Abused No More

Let It Be Easy For People To Like You!

Recently, I dragged myself out of bed at an unholy hour, even before the central heating came on  - not my favourite time of day - and went out to network.

Networking is something that a lot of people loathe heartily.  I have always been one of them.  (‘Shy’ and ‘retiring’ are two labels that I have long sported – unsurprisingly enough.)  

But, before I go any further with this, let me address a question that may be in the forefront of your mind: why should you care about my networking issues, given your own emotional distress? 

The only reason I share this anecdote is because I believe that my networking issues have been a manifestation of the old ‘baggage’ from my abusive relationship and, therefore, relevant to you also.  What always kicked in, for me, were beliefs about shame, and anxiety.  My abusive husband always programmed me to believe that I was ‘not good enough’ – for what, for Heaven’s sake??? 

I’m guessing that those negative feelings are quite familiar to you, too.  

The bedrock of every abusive marriage, or partnership, is the premise that the abuser decides who is, and is not, 'good enough'; and, try as they may, the abused partner will never, ever be good enough - whatever that means.

Show me one abused woman who has not been programmed for shame, and anxiety, and not feeling good enough by her abusive partner; and, most probably, her family, before him. 

Today, I networked with a group of people I’ve known for a while.  I departed from my usual practice, big time, by cracking a joke with pretty well everyone I spoke with.  

Now, I’m not suggesting that you should crack jokes at everyone you come across, especially when you are in mourning for a relationship that failed so badly.  

It is the realization that I got from the experience that I believe could be as valuable for you as it was for me.  (And, please, don’t imagine that the jokes were great; they weren’t.  Some of them were really quite lame, but nobody minded; they got the message that I was giving them an opportunity to laugh and feel good, and that was more than enough.  So the actual quality of the jokes was irrelevant.) 

The important thing was the response that I got.  That was what gave me pause for thought on the journey home.  

The response was far, far warmer than anything I had generated before. 

Why? 

Because cracking a joke meant opening up in a way that I had not done previously, and creating more space for other people to like and warm to me.  And that is the learning.  

An abusive partner programs you to shut down as a person.  Think about it, for a moment: think about all those insults designed to make you feel worthless.  They all served to make you shut down and be, at best, a shadow of your true self.  Heaven knows, I have seen it so very many times in the mentally emotionally abused women I work with.  

Why do all abusive men do that? 

Because if you had any idea of your own true worth, they would never see you again for dust.  

But when you have shut down, battened down the hatches on who you are, and the light that only you can shine, you become utterly dependent on him.  It’s a simple equation: the less sense of your own value you get from other people, the more you need an abusive partner to give it to you.  (He won’t, of course, but hope springs eternal in an abused woman’s heart…) 

So he does his level best to ensure that you will pass through all social gatherings like the invisible woman, the shadow that nobody really notices. 

Your abusive partner has worked tirelessly to brainwash you about all the ‘reasons’ why he – and other people – will neither like nor value you.  (That may be the one area of your abusive relationship on which he has worked tirelessly.)  And, like everything else he has told you, it is a lie. 

The truth is this: it is impossible –not hard, but impossible – to make an abusive partner like you, but easy to have other people like you.  Mostly, people just need you to put a little bit of yourself out there, so that they can relate to it and warm to it.

 Of course, that is the complete opposite of what you learned from your partner.  You learned that you had to make your personality as small as you possibly could so as not to offend him.  Can you see, now, why he would want that?  And then he can add ‘boring’ to his list of criticisms.  

That was the learning that I had today: that I had, unconsciously, been running the old ‘stay small and play safe’ programming.  The results it had produced had been predictably mediocre.  

As a general principle, people would prefer to like you rather than not like you,     – unless they are abusive, or suffer from ‘bitchiness syndrome’ as a result of being programmed by their own abusive experiences. 

It’s easy to have people like you, and the dividends for you are massive; the more you can start to take on board the fact that people like you, the easier it becomes for you to feel good about yourself. 

Just give them a little scope to see something of you (other than the damage you have suffered).  

It’s easy for other people to like you.  Really! 

You’d better believe it! 

 

 

 

 

When did you become silent to yourself?

It’s not silent inside your head at the moment.  If my own experience, and that of the abused women I work with, is anything to go by, your head is ringing with critical words from morning to night.  You are forever telling yourself everything that is wrong with you.  

How many people have I worked with who say; “No, those aren’t other people’s words that echo in my head, they’re mine.  That’s how I feel about myself.” 

I don’t buy it, at all. 

So, I persist a little and, invariably, people acknowledge that the critical words they hear were spoken by an abusive lover – and, most probably, before that a father and/or mother. 

There is no silence in their heads. 

But, equally, an abused woman's own innermost voice has been silenced, drowned out by the learned negativity.  she has forgotten her dreams, her gifts, her passions.  Her wishes for her life have all vanished, displaced by the preoccupation with her Beast.  She is a Beauty whose fairy tale love story with the Beast has gone sour.  

But you did once have a vision, or the beginnings of a vision, of who you might become, what you might have, the good things that might fill your life.  Before you became silent to yourself. 

So let me ask you a few questions.   

When did you become silent to yourself?  Were you a child?  A teenager?  A young woman?  A wife? 

How did you become silent to yourself?  What made you stop listening to your own feelings, your own needs and wants, your soul? 

Why did you become silent to yourself?  I know that your abusive partner said this, that and the other, but still, why did you stop listening to yourself?  And if it was a strategy intended to help you, did it? 

Where did you become silent to yourself?  Can you remember the place where you made that decision?  And are there any areas in your life where you still do listen to yourself?

What keeps you silent to yourself?   Are you doing that because you believe doing so holds the promise of good things? Do you still believe that silencing yourself might save your abusive relationship? Or do you do it because you believe it is the best damage limitation strategy you have?  And, if so, how much longer do you believe you can eke out a half-life in damage limitation mode? 

Who keeps you silent to yourself?  Who really keeps you silent to yourself?  Who do you allow to control your thoughts?  

Are you prepared to dream a bit?  Are you prepared to find a couple of minutes when you have the time and space to dream?  If so, ask yourself, what will life be like when you can turn off the volume on that cruel voice in your head?  When you can finally hear you?   The you that dared to dream.  The you that has been muted, but will not give up.

You could not possibly be as unhappy as you are if, at some level, you did not have a vision of a better life.  Because you are constantly aware how far short of that half-forgotten vision your current life has fallen.  

When will you stop being silent to you?  When will you turn on the volume on your own voice?  

When you start to listen to your own voice, the journey from hurting to healing will become very real, very doable.  

I look forward to the day when you feel like shouting from the rooftops: “I’m OK!” 

Because you are.  It’s just taking you a very long time to discover that for yourself.

 

How Not To Be A Valentine’s Day Martyr Top 10 Tips

Valentine’s Day is the day for lovers.  It’s the day when happy couples celebrate, and lots of couples pretend; while singles and people in bad relationships can feel pretty sorry for themselves.  It can be the perfect opportunity for a “Pity Party”.  Unfortunately, Pity Parties are the loneliest parties in the world.  Not only do they make you feel worse, they also keep you stuck exactly where you are.  If you would like an alternative to your own Private Pity Party read on. 

1. Do NOT read the romantic Valentine’s cards.  If you have to buy one for your partner in an ailing relationship, grab the first one you find that is either funny or has very few words. That is good enough.  If you do not have to buy one, then do not even think of looking at then.  They simply are not relevant to you, this year.
2. Don’t compare yourself to other people.  So, you’re in a relationship that isn’t working well.  There can be a great temptation to look at other people’s relationships and feel even worse about your own.  Only do that if your Private Pity Party is not lonely enough already.
3. Don’t tell yourself your story.  Telling yourself that your partner is a heartless brute will only make you feel worse.  He has stopped trying to please you, and you have given up on yourself.  That’s the situation in the here and now.  All that happened to contribute to that is sad and/or awful.  But, you already know it.  You’ve lived it.  You don’t need reminding.
4. Don’t dwell on how much more awful this Valentine’s Day feels than last Valentine’s day.  Maybe it’s true, and maybe that is what you said last year.  Either way, that attitude stops you focusing on what is working in your life – or what you need to do to get things working in your life.
5. Don’t fantasize about how awful next Valentine’s Day will be, because you will still be stuck in the same old misery with the same bad partner – or else, even worse, you will be alone.  First, you clearly are not very good at predicting the future accurately, or you would not have hooked up with your bad partner in the first place.  Second, it is that kind of attitude that will blind you to the action you need to take to ensure that next year will be better.
6. Don’t fixate on having a relationship.  Nobody is publicizing this on Valentine’s day – because it ain’t commercial – but you don’t have to be in a relationship to be happy.  Stop thinking of a loving relationship as the inalienable right for everyone else but you; and start thinking of it as the icing on the cake.  Think, instead, about the cake.  What can you do to make that cake as toothsome as possible?  You wouldn’t hand someone a polystyrene block that had been iced and expect them to enjoy eating.  So why would you expect someone else to enjoy being with a person who believes he/she is only fit for the scrap heap?
7. Don’t sit at home feeling miserable.  You have choices, get out, see people, watch a movie or, if you can’t do that, at least play music, or watch a DVD, that lifts your spirits.
8. Don’t overdose on chocolate, or alcohol.  It will only make you more miserable the next day, because then you can bring to your Pity Party your concerns about your weight, your alcohol consumption, or your hangover, as a result.
9. Don’t watch a romantic movie.  That will make you even more miserable than the chocolate.  The sight of all these beautiful, slim, airbrushed, rich – or soon to be rich – people will depress you still further.
10.  Don’t phone a miserable friend.  Misery loves company.  But if you speak to someone who is as miserable as you are then you will both end up more miserable as a result.  Think of it as a simple sum: their misery + your misery = greater, longer lasting misery.  Instead, turn your attention to something or someone that inspires you.  Read something inspirational,  listen to an inspirational DVD, or speak to someone whose positive approach leaves you feeling better. 

If you are not going to be a Valentine’s Day martyr you need to be quite clear: it’s sink or swim time.  Stay becalmed in the treacherous waters of misery much longer, and you will drown.  But you have only to take the first constructive small step to feeling a more positive emotion and you will soon learn to swim.  Martyrs are a dead weight.  Swimmers are buoyant.   

Make Valentine’s Day the day that you kick the martyr habit.  

Still not convinced? 

Ok.  So, here’s the thing.  Martyrs tell themselves that at least they aren’t needy; they can go without pretty much everything.  But they really, really want all the things they believe that they can never have.  What this means is that you are nursing a belief about everything you can never have.  How powerful is that?

Ask yourself, have all the people in all the world who are now in loving couples on Valentine’s Day always been one half of the same happy couple?  Were any of them ever miserable and alone on Valentine’s Day?  If they could make the shift from misery to happy coupledom, what’s really so different about you?

Let me invite you to entertain a new belief:  “I can have everything I want, once I take off the martyr’s blinkers.”  

The 7 Mistakes All Emotionally Abused Women Make

Abused women blame themselves for a lot of things.  That is the inevitable consequence of domestic violence.  In this article we shall focus on just one aspect of domestic violence; that is mental, emotional abuse. Usually, the things that women who have suffered domestic violence  blame themselves for fall into one of two categories: the things that are not their fault, and the things that are not important in the great scheme of things. 

Things that are not their fault include: 

• Making a mess of individual situations.  Their partners’ outburst are always, somehow, their fault.
• Spoiling the relationship.  (In reality they are the ones who try to hold it together.)
• Being stupid.  (They aren’t – although they will honour the unfortunate choice to love a man who is not worthy of them.)
• Being too old, or too young.  (They are the age they are.  It takes a special kind of idiot to turn around one day and say to someone of 21, or 41, or 71, that they are suddenly unacceptable
• Being ugly.  (Living a life of ugliness is enough to make anyone feel ugly; but the ugliness lies in the eyes of the abusive man, not his partner.)
• Not being good enough.  (Good enough for whom, for Heaven’s sake?  And how did that happen?  Did the abusive man make a mistake in selecting his woman in the first place?  Or does he operate a sliding scale?)
• Being failures as women.  (It’s what they are told.  What it means is that they are not the perfect cross between a slave and a supermodel.  Not that their partner is a dead ringer for George Clooney!  But that doesn’t count.)
•  

Things that are not important include: 

• Their weight.  (It is perfectly possible to be overweight, underweight or the perfect weight and be loved.  Just not by an abusive man, because they make an art form of finding fault with everything about you.)
• Their past mistakes. (They are in the past, after all.  Fortunately, abusive men know they will never be judged on their pas mistakes.)
• Their education.
• Their family - inasmuch as an abusive woman is not responsible for her family. 

The mistakes that abused women make have nothing to do with the alleged crimes for which their partners reproach them. These mistakes are errors of judgement that abused women make unconsciously, which cause them enormous suffering. 

The 7 mistakes 

• Turning a blind eye to his first unacceptable temper tantrums.  You say that you do that because you love him.  He interprets your acceptance as collusion.  In his eyes, you have given him clear proof that you area doormat.
• Trying over and over again to make the relationship work.  When an abusive partner has told you, either in words or actions, 3, or 4, or 5 times, that he does not value you or the relationship, you have to believe it.  He is offering you his mission statement.  Time to head for the hills.
• Making excuses for him.  Why would feel obliged to improve his behaviour when you are willing to excuse him?  Your excuses give him carte blanche to carry on behaving as badly, or worse, than he has done in the past.
• Feeling responsible for him.  The time comes when you say; “I’ve had enough.  It’s over.”  He’s foreseen that day, and he’s ready.  He turns on the crocodile tears.  He tells you that he can’t live without you.  It’s taken this for him to discover how much he loves you.  From now on, he will be a good boy.  But he does need you to help him.  You agree, and he’s back on track.  Once again, he has got you to carry him.  Will he change?  No.
• Minimizing.  He behaves like a heel, and you know it.  But you tell yourself: “He had a difficult childhood.”  “He’s had a hard time at work – or being out of work.”  “It’s just the drink talking.”  Bad behaviour is still bad behaviour.  He has no right to dump on you – until you let him.
• Covering up.  Your relationship is ghastly.  But you don’t want the world to know.  So you put on a brave face.  That’s collusion.  Once again, you are giving him permission to behave as badly as he wants.  Because it will all stay behind closed doors.  In fact, while you are playing Loyal Little Woman, he can be out spreading poison about you.  If you change your tune, who do you think will be believed?
• Believing in fairy tales.  Of course, you don’t consciously believe in fairy tales: you are a grown woman not a little girl, after all.  But, unconsciously, you’re still stuck acting out Beauty and the Beast.  I don’t know whether you met the Handsome Prince, or the Beast, first off.  I do know who you are living with.  Every last petal has dropped off that rose, the only time the crockery and cutlery dance is when he gets angry, and the Beast is still a Beast.  That’s all he will ever be.  Time to get real.  And, if some other naïve woman, wants to play Beauty and the Beast with him, good luck to her.  Reality is not like fairy tales.  One key difference to bear in mind: in the real world, when you first get together with someone, they are on their best behaviour, they wear their most attractive mask.  With abusers it is all one way from there: downhill.  The behaviour degenerates, the mask drops, the result is a whole load of misery for you.  Period.

 The real mistakes that women make in abusive relationships have nothing to do with faults or inadequacies.  They are all about being too willing to carry on believing the best of someone who is trying very hard to show you just what a jerk he is.  

Abusive men don’t give you too many gifts.  Showing you just how unpleasant and callous they can be is the best gift you can have in a lousy situation.  Accept it graciously, before your abusive partner keeps slamming it into your face.  And move on.  

One thing they never tell you in fairy stories is that the beautiful maiden doesn’t actually need a man to be happy.  She just thinks she does.  But when she learns to be truly happy by herself, and for herself, she will attract a much better class of man than a Beast/Prince. 

If this information has been helpful to you, look too at www.EmotionalAbuseRecoveryNow.com