Reflections on highlighting my violence

In my article where I shared that I called the suicide hotline for my wife, I expressed that I slapped her a couple of times, and that I feel guilty about it.

Two people expressed concerns over this sharing of my expression of violence.

One was more kind:

You could be criminally charged with assault, and in some countries, your child could be taken away into child protective services, if it was reported that you slapped your wife.

The second wasn’t so kind:

You can make all sorts of excuses about how you were stressed and tired in the moment, but nothing excuses physical abuse towards a loved one.

Why in the world would you even think of publishing it onto your online platform? And a professional platform as well at that. It is unprofessional because domestic violence is illegal in most countries and is culturally frowned upon, I’m sure I don’t have to explain this to you. Your platform has an international audience so it’s good to keep this mind.

As I’m reflecting over the week, my wife mentioned that her psychologist and doctor called her and asked her whether she would like to report my violence to the police. She said no.

These made me think of a couple of things. I’m going to split them into the following sections:

1. It’s the truth
2. Why be violent?
3. Types of violence
4. Laws against physical violence
5. Why publish this?
6. Honesty and confessions
7. The power of confessions
8. After a confession

It’s the truth

My wife has thought of suicide many years ago. The slaps were a trigger that resurfaced those extremely negative reactions.

I did not want to hide this fact.

Hiding this fact prevents me from facing the truth — and in turn, I will secretly blame her even more than I do. (I blame me too).

Why be violent?

I did not want to be violent. I suspect most people who love their families won’t ever want to be violent against them.

Because when we hurt our loved ones, we hurt ourselves even more. So why?

Person Number 2 couldn’t understand

I struggle to understand why you would decide to slap her, physically abuse her, as a response to her stress in the first place. No matter how upset you are at someone, let alone a LOVED ONE, you should never resort to physical abuse.

It turns out that most of our behavioural patterns — even violent ones — were learned during childhood.

It’s quite common for Chinese families to scold and beat up their children 30 years ago. (You can guess our age now).

Since we’re both Chinese, we were affected by these environments. But we each received a different “education” on violence. So yes, we both have violent roots, but we both also try to keep these under control as much as we can. (Tell me who doesn’t do that?).

Now: I don’t blame our parents because they were trying their best too. It’s likely our parents got beaten and scolded in their time as well. This sorta thing is called Generation Trauma.

Unfortunately, we don’t have full control over our subconscious and unconscious minds so violence can seep out from time to time. Usually, it’s when there is an accumulation of negative emotions over long periods of unresolved situations.

Simply put, we triggered each other and we went down a negative spiral. On very bad days, this sort of behaviour can get really really bad.

I’m sure you may have your own version of this sort of experience so I’ll leave it as that. (Don’t tell me you’ve never lost control and experienced this sort of thing. You know that is complete bullshit).

We’re not pinning the blame on anyone. We both know we have issues and we are both seeking help. What’s important is how we can move forward both individually and together as a family unit.

Types of violence

It would be remiss if I didn’t mention that physical abuse isn’t the only form of violence.

• Verbal abuse is another form.
• Emotional abuse is yet another. (And it often comes together with physical or verbal abuse).

These kinds of abuse are often far more prevalent in the world (though oddly accepted!) compared to physical ones.

The truth is: Both emotional and verbal abuse often cause far more damage than physical ones.

Why?

Consider if someone has called you stupid or fat or disgusting or useless or something negative. That’s verbal abuse (and along with it, emotional abuse at the same time).

It’s an attempt to lash out at another person, hoping to crush their spirits and gain victory over them (muahahah).

Or, consider that you may have been unwanted because you did (or didn’t) do something before. That’s an emotional abuse from abandonment.

Back to here.

Verbal and emotional abuse are often far more damaging than physical abuse because the damage often goes unnoticed — and they fester (while the physical ones heal).

So, if you’ve ever…

• Been worried or troubled over something
• Wonder why you suck
• Wonder why you’re not good enough
• Wonder why you are a piece of shit, or why you can never be worthy enough, or why you keep sabotaging yourself…

Guess what? You’ve been the victim of emotional abuse some time ago. These are often deep-seated traumas that one has to work through to heal.

Laws against physical violence

I know these laws have saved the lives of many people. I’m not disregarding their usefulness because there are actual families with way more violent issues that require legal interference.

But most people miss the point — because they emphasize physical violence and trivialize emotional violence (usually unknowingly) at the same time.

Now, I know it’s impossible to enforce laws verbal and emotional violence. There are too many issues and resistances. Too much work and not enough manpower to enforce.

Maybe if the culture changes, it’s possible.

But legal enforcement, impossible.

So I’m just ranting here.

And I’m sad.

Why publish the fact I called the suicide hotline for my wife?

Why say this sort of experience publicly?

Even worse, why publish this on a coding blog of all things — this topic is so far away from code!

I wonder why too.

When I spoke to Avic who was concerned and supportive of the situation I have at home, I divulged that same secret anxiety I had.

Sometimes I wonder whether it’s useful to share these experiences because they’re so far out of the coding world. But I’ve also realized that I’m more concerned about the human than the code, so I’m in somewhat of a weird position compared to most other developers who share their stuff online.

I’m not sure what I said is completely true but here are a few more reasons why. I can guarantee that all these are true.

1. I want to be heard by someone and seen by someone — probably more people than most would.
2. I want to heal.
3. I love people (most of the time).
4. I hope sharing these publicly would help someone tide through their pain, especially if people close to them cannot recognise, see, or hear them. Maybe it does so by letting them they’re not alone. Maybe it provides a quiet support from an unknowable distance.

And the reason for publishing this article now:

1. I want to speak up against being repressed by other people.
2. I want to retrieve the power of my voice
3. I want to address the injustice I see — that repressing “bad behaviours” actually causes damage and prevents healing from happening, especially when one is confessing their bad behaviours.

This leads to my next point about confessions.

Honesty and Confessions

We teach children to be honest and fess up if they do something wrong — like if they broke our favourite vase.

We promise not to scold them or beat them and instead reward their honesty (ideally, although sometimes incredibly difficult to do).

For the kid, if they confess, they no longer need to hold a dirty secret that they have to keep for the rest of their lives. They no longer need to cover up that lie with another lie, and another, and another… until their life becomes a house of lies.

There’s this conflicting oxymoron bullshit that’s happening and nobody is voicing out.

• Society promotes honesty.
• But society represses honesty at the same time.

Such a contradiction. Good job.

The power of confessions

When a person is forced to repress their dirty secrets, they will naturally have to reject anything that reflects those dirty secrets back at them.

So people who lie get angry at liars because they are liars themselves.

These dirty secrets fester. They get stronger. The stronger they get, the stronger the repressing force needs to be. So people get triggered more easily — and they react with more force.

It’s a spiral.

The only way out is to heal.

To heal, you have to uncover the festering wound and bring it to light. When you do that, the heavy boulder you’ve been holding close to your chest since forever will be dropped. And you’ll feel lighter.

This lightness (or perhaps just the willing the uncover the festering wound) allows one to begin forgiving themselves for having “sinned”. (For having done something wrong). For being incapable. For being less than who he or she was expected to be.

That’s the first part of the process.

I’m sure you have fessed up certain thoughts or behaviours before so you know what I’m talking about.

Now: Because certain behaviours are repressed by society (like physical violence), it takes immense courage and willingness for one to look into their inner world and fish out the mixbag of shame and guilt amongst other emotions.

That courage is necessary even before confessing. Then it takes even more courage to confess and speak about those “sins” to the external reality/world.

Repressing someone who is confessing is akin to driving the stake even deeper when the poor guy about to finally begin to remove the stake that was impaled into him.

Give the poor guy or gal a break.

Open your mind and heart and listen.

Give them space.

And stop punishing them for doing what they have done. They’re trying to repent. Stop stopping them from repenting. If you can listen to them with an open heart and an open mind, you will be transformed and healed in the process as well.

This is not just the job of trained counsellors and therapists. As a human being, you are more than qualified to be there for another person to speak about the brokenness in their hearts.

Then, if they opportunity arises, you will have the chance to refer them to a therapist or counsellor for further help (if necessary or helpful).

After a confession

Confession is simply one step, not the end point.

This may offend religious folks. But confessing and asking god to forgive your sins doesn’t do much. You still have to take action to make amendments for your “sin”.

It won’t be much of a confession if you keep wallowing in despair after the confession (cause you drive that stake right back into you. Ouch).

The amendment action is a critically important step.

A step that I’ve only been able to realize upon reflecting and writing this long article. So I have to thank Person Number 2 for triggering me so much that I have to reflect.

After realizing this, I found what I needed to face my wife and apologise for losing control and slapping her.

By doing so, I released my guilt and shame and blame and many other negative emotions — and I became able to see her in the eye again. That leads to me being able to love her and support her more than before in her recovery period.

All these happened simply because I have one less reason to avoid her now. And one more reason to love her even more.

From my wife’s side: She knows I didn’t mean it and she accepted my apology. In doing so, I can see her letting go of some of her own repressed anger and hatred towards someone who caused her harm.

Now we’ve become closer.

Now we can speak to each other much more than before.

And we’re willing to listen to each other more.

And blame each other less.

All I want to say now is:

• Confessions and amendments are powerful
• They can mead relationships
• They bridges to stronger and deeper bonds

(This doesn’t give you the excuse to keep making the same mistake you’ve made).

That’s all I have to say for now.

Thank you for reading this.