DELIBERATE Abuse or Not?

 

I’M SO CONFUSED!
Are they good, bad or evil?

Previous: Being in Denial

Review series of posts: “Noticing painful Events” ….

DELIBERATE Abuse or NOT?
Most ACoAs assume that if our parents / lovers… don’t mean to hurt us, &/or can’t help themselves because of their damage, then their behavior can be overlooked. We don’t have to call them on it, don’t have to ‘protect’ ourselves & we should never get upset with them. After all “it’s not their fault”. This is a self-destructive attitude – & takes a toll on our psyche that is too high a price to pay for staying connected, just to stave off our loneliness. ACoAs are famous for white-washing abusers, especially parents. We believe that acknowledging what the Ps have done would be disloyal to the family system (or marriage, friendship, boss….), & would cause a rift we think we couldn’t bear.

CATEGORIES of Perpetrators (Ps)
a. Overt (‘easiest’ to see) • Sometimes a parent will blatantly admit they’re ‘not nice’, don’t care, didn’t love us & never will – “I didn’t want kids in the first place”. (Watch ‘The Family Way’ episode of BBC’s “Doc Martin”, when his estranged parents visit him & the truth comes out!).   Some part of us already knew it & it’s excruciating to be told, but hearing it out loud makes it real, eliminating illusion & hope for the impossible. Of course we have to be willing to work with this info to recover & not everyone is.
– Any type of physical abuse is simpler to face, since the injuries are easy to identify, even getting us outside validation (as opposed to the other types). Our suffering & our rage is no less intense, which has to cleaned out, but at least it’s tangible.

• As adults we’ve gotten involved with outright skunks, people who from the beginning were obviously unsafe. They may say: “You knew what I was like” , “I told you what to expect – or not” , “I said I wasn’t into relationships” …. The main problem in facing this kind of abuse if not the Denial of the P. but our own. It was our unwillingness to hear what they were saying that let us get involved in the first place. We didn’t cause the abuse but we sure stayed for it!
– These kinds of Ps are just as painful (emotionally) as any other, but the least complex for us (cognitively) because, if cornered, they’re capable of – but not always willing – to admit what they’ve done. We can heal faster because it’s not mentally crazy-making.  Once we’ve raged & mourned, we can move on.

b. Sneaky (much harder) • It’s really tough to identify the source of our damage when our family (& mates, friends…) profess to love us but mistreat us much of the time anyway. This can apply to being put-down, manipulated, over-controlled….  It can also be in the form of sexual coercion as adults, or any shade of child sexual abuse, especially when he/she is singled out as a ‘favorite’ (“You’re my special girl”….), & told to keep it a secret. All forms of mind f—ing leaves us feeling confused at best, & crazy at worst – which most of us end up convinced we are!

• They say they love us (& we believe them) BUT we feel like crap when we’re with them – exhausted, scared, miserable, angry, bored – but can’t put our finger on why, since nothing’s obviously wrong. And then afterwards – sometimes for days or weeks we’re depressed & can’t get back to our life. Naturally ACoAs figure it must be us, right? NO!!
Our feelings are clearly telling us that something is ‘rotten in Denmark’ – & our name isn’t Denmark!

c. Oblivious  (most frustrating) • These are the Ps who are completely inured to the fact that they hurt us & are surprised when we’re upset with them.  Their Denial is so thorough they simply cannot imagine their way is wrong – so much so that they can say, wholeheartedly & with raised hand: “I swear before God, I’ve done nothing wrong!” It can be very aggravating to deal with them since there’s no way to get thru their armor. They just look at us blankly – or worse, hurt. Then we feel guilty. DON’T. Yet our WIC desperately wants abusers to admit what they’ve done, then repent & change – especially the ones least capable of being emotionally honesty & validating. Regardless of why they’re oblivious, these Ps’ lack of insight is absolutely no reason for us to ignore the reality of who they are.

EXP: This is how Doc Martin treats everyone, but especially his baby-mamma in episode “Remember Me” (on Netflix). He’s not trying to be mean but his insensitivity has the same negative effect as other Ps. The Doc is very literal, completely ignorant of psychological values (being polite, showing respect, not being controlling, having boundaries…), & is not able to empathize – all of which hurt people’s feelings.

d. “Normals” (most illusive) • This type is the hardest for us to see as being abusive. While they’re similar to ‘b’ in some ways, the main difference is intention. The sneaky ones want to ‘get over’, want to be in control, want to always get their way. But the ‘normals’, who are not really healthy, try to be respectful, thoughtful, spiritual… toward others – yet can do a great deal of harm. They’re good people who are shut down on their own inner wounds, so their main way of being abusive is emotional. (Read “For your own Good”, by Alice Miller). They may be religious, responsible, friendly & hard-working – but they step on others’ feelings in the same ways they were negated by their family. They genuinely believe they’re doing the right thing, while regularly abandoning others – emotionally AND cognitively.
EXP:
Abandoning : “Well, they’re having a hard time too, you know” , “I’m sure they didn’t mean it”, to child being bullied
Invalidating – “You shouldn’t feel that way”, “Look ashamed”
Insensitive: “If it bothers you so much, don’t go back”, parent to teen re. being rejected by a popular school group
Negating: “You just have to accept her the way she is”, from aunt to pre-teen complaining about being attacked by mother

ULTIMATELY it doesn’t matter if our caretakers meant it, if they couldn’t help it, if they knew what they were doing …. or not.  The important thing is the effect their damage had on us. We need to make an honest inventory of our Toxic Rules (T) and keep feeling the old pain (E) in small doses, so we can see how we obey the ‘disease’ and how we’re driven by our abandonment anxiety. Only then can we change the things we do to harm ourselves in the present.

NEXT: Victims or Not?

What is EMOTIONAL Abuse? (Part 1)

 

I’M ALWAYS DRAINED or ANNOYED
after being with that person!

PREVIOUS: ‘What is abuse?’

REVIEW series of posts on Emotions

NOTE: How others treat us is about them (their health or damage). How we react to others is about us (our wounds or Recovery!)

EMOTIONAL ABUSE (E.A.)
“Emotional abuse is underneath all other types – the most damaging aspect of physical, sexual, mental, etc. abuse is the trauma to our hearts and souls, from being betrayed by the people that we love and trust.”
“Emotional abuse is a devastating, debilitating heart and soul mutilation. The deepest lasting wound with any abuse is the emotional wound.”
From Co-dependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls, by Robert Burney    (Read more….)

• E.A. is also sometimes referred to as Psychological or Mental Abuse, divided into Verbal Aggression, Dominant and Jealous Behaviors – by the “Conflict Tactics Scale”. The US Justice Dept. considers it anything that causes fear by intimidation. Health Canada identifies it as being motivated by urges for “power and dyscontrol✶”.  Unlike sexual or physical mistreatment, which can cause lasting trauma with only one event, E.A. comes from repeated exposure.  It can show up in many guises, obvious or subtle, a form of violence experienced in any relationship that is just as damaging as physical assaults, if not more so – because it goes to the core of who we are as human beings.  (from Wikipedia)

✶Dyscontrol : “An uncommon disorder that begins in early childhood, characterized by repeated acts of violent aggressive behavior in an otherwise normal person, which is markedly out of proportion to the events that provoked it”

Noticing E.A.
E.A. can be very difficult to identify because:
a. very often there are no outward signs of it, such as physical scars or broken bones. It ‘only’ breaks our spirit! It includes the use of coercion, threats, insults, neglect…. to control the other, who loses (or never gains) self-esteem & freedom to grow.   Victims of E.A. blame themselves for the mistreatment & their S-H makes them cling to perpetrators, staying because they believe they have nowhere else to go & no one else will want them

b. it’s so common in our culture that we don’t consider it a problem. Alice Miller’s “For Your Own Good” (1980) describes this issue.  And her “Banished Knowledge” is about how we’re taught from early on to ignore being treated badly (T.) & how it feels (E.).  People who are emotionally hurtful are everywhere & are usually oblivious to the effect they have. This includes people who:
• only talk & think about themselves (no room for us)
• don’t consider our personality when interacting to us (only their own)
• try to make us take care of them, make us feel guilty, be needy…..
• try to fix us with action-ideas, when we’re only needing empathy
• tell us what to do, how to think, how to feel
• tease us using things they know we’re sensitive about
• make a judgmental or belittling comment to us in front of others

ALSO, when someone is the butt of such treatment the people around them often validate pubic humiliation & thoughtless or cruel remarks by laughing, as if the comment was clever & amusing, or even cheering the perpetrator on – as long as it’s not being done to them! This applies to siblings, school mates, co-workers, club members… When we are the target – we feel terribly alone, hurt & angry.

Our Emotional Reactions
✶ The most important thing to remember is that ALL categories of abuse cause emotional damage. We need  to notice how those actions or words make us feel emotionally – as in NOT happy!
UNDER – No matter how much we know about our issues, without doing deeper FoO work many ACoAs have a hard time even recognizing familiar abuses as they’re happening, much less feeling an emotional sting. Because we’re still numb to old pain & unloving toward ourselves, it’s very hard to connect our depression & S-H with being exposed to E.A.
• It’s as if we were wearing that huge white medical collar that vets sometimes put on dogs/cats – we can see over the top, but not the knife in someone’s hand as they stick it in our gut – especially if they’re smiling! We may feel some pain, but don’t understand that it’s truly coming from outside of ourselves. As trained victims, we always assume that if we’re hurting it a sure sign there’s something wrong with us. NOT SO!

OVER – When we do over-react emotionally to a person or event, the tricky part is being able to separate what just happened in the present from the accumulated suffering of past abuse. Often it IS a combination of the two, in layers – like when someone only ‘stepped on your toe’, but it feels like the foot has been cut off & we’re left bleeding, because of all the times our family did the same thing to us. Whenever we have an intense reaction we know “If it’s hysterical, it’s historical”. We can validate our fear, outrage, sadness…. while still staying in the present moment & seeing reality. SO -

We Need To:
• double check if something was actually an abusive situation – or are we reading into it (projection) because it’s so similar to what was repeatedly done to us when we were kids.
– We can ask ourselves : Did this call for such an intense reaction? Do I feel like I’m being stomped on, discarded like garbage or my life being threatened – when all someone did was not phone or write me back – immediately / looked at me ‘funny’ / didn’t say hello /  told me what to do…..
– ‘Checking’ includes asking someone we trust for an evaluation of the event, or going back to the original person & asking what they meant by ___, or why they did ____. Whether they tell us the truth or not, many times their answer will be surprising – it’s not what we thought they meant, because it had nothing to do with us. It’s important to ask.
As Well As:
• be able to identify unpleasant or inappropriate words & actions that we are subjected to, not ignoring the event or how we feel. For some ACoAs this may take outside validation, including comparing lists of ‘Our Rights’ with those of Abusive Behaviors.

✶ All Over & Under-reactions come from either our WIC or PP. Appropriate ones come from our UNIT.
Learning to tell the difference between actual abuse & our projections or paranoia comes from internalizing the healing of Recovery work, accumulated information about present-day reality & validation of our feelings & experiences, via meetings, reading, healers & therapists.

NEXT: Emotional Abuse (Part 2)