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 I've Felt Violated More Than Once
by Kathleen Howe
Have you ever tasted something very bitter before? The
taste somehow overtakes your taste buds and you can't seem to get rid of it. Has someone ever said something to you that hurt
you to your core? Have you ever been physically injured by someone?
It's a feeling that you have trouble describing. When someone walks up
to you and slaps you across the face there's a mixture of so many emotions and feelings that begin to surface. There's the
feeling of being humiliated. Feeling humiliated is caused by overwhelming embarrassment when something hurtful happens to
you in front of people or not in front of anyone on the other hand. It just happens and you know that it's really wrong. Who
gave that person the right to do that to you? It's illegal, it's demeaning. Demeaning is another way some people feel when
they've been violated.
Being violated can happen in any number of
ways. I've experience many of them. I remember when a very popular boy in the sixth grade grabbed me in the classroom and
kissed me straight on the lips because the teacher had left the room and there was some impending chaos. This guy wasn't my
boyfriend. He was flirting with me, but this boy was a conceited mess. He was so full of himself that he thought every girl
wanted to kiss him. I slapped him across the face.
Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing, not when he violated me when he kissed me, but when I slapped him in defense of my honor. Thirty years later at a class
reunion that was all he remembered about me. He had blessed me with a kiss from him and I slapped him across the face! He
still hadn't changed one bit! I instantly felt violated when he initially grabbed me by
both arms. He was in my space. But when he kissed me on the lips, that hurt me. I didn't want him to kiss me and he did it
just to humiliate me. I was violated.
I had that bitter taste in my mouth so to speak every time I thought about
that incident. There's something about self esteem that comes into play when you feel violated. You know you're worth more
than what someone is trying to do to you. In violating you they are trying to steal something very precious to you. They are
trying to steal your POWER. They don't have enough power within their own self, so they steal it from someone else instead
of gaining it in a positive way.
Violating people is very negative. But it's
the power those violators are more interested than anything else. That kid in the sixth grade wanted me to feel one inch tall.
Instead, I slapped him across the face which meant, I didn't like his kiss and that I was insulted at what he had done to
me. He had violated me and he needed a consequence for it!
Once you've been violated
more than once something happens deep inside of your gut. It gets harder to stay strong and keep your power from whoever is
violating you. You get confused from the intensity of the violation. Somehow your self esteem begins to suffer because you
think, "What am I doing that says, 'Violate Me?'" Have you ever been there before?
It's like when you get a tiny itsy bitsy hole in your Ziploc bag
that has dill pickles in it.
The hole somehow starts getting bigger and bigger until instead of a faint
spot of pickle juice emerging; it turns into droplets of pickle juice continually streaming out. It's harder to control all
that sour dill pickle juice and you suddenly have to give up and throw it away. That's what happens to our self esteem when
people continually violate you. It's like you're carrying a big sign in the air that says, "Here I am! Come and violate me
and steal my power now because I'm so hurt and tired now I can't defend myself!" And that what seems to happen!
The violations hurt so much, that you lose
your ability to think straight. You lose your self esteem. You lose the ability to use common sense and think rationally.
Irrational thinking sets in. Soon you begin to think the only way you can attract people is if you let them violate you. You
get really confused! So where at first, the first time you were violated it was by accident, no reason, it just happened to
you that day. And later on, you begin to invite violations by not being able to defend or protect yourself any longer. It
just becomes habit to act like a victim.
This has happened to me. Once I ran out of self esteem, I began to lose
my power at a much faster rate. I began behaving in ways that would induce violation. I had a big sign up in my behavior that
said, "violate me!" And believe me, there's lots of bullies out there that love taking peoples' power from them. They love
violating others because it makes them feel stronger and they feel like less of a loser - yes they do - believe it or not
- they believe that their victim is the biggest loser. It's a big circle and it happens very quickly once it begins to go
into motion.
Please re-visit this page in the near future and it will be stocked with
important articles that if you read them, will educate you further about being violated. Once you've educated yourself enough
to understand being violated and what that means, you can feel powerful enough to make changes in your behavior that will
be to protect you from being violated. Take this topic seriously! It's very important!
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