Hit or Miss

So some sources are saying Rihanna and Chris Brown are back together. If it’s true, I wish I could say I am surprised. But I am not. I have seen it too many times and I simply do not understand it.

She’s loves him, I am guessing some will say. So what? When did love mean accepting being bit, beaten and abused?

He’s getting therapy, others will point out. Yeah? Because his publicist told him to to save his “image”? Oh swell. Therapy has become as convenient as rehab is as an excuse for celeb drug abusers.

Maybe I do not have the ability to understand the situation. I am on the outside of it. My limited experience with the subject is years of seeing my grandmother abused until one day she died as a result of it. My paltry experience is in watching another close family member go through years of abuse with not one husband but two, and seeing the kids suffer and be left with a legacy.

Hurray for her, going back and giving the poor guy another chance. Everybody deserves a second chance, don’t they?

The hell they do.

I predicted in my first blog dealing with this a couple weeks back they would get together again. I predict in this one he won’t stop abusing. He’ll do it again. Maybe she’ll even go back to him over and over. Unless, of course, he kills her.

My sympathy usually lies with the victim entirely, but I have a difficult time relating to a person who makes themselves a victim again after they have gotten out. I understand the fear that might keep someone in a situation of abuse, but I don’t understand returning to it once you’ve escaped.

I have never had that mentally, so maybe it’s me who has a skewed view of things. I have on occasion encountered people who have tried to put me in a victim position, especially when I was younger. Those people are not in my life anymore. The moment I was free of them, it was forever.

Is this hopeless? Stopping abuse, I mean? Is it hopeless if the victims continually place themselves back in a dangerous situation?

Sometimes I wonder. What good does speaking out do if the very folks you are speaking out for can’t break the cycle?

How does one help them, make them understand?

I wish I knew.