Category Archives: Emotional abuse

Australia still says ‘Yes’!

08 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by in Abuse, Abuse victims, Australia says Yes, bigotry, Bisexual, Emotional abuse, Gay, Gender equality, Gender inequality, Injustice, Lesbian, Marriage Equality, Marriage Equality in Australia, Pansexual, politics, australia, Psychological abuse, Relationships, Same Sex Marriage, Spirituality, Trans, Uncategorized

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Image of a face; male on one side, female on the other

Artwork by Melinda Jensen

Read…and weep. 

Especially those of you who consider yourselves decent human beings;  compassionate and reasonable human beings who would never tolerate the presence, here in Australia, of an underclass…and yet you voted, ‘No’. I am calling on you to have a good, long look inside yourself.

There are celebrations here in Australia; among those who believe in equality. All of us who believe in love. All of us who believe we’re not gods at the centre of the universe, casting judgment upon the masses…nor making decisions that impinge on the basic human rights of others. We’re celebrating…but with a dark and heartbreaking undercurrent.

But right now…before I launch into my story…my daughters’ story…my granddaughter’s story…

READ…

Tomorrow at 9am (Qld time), the verdict of the marriage equality survey will be announced. Ever since it was agreed that the nation would vote, I’ve felt progressively more quietly downtrodden – while the support has been truly beautiful, hearing of friends and family silently voting no has made me feel sick, and the ones doing it loudly even more so. The sheer number of people I thought – by association and friendship – were supportive of me as a person who think I’m lesser, not worthy, or abhorrent is terrifying. That’s what a no vote says to me – that I am not okay, not worthy, don’t deserve happiness or love. I don’t understand and I can’t comprehend it.

Being in a relationship with a man, a woman, a non binary person or anyone else makes me no less pansexual. Marriage equality being passed in Australia makes me no less pansexual. The hate I’ve witnessed, read about and been subject to makes me no less pansexual. In the end, regardless of the result, that is what this survey means to me – disenchantment, mistrust and alienation. The fact that a nation was willing to put so many people through this heartbreak just to prove a point – to vote on an established human right – is inconceivable.

Hug your family tomorrow. We need it.

Substitute the word ‘black’ for ‘pansexual’. You’re not racist, of course! Mixed race marriages have been legal for six or seven decades. Think about that for a moment. There are people living today who still bear the scars of that humiliation  and whose descendants will continue to struggle with their identities for hundreds of years to come. All because the dominant classes acted from fear instead of love.

Hark back 200 years and witness my ancestors who fled their mother country in fear for their lives – fled to the harsh colonies in Australia; that barren and frightening land. Why? Because they were convicts? No.

Because they were adventurous? Seeking a new life in the land of the free? Not exactly.

It was because they committed the worst of sins…

An ‘Orange’ married a ‘Green’.

Taboo. And so they risked their lives and their livelihoods in the name of love. We look back on those days and shake our heads at the collective ignorance, the bigotry and harsh injustices. Society was so misguided back then, we think, feeling a little smug because we’re so much more enlightened these days.

Aren’t we?

In traditional Judaism, girls are permitted to marry as young as twelve years of age, and boys at thirteen. Do we then refuse to allow all Jews to marry in this country…because sexual relationships with children are surely an abomination? For that matter, do we refuse to allow followers of other religions, like Islam, to marry because they too, allow child marriage, along with polygamy? No?

That brings me to the point made by advocates of the ‘No’ vote that I find most loathsome – that the normalization of paedosex will naturally progress from the legalization of same-sex marriage. There is no rationale behind this train of thought. Any deductive argument in its defense crumbles to rubble before the end of the first paragraph.

Paedophilia is almost the sole domain of the heterosexual male. Before you shout me down, please note I said ‘almost’. Yes, there are women – vile, sick women. Yes, there are gay and lesbian paedophiles. We’re all familiar with the stories of little boys being lured into men’s toilets, and while that’s a cliche, it’s one with a basis in truth. Sometimes, it happens. (I haven’t personally read or heard of a lesbian paedophile but it stands to reason that some would exist in this world.)

BUT: The majority of sexual assaults on children take place at the hands of heterosexual men, many of whom are married or have female partners. And sometimes, their heterosexual female partners are complicit, or worse, active participants. Incest is hardly a thing of the past.

According to the hypothesis that underlies the position that paedosex naturally follows from the legalization of same-sex marriage, it would be more logical then, to refuse to allow heterosexual couples to marry.

I have gender-fluid friends and members of my family – all of whom I’d trust implicitly with my children – well, grandchildren then; my daughters have long-since left their childhoods behind them. There are however, a number of heterosexual people I’d hesitate to entrust with something so precious as a human life. Call it intuition, if you will. I call it spiritual discernment.

My last point is one I approach with some trepidation – the Christian viewpoint. And yet, it is, in some ways, the most salient point – largely because it is the Christian contingent in this country who have voiced their objections so venomously. I won’t attempt to broach this subject from a doctrinal perspective. Nor will I pretend to be knowledgeable enough to quote scripture with any certainty of a perfect understanding of its original meaning. What is needed from those who believe in God, is the humility to admit that, not only do we struggle to comprehend scripture as it’s translated today (it’s complicated!), but the vast majority of us are abysmally ignorant of the nuances of the language in which it was first written. I’ll also go out on a limb and say I believe we don’t have the full scriptures to hand. How could we? Thousands of years of translations at the hands of mere humanity; lost manuscripts; the politically motivated church leaders in charge of deciding which books and verses to include and which to destroy or hide under lock and key – all of it points to the fact we need to listen with our hearts.

And my heart says that the harsh and judgmental voices of so many ‘No’ voters have shredded the souls of so many vulnerable human beings. They have been invalidated, belittled and made to feel ‘less than’; they have, as made clear in the quote above, been hurt to the very core. They are humiliated and shamed. There was a significant rise in the number of suicides among the ‘non-heterosexual’ community in the lead-up to this sham of a postal survey. They felt as monsters on display awaiting a verdict. Guilty of the sin of being who they are. Offered up to the masses for scrutiny; for trial and sentencing.

In the memorable words of the ‘elephant man’, ‘I am not a monster!’

As a mother, it utterly breaks my heart.

The author of the heartfelt plea I’ve quoted here is my youngest daughter, Kim Kahler. Both my daughters are ‘other’. I am incredibly proud of them. They are so much more than I ever was or will ever be.

I have witnessed their acts of compassion and sacrifice, their contributions to society, their commitment to the environment, their admirable work ethic and unquenchable thirst for knowledge and wisdom, their responsible parenting and their quests for justice. And I have seen them brought low by those who resort to small-mindedness, ignorance, bigotry and pure hate. They have not responded in kind.

So to all of you who voted ‘No’ – I know you have your reasons. But please…please…realize and take responsibility for the depth of pain you’ve inflicted on vulnerable human beings who need, more than anything else, your love.

Search your hearts and recognize the darkness there.

 

 

 

 

The Question on Everyone’s Lips: Why do victims stay so long?

11 Saturday Nov 2017

Posted by in Abuse, Abuse victims, Blog about abuse, Controlling People, Counselling, Emotional abuse, healing from emotional abuse, help for abuse victims, Narcissistic abuse, Oppression of women, Passive-aggressive abuse, Psychological abuse, Psychology, Psychopathology, Recovery from abuse, Relationship abuse, Relationship breakdown, Stockholm Syndrome, The Silent Treatment, Uncategorized, Verbal abuse, Why abuse victims don't leave, Why abuse victims stay so long

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sinking woman, koratmember

Image courtesy of koratmember at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

To those who’ve been in psychological and emotional captivity to an abusive partner, spouse or parent, the answer is abundantly clear. It’s complicated but obvious; yet far from obvious to outside observers.

Even those who know us well and have watched us struggle, find our actions inexplicable. We try to explain, we really do. But even to ourselves, the words sound hollow and illogical.

And so we clam up, feeling judged and misunderstood. And lonely…desperately lonely. In the short term, that’s probably all we can do. It takes time – a long time – for us to understand ourselves, and our situations, sufficiently to articulate the truth. In the meantime, until we find the strength to leave the abuser once and for all, friends and family often drop off like lemmings from a cliff, leaving us without much-needed support and encouragement. And that’s all part of our abuser’s grand plan.

I was lucky. I have two epic daughters and a strong mother. They didn’t quite understand but they were accepting and unswervingly supportive.

angry man

Image courtesy of saphatthachat at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

But by and large, I was isolated for over three years from every one of my former friends, and from most of my wider family. There were even attempts to alienate me from my eldest daughter and two grandchildren. Not only was my abuser angry, loud and frightening when my grandchildren came to stay with me, as they’d done since they were tiny, but his own children carried out their own sniper attacks while I was sleeping. (Read my post about flying monkeys here.)

 

My grandchildren would invariably leave, after a weekend spent with me, (once peaceful and serene), so distressed that my daughter no longer allowed them to visit. So I made the 45 minute drive into town to spend time with them whenever time and energy allowed – which wasn’t nearly often enough. I was kept far too busy jumping through hoops to avoid the backlash of my abuser’s anger. As you can see, the ways an abuser isolates his victims from their support network is, by no means, always obvious. More frequently, it’s a covert operation.

And I was sick; so desperately sick with a chronic illness I’d battled for nearly two decades. And let’s not forget that abusers target the ill; the vulnerable. (Note: All of us who are, by nature, compassionate and caring, are hence, vulnerable.)

So that’s reason number 1: We no longer have family and friends to turn to. No one knows what’s going on. No-one believes us when we tell them.

Let me tell you, it’s quite possible to be driven, quite literally, mad. I know, because that’s the state in which I found myself one September. Utterly bereft. Utterly confused. Utterly without any knowledge of or belief in my own reality.

You started out as quite normal. It’s normal to enter relationships with a healthy outlook that assumes shared power; shared responsibility; shared decision-making; shared affection. Everything is mutual and equal. THAT is normal.

THAT’S what you expected, as we all should. But that’s not what happens in abusive relationships.

Instead, you’re manipulated from the outset…subtly at first, and then, when you’re broken in (and broken), the abuse becomes blatant. But by then, you don’t trust yourself. Your reality is skewed. You no longer remember who you truly are. Before long, you can’t answer simple questions about yourself, like, ‘What’s your favourite colour?’

It’s all part of the plan. THEIR plan.

I’ve written in other posts about ‘crazy-making behaviour‘. Let me recap on one of an abuser’s major weapons – Gaslighting.

The movie, ‘Gaslight’ is a golden oldie, starring Ingrid Bergman (as the victim) and Charles Boyer (as the perpetrator). (As a bonus, a young Angela Lansbury makes her debut appearance!) Despite seeming a bit cheesy due to the era, it’s well worth a watch. If you’ve been abused, it will make your hairs stand on end.

To explain briefly, to gaslight someone is to set up certain conditions, and then deny they ever happened. All the while, the ‘gaslighter’ is coupling his or her denials with declarations of love, concern and undying affection, which creates a powerful emotional conditioning. Let me draw a parallel from my own experience.

My neurological condition is known for its cognitive difficulties. During times of stress and illness exacerbation, I rely on written lists; and when I really need to remember something important, I make an extra effort to commit it to long-term memory. I’ve been doing this for around 20 years now and although I still have momentary lapses, by and large, I’ve trained my memory to work fairly well.

Unfortunately, like all abusers, my tormentor seized on this vulnerability and used it against me. Relentlessly. We’d make joint decisions, during which he would seem perfectly agreeable and then I’d wake up the next morning to be told the conversations had never taken place. But also, of course, that he ‘understood’ because ‘poor me’, I have such cognitive difficulties…and he loved me anyway, despite how difficult I was. His performance was worthy of an Oscar and I fell for it over and over, with each episode becoming more and more cruel.

He started to drop the I love you‘s and began to look at me sidelong, like a snake, as if I were filth beneath his martyred feet. By that time, I doubted my own sanity and he openly told me I was f..ing psycho; the crazy one etc. When I stood my ground and opposed him, he became cold, callous and calculating; interspersed with every aggressive and passive-aggressive tactic he could pull out of his bag of psychopathic tricks.

Coupled with all the other modes of abuse and control, I found myself doubting my own sense of reality. It tipped me over the edge. By that time, I felt crazy. And then, of course, he used that against me. The spiral into the abyss of madness was swift and terrifying.

And that’s reason number 2: We reach a point where we no longer trust ourselves or our own reality. If we believe we’re crazy, we also believe we can’t cope on our own; and so we stay with the person who has driven us out of our minds.

And if you fall into this trap? (How can we not?) If you believe you’re not quite sane? What do you do? You cling desperately to the abuser who has deliberately…callously…manipulated your reality to fit his own ends. He wants you to believe HIM (or HER); and so give up on yourself. Who are you then? What do you know? Who and what do you trust?

Remember, family and friends have already disappeared one by one.

And so the trauma bond becomes complete. You have no choice (because your judgment and sanity have been taken from you) but to put all your trust in the only person left to look after you – your abuser.

You may have heard of Stockholm Syndrome. If not, here’s the lowdown:

It’s a psychological phenomenon that is frequently displayed by:

  • Abused Children
  • Battered/Abused Women
  • Prisoners of War
  • Cult Members
  • Incest Victims
  • Criminal Hostage Situations
  • Concentration Camp Prisoners
  • Controlling/Intimidating Relationships

It’s characterized by an intense emotional bond that forms between those who hold all the power in a situation and their victims, who hold no power whatsoever. It’s a survival strategy that makes no sense to an outside observer but perfect sense from a psychological perspective. It actually enhances the chances of survival for victims. Unfortunately, it also diminishes the likelihood a victim will leave an abusive situation because:

  • Victims have been powerfully conditioned to show feelings of love, cooperation, appeasement and admiration for their abusers. If they don’t, they will be punished severely, either physically, emotionally, psychologically, sexually, financially…or all of the above.
  • If victims depend solely on the abuser for sustenance (from food, shelter and clothing to human contact, affection, social interaction and validation), a ‘sick’ loop forms wherein victims are inordinately grateful for the tidbits tossed from the masters table.
  • This gratitude and ‘good behaviour’ result from time to time, but not always (just to keep us on our toes), in magnanimous gestures from our captors – maybe a whole day of relaxed conversation, free from verbal and psychological attacks; maybe some tender caresses and dove-eyed smiles instead of the habitual silent treatment and snake-eyed glares; perhaps even a leave-pass to see a friend. And so we walk on eggshells, trained like a terrified dog who, beaten brutally by his master, still wags his tail and follows that master faithfully wherever he goes.
Sad dog

Image courtesy of Patrisyu at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

To learn more about the origins of the term Stockholm Syndrome, visit this link:

Stockholm Syndrome: Counseling Resources

In a nutshell though, the trauma bond – often referred to as Stockholm Syndrome is the third and probably most powerful reason victims of abuse just CAN’T escape their bondage.

 

There are other reasons victims stay with their abusers for far too long that are a little easier to comprehend.

We’re plain scared! Having been punished beyond all proportion for our imagined misdeeds, we know full well the extent of the backlash we’ll receive if we do leave. Some of us have been threatened physically; others have had children threatened; for others it’s been the threat of a smear campaign that promises to destroy our futures.

So, reason number 4 is that we’re just plain terrified!

And because our abuser has almost certainly held the financial reins and likely either destroyed our careers by covert means or ‘persuaded’ us not to work for any number of selfish reasons … we’re broke! We have no money and nowhere to go. We’re likely sick and debilitated; left without the capacity or skills to regroup, find work and establish ourselves financially..

So, that’s another reason we stay. We’re broke! We have no capacity for work and nowhere safe to go. That’s reason number 5 in a nutshell.

This list is far from definitive but I hope it gives an insider glimpse into that baffling question – Why on earth would you stay with such a monster?

From the perspective of an abuse victim, the decision to stay seems like a logical one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Traumatic Memories & the Trauma Response

23 Sunday Jul 2017

Posted by in Abuse, Childhood wounds, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Counselling, Emotional abuse, healing from domestic abuse, healing from emotional abuse, help for abuse victims, Narcissistic abuse, Neuroscience and abuse, Personal growth, Psychological abuse, Psychology, Recovery from abuse, Relationships, Retraumatizing, self love, spiritual growth, Triggering, Uncategorized, Verbal abuse

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silhouette of a man asking for help

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net/foto76

Memories can be wonderful … but not always. Sometimes they thrust themselves into consciousness without warning or invitation, knocking the air clean out of our lungs. Like a kick in the gut with steel-capped boots, an unwelcome memory can force us to your knees , gagging, or send us stumbling numbly in search of a dark, dark cupboard in which to hide … a cupboard that holds no Narnia on its other side, but only ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night.

Some time after the witching hour last night, a memory came to visit. I tried to grab it by the throat and force it back through the door of my dreams, but still it came … stealthy and relentless. And then came another … and yet another. Today I’m barely able to function.

Such is the reality of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a response all too common to survivors of verbal, emotional and psychological abuse. I wish I could tell you how to make it stop. Psychologists will teach you cognitive behavioural techniques (CBT) – the mode of therapy that is currently flavour of the month. It aims to mediate your emotions by getting you to control your own thought processes and attitudes. What the ‘experts’ don’t seem to understand, or tell you, is that the deep-seated feelings of horror and terror that result from years of cruelty actually circumvent the normal neural pathways. And that lack of understanding comes very close to ‘victim blaming’; it unleashes a barrage of guilt and alienates us from much needed love and support.
During my own (long-ago, pre-illness) studies of psychology, I learned that it is, in fact, not possible for researchers to determine whether the physical responses associated with anxiety – the release of stress hormones, which lead to rapid heart rate and pulse, etc) – pre-empt the feeling of fear itself, or whether the fear triggers the physical response. It’s the physical processes that make us shake with fear or paralyze us; that make us feel sick and our palms sweat as the blood thuds and throbs through our heads, leaving us spent. Researchers still don’t know whether the chicken comes before the egg.

Truth is, memories or events that evoke a trauma response trigger automatic emotions first … and the thoughts then follow. From there we scramble to make cognitive sense of them while our fight or flight responses are on auto-pilot, ready to take off like a jump jet. Add in the fact that stress (in all its forms – anxiety, fear etc) shuts down our normal cognitive processes, making it impossible to think straight, and we have a wrecking ball massive enough to demolish the very fabric of our being.

Under these circumstances I believe it’s virtually impossible to be rational – although I baulk at fully embracing that concept with its implication that we just can’t help ourselves. There has to be some level of personal responsibility, certainly, but there needs to be an attitude of compassion, too. Compassion not only from others but also compassion for ourselves. Sometimes we need to cut ourselves some slack. That doesn’t mean allowing ourselves to be out of control; to rant and rave at others; to get drunk and drive fast in an attempt to get away from ourselves; or to engage in any other forms of destructive behaviour.

What it means is to understand that the feeling itself is okay.

We are NOT DEFECTIVE! We are injured and may always carry painful scars that adhere to our souls … wounds that are easily reopened. It is NOT OUR FAULT. We are who we are. Survivors.

shy girl

We need to accept ourselves with all our battle-scars even if no-one else does, and we need to nurture our own wounded inner child. Imagine how you might treat a little girl or boy who has been irrevocably damaged by some adult monster. What would you say to her? How would you soothe and reassure him? If you were harmed by an intimate partner and not by a parent, your inner child is still just as wounded. We all carry that vulnerable facet deep within us and it is this very precious, fragile part of our souls that our abusers hone in on in their attempts to destroy us.

Some of us turn to God and hand our brokenness to Him; the perfect parent; the ever-loving spouse who cherishes us in a way no human being ever can. He is the keeper of my soul and my only true solace when the demons of trauma return to torment me. He scoops me up and cradles me in His powerful yet gentle arms and kisses me like the wounded child I truly am.

 

 

 

Passive Aggressive Abuse – The Silent Treatment

19 Friday Aug 2016

Posted by in Abuse, Blog about abuse, Controlling People, counseling, Emotional abuse, help for abuse victims, Passive-aggressive abuse, Psychological abuse, Psychology, Relationship advice, Relationships, The Silent Treatment, Uncategorized

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ID-10044280

(Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

There is no more effective way to let someone know how little you mean to them than to use your silence. If you want to cut someone to the quick, simply don’t respond when they implore you for understanding or explanation. Walk away from their tears. Turn your back on their pain. Or better still, pretend to listen and respond appropriately, then disappear out of someone’s life, either permanently or temporarily.

Make no mistake about it, neglect and the silent treatment are highly effective and particularly cruel forms of emotional abuse. Trying to pinpoint why you feel so utterly crushed when someone treats you this way is like chasing phantoms in the dark – you’re not really sure what you’re looking for or why it hurts so much. On the surface, you’re reacting to ‘nothing’. The person hasn’t yelled at you, called you names, belittled you or intimidated you in any tangible way. If you complain about their treatment, it will be turned back on you.‘What do you mean? I haven’t done anything! You’re the one with the problem.’ Or you will simply be treated to more silence.

And it’s easy to convince you that you are, in fact, the one to blame. Trust me, you’re not.

So what constitutes the Silent Treatment?

  1. Not responding to your reasonable emotional needs.

  2. Walking away from you when you try to address an issue.

  3. Saying yes, but doing the opposite.

  4. Ignoring phone calls and text messages.

  5. Often accompanied by tears and reproachful looks or …

  6. alternatively, intimidating you with an angry glare.

  7. And, of course, simply not speaking to you, especially when you make it clear that you really need to dialogue.

 

The method a perpetrator employs depends on his or her unique personality and behaviour pattern. In the ‘good old days’, men would bury their heads in a newspaper while their wives tried everything they could to get some interaction. These days, people bury themselves in their work or engross themselves in computer games (therefore living a virtual reality while avoiding their true reality). Some hide themselves in a bottle of whiskey. Others busy themselves with friends and other activities. The one thing they all have in common is that their coping mechanism is avoidance. Avoidance of you, the person they supposedly love; avoidance of conflict; avoidance of the issues they have; and most of all, avoidance of who they really are. It’s easier to avoid you than to face whatever demons lurk within their souls. It’s easier to slay a virtual dragon than to fight the good fight in the real world.

If you’re confused about whether or not to be angry when you’re on the receiving end of this form of passive aggression … because, as I’ve already mentioned, you haven’t copped any overt abuse … remember this:

 

A decision to not take action is still a decision … and still an action.

The choice to not act is still a choice … and still an action.

Not taking action when action is required is still a conscious act.

 

The silent treatment is the dagger used by cowards.

 

Nurturing souls and their abusers

14 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by in Abuse, Abuse victims, Counselling, Emotional abuse, Narcissistic abuse, Psychological abuse, Psychology, Psychopathology, Relationships, spiritual growth, Spirituality, Uncategorized, Verbal abuse

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I’m reblogging this beautifully and succinctly written piece from ‘Sanctuary for the Abused’. It speaks directly to the heart of the matter. Note: The genders are interchangeable.

A Nurturing Soul Does Not Compute with a Sociopath

Angel imprisoned Pictures, Images and Photos

Many are often shocked to find an otherwise healthy and strong woman in an abusive situation and wonder why and how this happens.

This women is a nurturer. She has nurtured her own soul, conquered herself to find joy in the world.

She meets a man who seems to be so close to winning. He’s almost conquered himself. She finds great pleasure and joy in watching and taking part in the nurturing of other’s souls. She sees how beautiful he is. She wants him to win his inner battles. She wants to be a part of this great battle.

She sees his behavior change from kind and loving, to mean and cruel, and believes she is watching an inner battle of self being waged. She wants him to win the good fight. She sees the worth of his soul, and feels the battle is worth the wages.

This loving, nurturing woman joins the man in his own personal battle as a loving friend and wife.

But she doesn’t understand his swift mood changes from kind to cruel, are not representative of an internal battle over self, but merely manipulative behaviors, designed to gain power over others.

He is not battling over self control, but dominating the souls and hearts of others.

In the end, she finds herself in a painful powerless position having lost herself serving him, loving him, sacrificing for him, in the illusion he will be moved by her love to win.

But their is no battle within him. His heart is not moved. There is no battle to be won. She will lose everything in a quest that never was.

And the devil will rejoice in the crumbling of another soul, that was once previously strong.

Her whole life, her great quest to save her husband, is nothing but a lie.

by Natalie Fleming

SOURCE

Verbal punches and brain changes

01 Friday Jul 2016

Posted by in Abuse, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Counselling, Emotional abuse, healing from domestic abuse, healing from emotional abuse, help for abuse victims, Justice system and abuse, Narcissistic abuse, Neuroscience and abuse, Personal growth, Psychological abuse, Psychology, Psychopathology, Relationship abuse, Relationship advice, Spirituality, Uncategorized, Verbal abuse

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When someone delivers a physical blow, no one questions whether or not damage has been done to the victim, and no one tries to deflect the blame from the perpetrator. The bruises, scratches and broken bones are there for all to see.

Until relatively recently, abusers have been able to hide behind the smokescreen provided by the societal perception that ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me’. Of course, verbal, psychological and emotional abuses go well beyond name-calling, and yet, victims of this most insidious and devastating form of abuse face an uphill battle when it comes to being taken seriously. Already in a depleted emotional and cognitive state, with energy levels at a lifetime low, they rarely have the wherewithal to pursue understanding, let alone deliverance, from their personal hell.

Legislation however, is beginning to catch up with the truth. There’s a long way to go yet but the first seeds have been sown, at least in my own county – Australia. Most other nations are lagging a long way behind.

But I’ll save the legislative changes for another post. Today, I want to shed a little light on what emotional/verbal abuse victims have known for millenia, and which is only now being backed up by the latest research from neuroscience. To put it in very plain English, recent studies have proved that the brain changes that occur as a result of physical abuse are exactly the same as the changes that occur as a result of emotional, verbal and psychological abuse. In other words, the source of the abuse doesn’t matter. The brain encodes it the same way, regardless. The bottom line is that all abuse is physical.

That means the long term effects are identical. Well … almost. It has also been established that only one form of abuse consistently leads to Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder(CPTSD). Surprisingly, it’s not sexual or physical abuse. It’s our old foe – emotional, psychological and verbal abuse. Although physical and sexual abuse are usually accompanied by emotional control and abuse, on their own they don’t lead to long term CPTSD. Emotional/verbal/psychological abuse however, is a reliable predictor of CPTSD without any other form of abuse being present. It’s a sobering thought, and something few therapists or authorities are aware of.

Knowledge is empowering. Spread the word.

 

Sources:

http://www.narcissismaddictionsabuse.com

https://www.psychologytoday.com

http://www.blueknot.org.au

More on Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in a future post.

 

 

 

Using vulnerability against you; aka throwing your past in your face

23 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by in Abuse, Childhood wounds, Controlling People, counseling, Emotional abuse, healing from emotional abuse, help for abuse victims, Narcissistic abuse, Psychological abuse, Psychology, Relationship abuse, Retraumatizing, Uncategorized, Verbal abuse, Vulnerability

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Sad face, masque

Image courtesy of FreeDigitaalPhotos.net/Stuart Miles

So you’ve put your past behind you? You’ve been to therapy and turned yourself inside out in order to deal with your demons and find the silver lining on your clouded past. Life’s been tough but you’re an overcomer. Good for you! Most people don’t have the courage. Well done. You’re going from strength to strength, right?

Hang on a minute! There’s someone in your life who thinks differently; someone you love, or someone who is an unavoidable part of your life who’s not letting you move on; who doesn’t recognize your growth. Each and every time you’re discussing an issue; trying to make your point heard; simply baring your soul, or building a bridge – what happens?

‘Oh … but you’ve had three failed relationships.’ ‘Oh … but you never finished your education.’ Or how about my personal favourite – ‘You’re sick in the head because of your past childhood sexual abuse. Everything you do and say is coloured by it. That’s why your so angry all the time.’

The implication? You failure, you! You hopeless case. You value-less human being. Why should anyone EVER listen to what you say? Or believe you? Who cares about the circumstances you’ve struggled through and healed from? You will forever be a disappointment in their eyes – the subject of derision and devaluation. Why? Because it makes them feel better to believe that. Because if they look fairly and squarely at what you’ve been through … what you’ve conquered … they’ll have to admit they couldn’t do what  you did. They’re not strong enough.

And so they throw it in your face – time and time again.

You’ll find yourself endlessly wanting to have rational discussions about the issues and difficulties of life; of your relationship … but you’ll find yourself dragged back down to one point … one and only point. Your shortcomings … your vulnerabilities … your past. You’ve dealt with it … but they haven’t. So they use it against you – to WIN. To silence you. To win the power struggle that is their sole goal. Abusers view every interaction as a win/lose situation and they’re determined that they’ll win and you’ll lose. Psychologically healthy individuals realize that, where relationships are concerned, when one person loses, the whole relationship loses. The ‘winner’ gains power but never intimacy.

If you find yourself bringing up the same grievances time and time again, look for the bait you’re being thrown to distract you from the issue at hand. Distraction is one of the most manipulative tools a controlling person can use against you. It confuses you; throws you off the trail and makes you instantly the bad guy, no matter what the other party has done to harm you. It just one more ugly game in their repertoire. Don’t fall for it. And remember, mud sticks best to the cleanest wall.

 

 

 

 

Unleash the Flying Monkeys!

07 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by in Abuse, Abuse victims, Childhood wounds, Controlling People, counseling, Emotional abuse, healing from domestic abuse, healing from emotional abuse, help for abuse victims, Narcissistic abuse, Psychological abuse, Psychology, Relationships, Uncategorized, Verbal abuse

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So what on earth is a flying monkey?

image of flying monkey

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net/

saphatthachat

The term ‘flying monkeys’ is derived from that all-time movie classic, ‘The Wizard of Oz’, in which the wicked witch of the west sends out her nasty little troupe of flying monkeys to inflict torment on Dorothy and her trusty trio.

In popular psychology it is used to describe the people an abuser enlists to back her up, join in with blaming the victim, name-calling, put-downs, the silent treatment and other crazy-making behaviour. Once groomed and recruited, flying monkeys invariably perceive the narcissistic abuser as the innocent party and are outraged at what they believe the real victim has done. They have it ass backwards.

Why it works so well

Narcissists carefully construct a false public image while projecting their real self, with all its ugly traits, onto their chosen target. Because an abuser never attacks in public, people find it extremely difficult to believe she’s anything but the lovely, caring person she pretends to be when she has an audience. Frankly, it’s disturbing to witness how fast she can switch from raging virago to Mrs Happy-Go-Lucky in less than a heartbeat. If you’re unlucky enough to be in a relationship with someone like this, you’ve already seen how fast she can go from sweet to psycho in private. Trust me when I say she is equally able to switch back the other way should a witness come close to walking in on one of her rages.

The narcissist chooses her flying monkeys carefully. She’ll only enlist those she knows will take her side and carry out her bidding, whether she has expressly told them what she wants them to do or whether the process is achieved in more subtle ways. Sadly, the most vulnerable potential monkeys are the abusers own children or other family members and, of course, her best friends. It’s likely they’ll even mimic her behaviour as a matter of course, since she has already portrayed you (consistently) to the be the crazy one, the one at fault, the one who deserves to wear all the guilt and shame. Because they’ve rarely, if ever, been privy to her craziness, they simply accept her version of the truth and go after you with all the self-righteous indignance they can muster, adding a lot of heated fuel to her attack  on you.

As the more responsible parent (or sibling, or child), you have most likely consciously avoided embroiling your children (or siblings or other family members) in your spousal troubles, trying to protect them from the ugly reality that you face on a daily basis. You have been set up like a row of bowling pins. If the first bowler doesn’t knock you out, subsequent bowlers – the flying monkeys – will. The group attack was carefully planned by your abuser.

It’s imperative to trust your own reality – to know who you are, how you operate, and what your values are. An onslaught from your abuser and her hoard of flying monkeys is akin to all-out psychological warfare, and will leave you with all the post-traumatic stress that accompanies battle.

 

 

 

Retraumatization – what happens when you’re triggered.

02 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by in Abuse victims, Counselling, Emotional abuse, healing from domestic abuse, healing from emotional abuse, Narcissistic abuse, Psychological abuse, Psycopathology, Rape, Recovery from abuse, Relationships, Retraumatizing, Triggering, Uncategorized, Verbal abuse

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The greatest gift you are ever going to give someone – the permission to feel safe in their own skin. To feel worthy. To feel like they are enough.

Hannah Brencher

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.com/Chrisroll

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.com/Chrisroll

Of the hundreds of people with whom I’ve interacted via this blog and on facebook, not one who has been on the receiving end of relentless emotional abuse feels ‘safe’ – not in their own skin, not in the company of others nor in contact with their outer or inner worlds.

I have been there. Sometimes I still am. One word, one look, one innuendo can jettison me back through time so fast that I become that child, that spouse; you know, the one who will never be good enough, all over again. In less than a heartbeat I am metaphorically tossed onto the cold hard tiles I was once brutally thrown on in a physical sense. The emotional pain though, runs deeper, right to the arteries, until I feel I’ll surely bleed to death without the slightest scratch to evidence my injury. I find myself fighting the urge to curl into the tiniest, tiniest ball – like some deformed foetus – and crawl into the farthest corner of the darkest cupboard – until the end of time. It is an agony to just ‘be’.

When I am ‘triggered’ like this, I am fighting the urge to ‘not be’ … that is, to not exist. I want desperately to flee to the arms of the Great I Am. There is no solace on this earth. But I stay. I breathe through it. I think of my children and my grandchildren … and I resist the compulsion to run into the night and take the path to the cliff edge a short walk from here. Once there, I know I would fall … because I would want to fall.

This woundedness is something I will probably never completely recover from. Such things are embedded too deep in the psyche and surrounded by a dense network of pain, and nightmarish fears that have been reinforced over and over again.

A  Jungian psychologist would refer to this phenomenon, I believe, as a complex. The existence of complexes is almost universally agreed upon in the field of depth psychology. The underlying assumption is that the most important influences on your personality are deep in the unconscious (Dewey, 2007). Because they are buried so deep they are often unavailable to our consciousness, making mediation of the intense emotions evoked by activation of a complex extraordinarily difficult. Many psychologists hold that, indeed, complexes are impossible to cure and can, at best, be managed.

Unlike the other aspects of consciousness, complexes are peculiarly autonomous. They either force themselves on our awareness, breaking through the inhibitory processes of consciousness, or will hide from us, refusing to be brought to awareness at will. They can be both obsessive and possessive. When they break through, believe me, they are in charge of you. That makes them both scary and destructive.

So there I was … recently. Triggered. Wanting to die. Wanting to disappear. And having no idea how to handle the situation.

This story has a happy ending, however … and I believe such happy endings are rare. There is one ingredient … one unique and rare ingredient … that brings about healing. I have found it. I have been gifted with it. My next post will elaborate. Love and light to all who read this.

 

 

 

 

Do Emotional Abusers Know What They’re Doing?

09 Saturday Jan 2016

Posted by in Abuse, Abuse victims, Controlling People, Counselling, Divorce, Emotional abuse, healing from emotional abuse, Love, Narcissistic abuse, Psychological abuse, Psychology, Psychopathology, Recovery from abuse, Relationship abuse, Relationship breakdown, Relationships, Tough love, Uncategorized, Verbal abuse

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Vampire girl

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

The short answer is, it depends. A true narcissistic personality is utterly conscious of the ways in which they are manipulating and hurting you. And they simply don’t care. More than that, it gives them pleasure, a sense of superiority and control. It is a big part of their psychopathology. Other abusers, who don’t score highly enough on narcissistic traits to be labelled with full-blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder, may simply be repeating patterns they learned in childhood and in subsequent relationships. I say ‘simply’, but the process via which it happens is far from simple, nor is it simple to unravel and to heal.

Mostly though, people don’t fit neatly into two separate categories – pathological abuser and ‘ordinary’ abuser, for instance. Personality traits aren’t ‘either/or’, but exist on a bipolar continuum, meaning they range from mild to severe, depending on the person, and also on the circumstances or environment in which that person acts. So…looking again at whether or not abusers do what they do purposefully…I can’t make that assessment for you, but may be able to help you fathom the answer as it relates to your personal situation.

On blogs and discussion groups you’ll find professionals and lay-people alike debating this question and coming out in favour of one side or the other. So how do you tell the difference?

  1. Look for the lies

If your partner consistently lies, chances are they are fully aware of what they’re doing. There is one school of thought that suggests narcissistic personalities are so adept at deceiving themselves, they actually believe their own lies. I have rarely witnessed this to be the case. There’s a reliable way of finding out, however.

If you catch them in a lie, bring it to their attention in a non-accusatory way. Simply state the truth and that you are aware you’ve been lied to. Then wait for the reaction.

The abuser who is aware she is lying will immediately go for the jugular – yours! It will be swift and brutal. (If you don’t keep your wits about you, you’ll be the one who ends up apologizing.) The response you get will likely have absolutely nothing to do with the point you’ve just made but will be something pulled out of thin air to deflect from their own guilt. They will, instead, hark back to the past and throw some perceived, and entirely irrelevant misdemeanor of yours in your face. And because you care about how they feel, you will likely take the bait. It’s a trip to hell.

2. Their body language and facial expression will reveal the truth.

Image from Springbrook - showing an ancient beech tree with twisted roots.

The cold, soulless eyes tell you all you need to know

There’s a phenomenon I have come across countless times during my discussions with targets of emotional abuse. There is something soulless about the eyes and expression of an abuser who clearly has sadistic tendencies. Their eyes will go black. Their facial expressions will be incredibly cold. There is something ‘frozen’ and reptilian about the face that looks back at you. You’ll feel chilled to the bone and very frightened, even if he/she has never laid a hand on you. Trust this instinct.

 

3. Your tears and genuine emotional pain will not move them.

This hardly needs explanation. If you find yourself genuinely in pain and trying to reason with your abuser, tears in your eyes, your heart breaking … and it fails to move them … they are very aware of what they’re doing. In the words of my own abuser, ‘I knew what I was saying and doing was wrong, and it wasn’t true … but I just wanted to stick it to you.’ He felt that was a perfectly reasonable explanation. I’ll go out on a limb here and disagree with numerous ‘experts’, many of whom have never experienced this first hand, and say it’s utterly inappropriate to excuse these people on the grounds that the poor things don’t have the capacity for empathy. Oh dear, isn’t it sad? They don’t have the capacity for intimacy. They’ll never really experience real love. While that may be true, abusers in this category don’t value things like intimacy – so they aren’t suffering at all. You are. And they don’t give a hoot.

 

The Bottom Line

Does it really matter if they’re aware of their effect on you, or not? You can’t change them. In fact, from the point of view of ‘tough love’, leaving them to it may give them the only chance they have of facing their demons and becoming better people. It’s not your job. Not your circus. Not your monkeys. The harder you try, the more you will fail. Narcissists already think you are in their lives for one reason only, and that is to make them the centre of your universe. The harder you try, the more you are feeding them what they want – the popular terminology for what you are to them is ‘narcissistic supply’. You are being sucked dry by an emotional vampire and therapists and researchers agree that the chances of positive change are very, very small.

Do you want to waste years of your life hoping for the unattainable?