For Those Who've Been Abused or React As If You Have

First I want you to understand why I'm writing this. Many people were abused and don't realize it. Maybe someone's told you that you display personality traits of someone who was abused as a child. Maybe you've noticed self-traits that mirror someone you know who's been abused. Maybe you have a trace of memory but just aren't willing to "go there." For all of you I just described, please read on. The other day I talked with a friend about her co-dependent personality traits and relationship patterns. She knows that usually comes from abuse, often seen in Adult Children of Alcoholics. She didn't think she fit in either category. But as we talked over some things she volunteered how critical her mother was, detailed her disapproval when the child erred, her perfectionism. Only my friend can say how abusive this was or wasn't, but we found the root of her dysfunction. Because as nice as co-dependents are, it truly is a dysfunction. I've come to see that co-dependency is an imbalance in all my major character traits. Some I've really taken control of and balanced but recently I've come to see how truly out of balance some of these traits still are. And I've set intent to heal from them, to create real balance and get better control of my life, my choices, and my emotions. I'm going at it from many angles (aptly, I first mistyped that as angels), which I don't have room for in this post but will detail as soon as possible. And I'm still on my quest, very active for nearly 2 years now, to uncover and heal the last of the emotional scars and issues that are blocking me from truly thriving in all areas of my life, that still cause pain.

No matter how you were abused - physically, sexually - whatever, there was also emotional abuse. Often emotional abuse is the "only" kind we received. But there's no such thing as "only" when it comes to abuse. It underlies all the other types - it all deeply affects our emotional health. And I fully believe that most dis-ease if not all, stems from emotional causes.

One of the biggest problems of being "only emotionally abused" is that it's often so very subtle. I've been in three long term emotionally abusive relationships, starting with my mother. In that one, the sexual abuse was very subtle and open to interpretation. The first thing I want to tell you is that if you perceive it as abuse, it was! The perpetrator is certainly not going to be the one to validate abuse! And in subtle cases, you can't go on the opinion of anyone else. I have had so many bad experiences with going to the pain of telling my truth in detail only to have the experiences discounted as not being abuse! Even a professional can make such a mistakes I'm sure, although that hasn't been my experience. Every professional I've spoken with quickly noticed the cues of an abuse victim, and therefore validated my experience. But even those I've considered close friends, or open-minded, have discounted me. Notice I said discounted me, not my experiences. Because when it happens, you feel you're being discounted too. So I would be very cautious about who you share these details with.

I buried the memories of the sexual abuse until I was months from my 35th birthday. But as a child, I registered the wrongness of what was being done to me along with the memories. In those memory files were all I actually perceived, felt, experienced - the shame, humiliation, guilt (from brainwashing, being told it was all my fault it was being done to me), anger, feelings of powerlessness, helplessness, and hopelessness, to just name some. When specific memories were uncovered, all those feelings came pouring out along with being so present in the memory that I felt I was viewing it happening all over again. It was very painful but cleansing and necessary. Before that, my experiences often ruled my reactions and actions without me knowing why or having control. After uncovering the memories, I was better and better able to make choices and reprogram. Off and on I've been working on healing from it all ever since then. That is to say, I work on it every time another issue from it comes forth. I very actively worked on it for 2 years starting in 1990, with the first recovered memory, then not quite as actively for the next 5 years. A few years after that I entered into in a sexually abusive marriage and quit making progress. Then I got my Reiki I and II attunements Fall of 2010, got out of that marriage, and started very actively working toward recovery. However, I then had the added abuse to deal with. But it's much different dealing with it from an adult perspective, when the abuse happened in adulthood. It's much worse being betrayed by a parent than a spouse, and worst of all if it's the mother. Because the mother is the major nurturer, or supposed to be. Anyway, you register things differently as an adult, and deal with things differently. Your formative years are over by then, and you have at least somewhat consciously (in most cases) ignored cues and willingly entered into the abusive relationship. That's one of the problems with unhealed issues from childhood abuse of any kind - as adults, if unhealed in any major way, we tend to choose a spouse who will duplicate the abusive pattern for us. Some of us do it over and over. But please note that I'm not saying abuse received as an adult is lesser. Abuse is abuse, no matter the form or the age of the victim. And all abuse is extremely destructive to the self.

In the second abusive relationship I was an adult and the abuse was very subtle. It was a spouse who was very closed off about feelings, issues, and things. He came from a family where you didn't even discuss pet peeves much less confront anyone or discuss issues with each other, and where the physical affection was skewed. So were his role models. So the abuse was silent disapproval, and eventually a series of lies. I never knew what I was doing wrong or why I wasn't measuring up - only that I wasn't. That's so hard because unless you're very strong in your sense of self, you can't help but internalize the message that there's something wrong with you or in some way you aren't good enough, or even both. But when the other person is in denial and tells you there's nothing wrong, it can make you feel absolutely crazy! It's another time when your perceptions are entirely invalidated and you become very confused. It really reinforced the confusion I internalized as a child. The way I describe it is learning that at home, the sky is green and the grass is blue but when you get to school it becomes the other way around. And you see that everyone else thinks the sky is blue and the grass is green, but you've been absolutely taught to believe that at your house it's different. So you learn to feel entirely "different," & like a misfit. You realize you're the only one in the world with blue grass and a green sky and you just don't know what's wrong with YOU. Because of course there's nothing wrong with those we totally have to trust and depend on - our parents.

Shaming is emotional abuse. So are disapproving looks, sighs, the silent treatment, tone of voice, ignoring you or your needs, and demeaning words, as long as there's a chronic pattern of them. On an occasional basis, all that's within the norm of relationships - we're human. The problem comes when it's an overall pattern of treatment. But these are usually very subtle and therefore more easily internalized that blatant abuse like beating someone up. And the subtle abuses are the most damaging to our selves. And then many of us go on to learn to abuse ourselves. There are so many ways to do that - going from one abusive relationship to another, any type of addiction, self destructive habits, self cutting - more than I can think of at the moment. Sometimes we purposely inflict pain on ourselves to feel in control of the emotional pain we feel, to create a kind of numbing. Other times we play the abuser to ourselves to feel more in control of what's happening to us. Sometimes we just feel we don't deserve anything better.

I'm doing some online reading on a site written by an adult victim of childhood abuse - so very obviously, from the way it's written. It's really painful reading and I'm not sure I'll end up sharing much of it or the specific site with you. I'm not sure how soon I'm going to revisit the subject of abuse in this blog or in what capacity. Eventually I'll share things that are working to create self-healing. I may also share more of the issues. And certainly if there's some aspect you want me to cover, let me know. I always welcome comments - BUT. If you want to comment on this one, I insist you use the comment button at the bottom of this blog post. I don't want this aired on my personal Facebook page for all to see.