Abused No More

What Abused Women Believe To Be True

 

This morning I was talking with a dear friend.  She and I trained together in an alternative therapy over a decade ago.  We had the kind of training that left us very doubtful of our ability ever to be very good practitioners of that particular therapy.  (But that didn’t stop us being passionate about the therapy.)

 

Yesterday, someone called me to praise my friend to the hilt.  She was an ‘absolute treasure’ who had ‘turned one particular client’s life around’.  This person ‘couldn’t praise her enough’; she worked ‘magic’.  This person said all the things about my friend that we used to hear about senior therapists in this field.  In short, my friend is now spoken of as one of those amazing, senior therapists.  I called my friend to celebrate her coming of age with her.

 

But did she believe it?

 

You’ve guessed it: she did not. 

 

What she said was this: “It must be a case of mistaken identity.  He couldn’t have been talking about me.”

 

You could say that my friend is terminally modest.  I’d say something quite different.  I’d say she is so focused on what she imagines to be true, that she can completely overlook what goes on in the world around her, and all the positive feedback she gets.

 

I’m not suggesting you should be falling off your seat to know more about my lovely friend the therapist, that is not what you read this blog for.  But have you recognised your own pattern here?

 

Just in case you haven’t, let me spell it out for you.  Abused women are gifted individuals in all sorts of ways.  However, they respond to  - well earned – praise as my friend does; rather as if someone had thrown a tarantula into their lap. 

 

Right now I’m guessing that you are struggling with the ‘gifted individuals’ piece. I suspect that you may well have reacted by thinking: “Well, I’m sure some abused women are, but not me. There’s nothing gifted, or special, about me.  (At least, not any more.)”

 

Predictable, or what?

 

Abused women are, in the end, just women; some are more talented than others, sure.  But look at this way: to run uphill with a 50 lb rucksack on your back, requires you to be a better, stronger runner, than the person who runs, unburdened, up that hill.

 

An abusive relationship weighs far heavier on your shoulders than any 50 lb rucksack ever can. 

 

So what happened to my friend, and to you?

 

I believe that Maxwell Maltz (The New Psycho-Cybernetics) has the answer.  He says:

“Human beings always act and feel and perform in accordance with what they imagine to be true about themselves and their environment.”

 

What abused women imagine to be true about themselves and their environment, is what an abusive partner tells them. 

 

Telling the truth is not part of an abusive partner’s job description. If it were, he’d be obliged to admit that he is an insecure, immature, destructive snit [sic] who gets his good feelings from making you feel bad. 

 

Instead an abusive man paints your world in the way that is most supportive of his agenda.

 

You swallow his world-view.  That is your misfortune.

 

And then you find yourself acting and feeling and performing in accordance with his imaginings. 

 

To my friend I said: “Even if, by some chance, that person had got the wrong therapist, I would still encourage you to take their words on board.  Believing in your own gifts will only enable you to be a better therapist, because your unconscious mind will take that judgement on board, and adjust what you imagine about yourself accordingly.”

 

To you I say: “I believe that you are far, far more talented, courageous, and resourceful than you believe you are.  I base that judgement on a long experience of working with abused women.  But even if you believe that I have got it wrong, I would still encourage you take my words on board. 

 

“When you allow my words to change what you imagine to be true about yourself, you become able to act and feel and perform in accordance with that positive view of yourself.

 

“Be open to the idea that some time, very soon, people will talk about you, too,

in terms of ‘magic’ an ‘absolute treasure’ and not being able to praise you enough.  

 

“It will happen.”

 

 

 

"You're Too Sensitive"

Has your abusive partner ever told you: “You’re too sensitive?”

 

Okay, let’s be more precise about this; has your abusive partner repeatedly told you that you are too sensitive?  Because the chances are, if he has said it to you once, he’s said it a thousand times.  That’s how abusive relationships work; an abusive partner throws the same complaints at you over and over again.

Why?

 

We’ll come to that in a moment.  First, let’s deal with the really important question: How has that left you feeling?

 

Clearly, I don’t know you, and I can’t know how you think, but I’m guessing that it leaves you feeling small, needy, pathetic and very, very flawed.  Their partner's accusation of being ‘too sensitive’ tends to make abused women feel as if someone has exposed a very dark, unlovable, immature feeling at the very heart of their being. 

 

In short, it makes them feel unlovable. 

 

There is a reason for this.  When an abusive man says his partner is ‘too sensitive’, that is not just a throwaway remark, triggered by frustration; it is, actually, a well calculated barb with a venomous hidden agenda.

 

“You’re too sensitive”, is code; a code that, I suspect, CLICK HERE to break the code.

"How Do I Move On From An Abusive Relationship?"

 

 What stops abused women
getting over the trauma and the pain and
getting their life back? 

"Give me just one hour of your time, each week, for 10 weeks and I guarantee you will feel totally different about your abusive partner, yourself and your life… or your money back." 

 

Dear Friend

Nobody wants to be in an abusive relationship; we both know that.   

So what keeps women there?   

I don’t know you, but I do have an idea of what you’re feeling right now, because I’ve been there.  I’ve felt the despair and the fear, the shame and the worthlessness, the paralysis and the self-loathing. 

If anyone had told me then that one 10 hour course, spread over 10 weeks, would have transformed everything and fast-tracked my recovery, I’d have laughed in their face. 

"10 hours to move on from the misery of an abusive relationship?" 

"10 hours to put behind me a man I still ‘loved?" 

"10 hours to clear the self-doubt and believe that I can have a great future?" 

Over the last 8 years I’ve worked with over 7,500 women, helping them to heal from an abusive relationship.  I’ve discovered the very best techniques and strategies for healing and the most powerful ways to communicate them.   

Because I did it the hard way, I do everything possible to make healing as fast and painless as possible for the women I work with.   

Over the 10 week Accelerated Healing Teleclass Program you’ll learn how to let go of your abusive relationship once and for all.

CLICK HERE to discover what stops abused women reclaim their lives and how they can overcome the fear and shame look forward to a much, much better future.

Are You In A Trance Of Misery?

I don’t know you, personally. 

 

I don’t know whether or not you have a faith that helps you get through the bad times.  

 

Still, what I do know, from my years and years working with abused women is what keeps women – what has kept you – in a trance of misery.

 

But let’s start from the beginning: in an abusive relationship, your abusive partner puts you into a trance of misery. 

 

How does that happen?

 

It may well be that you were already predisposed to that trance of misery by your childhood. 

 

You may have grown up in a family that projected a (very) negative view of your place in the world.  One way or another they gave you to understand that you CLICK HERE

"He's a Narcisssist"

Recently a number of abused women have told me that their abusive partner is a narcissist.  One or two have asked what I thought about that. 

First let me declare an interest: a long time ago now (happily) it struck me that my abusive husband might be a Narcissist.  Being even more of a technological dinosaur at that time than I am now, I duly scampered off to a bookshop and bought a book about Narcissists.   

I spent quite a lot of time poring over ever word: some seemed to confirm the hypothesis, some contradicted it.  Was he? Wasn’t he?   

It was quite confusing really.  If he was a Narcissist, then I emerged without blame, standing proudly on the moral high ground, the heroic dame who had tried to transform an abusive relationship and love a Narcissist into mental health.  If he was not, then the picture became murky, and I probably deserved some of the blame he was always quick to heap on me. 

So, with the clarity of hindsight, was my husband a Narcissist?   CLICK HERE to carry on reading.

What you learn in an abusive relationship

What did you learn in your abusive relationship? 

 

As an abused woman, you learned, doubtless, that: 

 

·     The world was not safe

·     You would never be good enough, or lovable enough

·     Your judgment would always, always, be wrong

 

There is little doubt that you experienced much, much more as well.  Equally, the chances are that you did not learn the lessons, or at least the most useful lessons, from what you experienced with your abusive partner.  Because you were brainwashed by an abusive man to believe that your judgment was always wrong. 

For now, I’d like you to focus on the curious way in which one thing comes to mean something quite different in an abusive relationship.  It’s something I’ve become increasingly aware of in the past few weeks, as I have caught myself behaving oddly. CLICK HERE to continue reading.