she bruises too easily

I have always bruised easily. I might get a large, dark, purplish bruise just by lightly brushing up against a door.  My long-ago ex, who was physically abusive (and far, far more emotionally abusive), actually used to angrily complain about how much I bruised when he hit me. He had the idea that he had perfected the art of the 'rubber punch', which, he said, was hitting in just the right way so it did not leave a bruise.

We can't believe he did not know when he was physically attacking me because he adapted to my easy bruising by taking care to not hit me below the knees (I wore dresses more back then) or pulling out my hair and even dragging me around by my hair. Such hairpulling, for those who don't know, is very painful. It hurts like heck while being dragged, all one's body weight tugged along by a fistful of one hair.

The fistful of hair tears off in smallsh clusters of hair roots, leaving small, bloody wounds. For days afterwards, it is painful to brush one's hair, painful to shampoo. And brush hair tends to tear off the healing effort by one's scalp, prolonging the pain. 

I never told my ex about the after effects of his hair pulling. I believe he would have done it even more if he knew about the added suffering it lead to.

Once he dragged me from the entrance into our home from the garage, through the foyer, up three stairs to our living room before he dropped my hair, my head, my body, on the living room floor.

Once, driving from Nebraska to Illinois to visit my dad in Chicago, he headed north on I-80 to go to Ames, IA where an aunt and uncle of his lived, the uncle a doctor.  We drove north maybe thirty minutes when he remembered the softball sized, purple and black, bruise on one of my arms. It was summer so my arms were mostly bare. He said, angry with me, "Dammit, we can't go see them. My uncle will see your bruise and think I hit you."

I silently thought "You did hit me."

And then he launched into his oft-repeated rant about how it was my fault that he bruised me, because I bruised so easily.

When I was growing up, schools received public health services such as eye exams for all students, even at private schools like my Catholic schools. Children even received some vaccinations at school. In high school one year, we all got a shot related to tuberculosis. A week after the shot, the nurse came back to look at everyone's arm. Something about how the arm responded to the shot revealed useful data to the nurse.

When I returned for my tuberculosis test follow up, with the skin around where I had gotten the injection surrounded by a four inch diameter, dark, purple bruise, the nurse said "You need some Vitamin K."  I asked her "how do I get Vitamin K?" and she answered "Alfalfa is a great source of alfalfa.  I thought then, and now, that her answer was somewhat flip. No one sold alfalfa in the grocery stores of the late sixties, not in Chicago. Microgreens, varieties of greens, organic greens had not yet arrived.

When I had my deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary emboli in 2006, I thought of that high school tuberculosis test. Something about how my blood clots is not standard.  And I recalled my long ago husband remonstrating me for 'bruising too easily' when he hit me.

I see my clotting issue as a damned near perfect metaphor for my emotional vulnerability.  I bruise emotionally even more easily and deeply than I bruise physically.

I do bruise too easily.  These days, I often feel like a large gaping wound. I keen for my daughter who shuns me.  I keen for all the suffering the loss of her has caused me and all that it has cost me in life. I keen for myself, for all that I have given.

I feel vulnerable all the time. I am in emotional pain all the time.  I list through life, wounded and alone. I am too raw to form supportive friendships.  My loneliness can feel as vast as an endless, clear starry night, and it's not a good feeling.