months I would be fighting for my life while he effectively abandoned me? No. Did I see a flawed and hurting human that I could possibly be of benefit to? Absolutely.
It didn't start as something abusive. But I think it is important to talk about how it started, how it escalated, and what made it difficult to leave.
We met through a mutual friend. He messaged me the moment he had my number. It was new and exciting. We clicked right away.
He would text me near constantly. We had a lot of the same interests; and he was fun to talk to. A lot of my previous relationships, even in the beginning, I was more of an after thought. I was the girl they dated because I was convenient, or because the person they actually wanted wasn't available. (I'm not being dramatic, one ex boyfriend was engaged to the girl he had wanted for years less than six months after dumping me. 🚩🚩🚩)
Very quickly I became the center of his universe, and it was honestly intoxicating. He doted on me. Wanting to know Everything. Declaring himself my white knight, and playing the role well.
We hadn't met in person yet when my best friend moved cross country. I was not in a good place and wanted to be alone. I told him as much but he insisted on talking anyway. He told me he loved me and was sorry I was hurting so badly. He said he wished he could hold me and dry my tears. He told me I was beautiful in spite of my swollen eyes and reddened nose.
It didn't register at the moment because "who could possibly have ulterior motives at a time I was so obviously emotionally raw?". In that moment he not only crossed a boundary (I had told him days in advance I would not be up for talking that day.) But was also love bombing while I was at my most vulnerable.
Love bombing is easy to mistake for simple enthusiasm in the beginning. I certainly did. I kept thinking it was a lot. It was overwhelming but I convinced myself that it was because I just wasn't used to the attention largely because that's what he told me it was. The biggest differences are timing and context.
Timing is different for everyone but if you consistently are trying to press the brakes while they ignore you and press the gas it might be something to note. This conversation happened 6 months into our relationship.
He basically told me he planned on proposing asap and didn't care if he had my parent's approval. He told me he loved me before we ever met in person. Our first date he asked how soon he could propose. On our honeymoon he asked how difficult it would be to remove my birth control because it would be "romantic" to conceive right away.
Context is also imperative. Its where love bombing can turn dark. I'm pretty open in talking about my anxiety and depression. He regularly brought up unpleasant moments from my past and reframed them, saying how given the chance he would have come charging in to be my savior. It might have been charming had I been the one to bring up these unpleasant moments, but I rarely was.
Love bombing usually feels a little excessive. I use pet names a lot but I tend to stick to ones that don't put my partner on a pedestal (hun, babe, sweetheart). He... didn't.
I was always a little uncomfortable with the implication that I was somehow more than human, but again convinced myself that I just wasn't used to the attention. My personality and more importantly my self doubt made me a perfect target. It always came across as genuine adoration. You essentially get addicted to the initial love bombimg and spend the rest of the relationship searching for that high.
As to when it got bad... I'm honestly not sure. Like I said it happens incredibly slowly. It's nearly imperceptible in the beginning. There were lots of little things along the way. Boundaries that were crossed (then vehemently apologized for) little snide or backhanded comments that were blamed on bad days. Verbal abuse brushed off with "I was mad. You know I didn't MEAN it."
Abuse tends to keep you in a haze. I found myself having blips of consciousness. I would regularly feel like I was sleepwalking through life. I would "wake up" when he would push buttons: putting pressure on me, and effectively raising the temperature of the proverbial boiling frog. It registered momentarily as rude or unfair but never sunk in as abusive before I faded back into the haze.
Eventually him screaming in my face didn't seem abnormal. Important conversations were always derailed, so I would end up dissociating through them. When he called me terrible names, the shock value was gone. Its substantially more difficult to leave a situation that doesn't seem abnormal. Your brain is in such a fog you can't properly process what is happening. You are in a constant state of fight or flight which means you are incapable of actually processing one event before the next event occurs.
I (and many others like me) didn't even realize it was abuse until it got dangerous. More often than not, upbringing, prior relationships, and past experiences play into our initial acceptance of the abuse. Playing into our beliefs and experiences that we aren't enough. Preying on our sense of loyalty.
Suddenly those nasty thoughts in the back of your mind saying "You don't deserve attention." "You're so undesirable you earned this treatment." "There's something fundamentally wrong with you" are given voice. And because it's the voice of someone who promised to love and protect us, we're apt to believe it.
Abusers are masters of pushing limits. Heating the water little by little. Raising it five degrees and when you state your discomfort pulling back one. It becomes the norm and as such we don't even realize what is happening until we look around and find ourselves in a pot of rapidly boiling water.
I got out with my life. I had a loving support system that helped me to rebuild. I got to go far enough away that I don't have to worry about his actions. I'm one of the lucky ones. I was burned but not boiled.
