Assalamu alaikum, why do I do this to myself? I’m watching "The Burning Bed", on one of the Encore channels, but I don’t remember which one.
For anyone who doesn’t know, "The Burning Bed" is the story of Francine Hughes, a woman who, after enduring years of abuse from her husband, killed him one night, by setting the house on fire while he slept.
I don’t know why I’m even watching this movie, seeing as how these sorts of things are really hard for me to watch, for obvious reasons. And the really sad thing is, this woman felt the need to take this step, because she didn’t feel like she could get help anywhere else. What was really angering to me was the family pretty much telling her that she should deal with it and how it was her job to keep things together, and then to have her mother-in-law sit there and lie on the stand and say that her son didn’t do the sorts of things that the defense lawyer was alleging. I mean, she said something to the affect of "I don’t know where you got your information", etc. But all that did was kind of make her look bad, and sort of gave me the impression that, well, now you know the source, now you know how he could have got that way. But Subhanallah, I shouldn’t say that. But it was the whole trying to either justify the behavior or just plain pretend or lie and say that it didn’t exist or it didn’t happen, or that if anything did happen, it was minimalized and brushed over, like it was no big thing.
Not that murdering abusive husbands is OK, but I guess if someone is pushed to an extreme, then they will do extreme things.
I can say from my experience that many times I had wondered if I was going crazy. You really feel completely alone and afraid and so indecisive because you don’t know whether to go one way or another, and your primary motivation becomes just trying not to make him mad, so he doesn’t beat you. It’s like it becomes all about survival, and I mean this literally.
But you also are trying to keep yourself from going crazy. It’s almost like you feel like you’re going insane or losing your mind. And you find yourself trying so hard to be what you think he wants you to be, so that he’ll stop abusing you, that you start to not even know who you are anymore. And trying to be someone you’re not, and in trying to suppress who you are, the real you, because * he * doesn’t like it, it really can drive you crazy.
And this isn’t even talking about your self-esteem, your feelings of self-worth. And this is why abuse is so insidious, and why it is so destructive to a person. I’d had moments where I just plain wanted to die. I wouldn’t say that I was suicidal, well, I’d say borderline suicidal, because I just wished for death. I know it’s wrong, I know it might be haram. But at that time, I felt like I was the lowest thing on the face of the earth. I was completely depressed. I felt like the world would be better off without me, and glad to see me gone. I even despaired of Allah’s Mercy and Forgiveness, may Allah prevent me from getting to that point again. And I had moments where I thought, if Allah decides to take me now, He would probably send me to Hell now, because I wasn’t as good of a Muslim as I should have been, because I was going through a phase where I wasn’t praying regularly, Astaghfirullah. Or because I couldn’t keep my husband happy, or any myriad of reasons that my mind came up with.
I can’t tell you how many times I’d just lay in the bed and cry, how many times I would cry and he wouldn’t even know it! How he’d be right in the next room, or right next to me, and I’d just be crying. And I’d be in so much unbelievable pain, but I couldn’t express it to the one person that I wanted to care. The one person who should have cared.
I remember making dua that Allah would help me, I’d ask forgiveness for wanting to die, I’d ask forgiveness for feeling so low. But I’d make dua that things would get better, even if Death was the only way that they would.
I remember thinking sometimes, that I wish that he’d just hit me hard enough so maybe I’d just black out and just not wake up again. But of course, any time I tried to express to him what kind of pain I was in, I’d get told that I was messed up mentally, though those were not his exact words, and that would just be used to show just what a terrible person I was, and how I should consider myself lucky that he chose to stay with me.
So if you can’t understand why a woman would kill her abusive husband, well, go and talk to women who have benn abused. And no, killing your abusive husband is not OK, as I’ve said before. But a lot of times, you’re just plain not thinking clearly. And I’d even venture to say that your mental state is completely altered. You just want the pain to stop, you just want the abuse to stop. And if you feel like there is nowhere you can go to, well then, you might get to such a point of desperation that you’ll either kill yourself or the person abusing you. Yeah, it may not be right, yeah, it may not be pretty. But it does happen, sad to say.
Anyway, so I guess I’ll finish watching this movie. But it’s moments like these, when I see a movie, or recall a past event in my own life, which really makes me wonder if I’ve made as much progress in healing from this, getting over it, and moving on as I think I have.
I really think that coming to terms with this sort of thing is truly a day-by-day experience, and you don’t just get over it over night. And even though in the movie, she was found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity, and the movie had a happy ending, I’d also imagine that she probably had a lot of healing to do.
All I can say is "Alhamdulillah!" that I had the strength to get out and be able to make a better life for myself. And I know this may be wrong, but there is a part of me that would love to see my ex-husband now, just so I can say, "Look at me! Look at what I’ve done. I’ve done everything you said I wouldn’t do." I’ve succeeded without him, I didn’t fail, I didn’t "amount to nothing". And you know, this might be a complete shocker to him, but, well, some man might actually want to marry me some day! "Oh, the horror!" I’m sure my ex is thinking, but let him! Let him think what he wants. Yaum-al-qiyama is coming, just as sure as anything, and he will have to answer to Allah for what he has done. So I take solace in that.
But it feels good to know that I’ve survived. It feels good to know that I’ve succeeded, by the Will and Permission of Allah, and with His help, and His Mercy. He has given me everything, and given me the strength to persevere and keep going. And I am truly thankful for that.