Abuse is— Data

I’ve been thinking about data & analytics a lot.

Data has always been an essential part of the human experience. Understanding data is how we expand ourselves and how we grow.

We observe the output of our actions and find ways to improve using data.

When I first realized I was being harmed by my previous partner, I went to the data. 

I spent nights scanning old texts and annotating them, shocked that I found so much manipulation I had missed. I didn’t even know how to describe them, but I do now…

Gaslighting

D.A.R.V.O.

Coercive control

As I looked through all this data, I found something. Something that allows us to make sense of data. Those things are—

Patterns.

Patterns are what make data make sense. They are a message. A message that speaks to us from the data. Patterns are also essential to our being. In fact, I’ve started calling humans by a new name. 

Pattern machines. 

We are pattern machines. We love and function off patterns. Patterns give our life value. They give life hope. They feed us.  And we ourselves, are made of patterns. The universe around us, patterns. And the world that we create— patterns. Think about it…

Music, art, writing, nature— we love to consume and observe patterns. They fascinate and evoke emotion from us. And we love that, even if the patterns evoke negative emotions. 

Ever listen to a sad song on repeat?

Yeah. 

We love our patterns. Even if they make us randomly break down crying during work on a Tuesday afternoon in the Spring while trying to hide the tears from everyone (a very nonspecific arbitrary example…sigh Jim Croce…).

Ever wonder why certain people stay on blogs and channels that serve up news which horrifies and enrages them?

Exactly. 

I’ve said before that “abuse will rob you” and slowly it robbed me of many essential things that kept my life afloat—

Agency

Employment

Friends

Love

Housing

Identity

So many things were lost, and I might have lost myself entirely, save for one thing—

Data. 

I didn’t stop consuming data. Research papers on abuse. Articles on assault. Social media profiles of abuse experts. Interviews from survivors. My own conversation threads with my abuser…

Almost obsessive. Because what had occurred to me was entirely new to my system. I had to understand it. I had to figure out this thing that attacked me. I knew I couldn’t win without understanding it.

I also knew one thing for sure, I was still being attacked. My attacker was still aiming at me. I could feel it. Abuse will rob, and it will also bond. A tether. And I could still feel them through that tether. Fortunately for me something in me grabbed that tether and said—

“Where the fuck are you going?”

Unfortunately abusers like to wield power over their victims well after the victim has left the abuser’s physical vicinity. These abuse methods can be financial, abuse via joint offspring, psychological abuse, stalking, or using the laws & court systems to target the victim. We can also call these actions by another name.

Torture.

Abusers like to enact torture on their victims.

Falling into a few of these categories myself, I had no option but to fight back.

My research was relentless. Something inside me kept driving me forward. Fortunately that something in me refused to be beaten. And early on I knew what I needed to win—

Data.

You have to think of the events of abuse like ballistics analysis in a crime scene. Because every little event and impact will tell you something.

It’s painful. It’s painful and frightening to accept someone you thought loved you was actually harming you with intention. This will likely change you.

And these actions were carefully bundled and hidden with methods like manipulation. It’ll break you while you unwrap those memories to understand what they really were.

Parsing the data in your memories is not an easy process. You’ll have to rewatch scenes of yourself, often unknowingly, being abused. It’s hard to look at— watching yourself be stabbed, in a way, over and over and over. Replaying it from every angle.

It’s also hard for others to perceive.  As humans this makes us really uncomfortable. Maybe this is one of the few patterns we don’t like to consume. The knowledge that there might be monsters among us, makes us VERY uncomfortable. This is why we fall short of helping survivors. It’s easier to turn our heads and tell ourselves that the victim “should have acted better/smarter”—

“If it were me I would have just walked away.”

—and assure ourselves that it would never be us.

If you analyze the data of abuse enough, you’ll realize a disturbing fact as you go. There are predators in this world. Monsters. Watching, planning, spinning webs, and collecting something about you—

Data.

I’m lucky.

Not so many survivors are. Why? Because my abuser was messy. Gluttonous and messy. And they left crumbs everywhere.

Data. 

And with my life nearly destroyed, it opened up time for something. The processing of data. Night after night, riddled with the after effects of trauma, the data began to speak to me—

Patterns. 

Delicious fucking patterns. And chatty too. Gen X— they really love that Facebook. They’ll scatter their information all over it. God bless ‘em.

It was hard to witness at first, but then it was…fascinating. When you look at the actions of an abuser, it’s like the uncanny valley— something that’s supposed to be human but causes discomfort due to something being off. Something being broken.

It’s probably why people are fascinated with serial killer stories. There’s something distressing but interesting about how those people function— those people who take pleasure, joy, and nourishment from harming others.

And while I’m not a person who takes nourishment from harming others, I did take a certain satisfaction from feeding off the data of my abuser. Watching them dance. I think it helped keep me alive. It definitely made me smile. Even laugh sometimes.

I spent a long time sitting on this data. Healing and waiting for the day I could out this abuser. And I’ve seen their patterns. And those patterns taught me something. Something I want the world to learn—

We can beat abuse.

And I know this because I’ll beat my abuser for sure. Consider my story, a blueprint. It will take the action of community, but the world can be better tomorrow through us.

And my abuser, they will have learned—

not to fuck with a Haitian.

It seems every generation or so, some idiot makes that mistake. And then they learn—

We are the OG conquerors of abuse and injustice.

Also, voodoo. Boo.

There are certain people…just living their lives…and someone fucks with them…and something…changes…and then the world learns a lesson that you don’t fuck with them. Apparently I am one of them.

I’ll soon be posting “Little Reindeer Part II”. After that, the next few posts will start digging in deeper into the data and story of my abuse, the effects it had on my mind, and later how that contributes to a greater narrative on abuse.