Echoes of Valentine’s Day: The Abused Woman Syndrome

It seems like yesterday when we were celebrating Valentine’s Day 2008, and now it is around the corner again.

Valentine’s Day is a day to eat chocolates, think about future or past romances, and prepare for the lush spring in Northern countries. It is a day of long excitement and short joy. But it is also a day that leads us to think about all the friendships we should have undertook with more determination and all of those failed romances. Romances that began as many others: full of passion, dreams of accomplishments, and infinite possibilities through emotional leveraging and enabling. Romance is one of the great capabilities and examples of human creativity and imagination. We invent possible romances as creatively as we invent Gods. And those possibilities fill us with motivation towards excellence.

But what happens when the object of our imagination and love decides to take advantage of the sad dependency so commonly created, when instead of offering us support and encouragement, we confront deception and abuse? The abused woman syndrome, which impedes her from breaking free from the emotional hold of a destructive relationship, is not only shared by those women afraid of the alternative loneliness, if they dare to escape their torturer. Many countries and their inhabitants experience this syndrome. Many men also experience this syndrome.

In the last 100 years, countries like Germany, Iraq, the Soviet Union, China, Iran, Venezuela, Italy, Zimbabwe and Cuba have been clear cases of the abused woman syndrome. The narcissistic and abusive leader submits the community to all kinds of emotional, physical, economic and judicial tyranny. When he crosses the line and the community responds, the leader asks for forgiveness or tells them he loves them, and the community believes that if he does love them he will behave better and he must not be as evil, since he appears so devoted to the community’s future, and so full of passionate revolutionary promises. And even when we don’t believe his apologies, we still don’t believe that we deserve or can achieve a better captivity arrangement. Or even better yet, a live free of destructive deceptions and manipulations.

In all of these cases of abused women, men and communities, a situation of toxic co-dependency is created. The victim stops growing emotionally and intellectually, looses the capacity to differentiate between constructive alternatives and the freedom to act. Dreams of self-improvement are clouded by the permissive and abusive hand of the tyrant. In the end, either the victim dies, figuratively or in reality, or he rebels against the abuser. For individual, there are more possibilities of a real escape if the emotional captivity can be overcome. For communities, the probability of a collective escape is slim but possible, and requires a strong and decisive social will in order to resist the abuses and eventually break free from the tyranny.

To those abused women and communities that deserve a liberating Valentine’s Day, we should remember that destructive relationships do not improve with time. Quite the contrary. The abuser continues with the abuse and the victim becomes weaker everyday, unless the victim rebels and reclaims its honor and right to self-determination. In the community and one’s own personal integrity is where you can find the strongest support system and the real redeeming and liberating power of love. Let us celebrate this plethora of love and possibilities this Valentine’s Day!