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“I brought you flowers, man.” (Bartering with life)
Sumi ink, pastel, wax on linen on wood panel.
20 x 16 x 1-3/4 inches
“I brought you flowers, man.” (Bartering with Life) is based on a text message sent by the perpetrator.
I was hiding in another state for two months after escaping a violent episode in which he gave me a severe head injury by head-butting me. During those two months, he bombarded me not only with apologies, pleas for forgiveness, promises to change, and assurances that he would seek help for his abusive behavior, but also with aggressive emails and threats whenever I refused to tell him where I was or submit to his demands.
Eventually, I agreed to meet him when I returned to New York. At the last minute, I backed out. I canceled my flight. I was terrified. I had an anxiety attack. He went to the airport to pick me up, and I sent him a text message saying I had caught a ride with someone else, not telling him that I had actually canceled the flight.
He replied: “I brought you flowers, man.”
This is not accountability. It is negotiation. The apologies and the threats were not contradictory behaviors. They were complementary strategies used to regain control.
Every time he was violent, flowers would arrive at my workplace the next day. While everyone admired them, I remained silent. The public perception and the private reality existed simultaneously. Others saw romance. I saw the aftermath of violence. The flowers were not expressions of remorse. They were part of a cycle. Gifts, apologies, promises, and declarations of change became a means of minimizing the abuse, avoiding accountability, and restoring access to me. It was psychological abuse. It was |https://www.verywellmind.com/trauma-bonding-5207136|trauma bonding. It was gaslighting. It was bartering with my life.
Violence can arrive wrapped in apology. Coercive control often appears caring to everyone except the person living through it. And most importantly, victims are frequently expected to interpret gifts as proof of change, while carrying the memory of what made the gift necessary in the first place. The flowers were not merely flowers. They become a symbol of the cycle itself.
This cycle of violence/ abuse involves four stages:
*building tension
*an incident of abuse
*reconciliation
*calm
A closer look at the 4-part cycle. Within the cycle of abuse, this is often the reconciliation or "honeymoon" phase—the period when remorse, promises, gifts, affection, and declarations of change are used to restore access to the victim and repair the relationship without genuine accountability.
The cycle of abuse, also sometimes called the cycle of violence, helps illustrate common patterns of abusive behavior in relationships. It also helps provide clues toward a deeper understanding of why people experiencing abuse often find it difficult to break free.
This artwork dives into the third and forth stages.
3. Reconciliation
After the incident of abuse, tension gradually begins to fade. In an attempt to move past the abuse, the abuser often uses kindness, gifts, and loving gestures to usher in a “honeymoon” stage. This devoted behavior can trigger the release of dopamine and oxytocin, helping you feel even more closely bonded and leading you to believe you have your “real” relationship back.
4. Calm
To maintain peace and harmony, both parties generally have to come up with some sort of explanation or justification for the abuse.
The abusive partner might:
Apologize while blaming others, point to outside factors to justify their behavior, minimize the abuse or deny it happened, accuse you of provoking them. They might show plenty of remorse, assure you it won’t happen again, and seem more attuned to your needs than usual. You might begin to accept their excuses, even doubt your memory of the abuse. This reprieve offers relief from the physical and emotional tension and pain.
You might feel certain that whatever upset them and triggered the abuse has passed. You can’t believe they’d do anything like that again. This cycle repeats over time.
This “cycle” happens over and over within abusive relationships. Though the length of time between each repetition can vary. It often shortens over time as the abuse escalates. As time goes on, the calm period may become very short or even disappear from the cycle entirely.