Tag Archives: crazy-making behaviour

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.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Why abusers choose their targets.

03 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by in Abuse, Childhood wounds, Emotional abuse, Psychological abuse, Psychology, Relationships, Verbal abuse

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Please note: I have referred to abusers as male and their targets as female, simply because it has been my subjective experience and I write from my phenomenological perspective. I would like to highlight the fact that abusers and their victims do not fit neatly into gender-based categories. Men are just as easily victims and women are just as easily perpetrators.

 

My ex-abuser asks himself the question of why he was attracted to two nutcases; two sick and twisted women. The first part of my answer is simple. I am, most assuredly, not a nutcase. That’s simply a facet of his delusion.

The second part of my answer is more complicated. Yes, I am a wounded spirit. I have yet to meet a human being, over the age of forty, who doesn’t fit this definition. Life batters us, we get up and keep moving forward; we make a fist of it, and succeed in varying degrees. But we are all wounded.

It’s true I was wounded in a particular way, which abusers seem to zoom in on. They detect victims of childhood abuse with a radar-sense a bent-wing bat would be proud of. But why? And here’s his answer. Because we’re easy targets for further abuse. Let’s read that again…’because we’re easy targets for further abuse.’ Continue reading →

Tearing down the bricks and mortar

03 Sunday Aug 2014

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net/Simon Howden

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net/Simon Howden

One of the greatest keys to my healing from abuse has been the search for knowledge and comprehension. The more I understand the dynamics of what happened, the more I am able to let go of the self-blame, the sense of loss and the accompanying chaos and confusion.

This morning I read an excellent post by Army of Angels, a blog I follow and have learned much from. The writer used ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs’ to outline the process via which the strong ‘self’ she’d developed over the years was systematically deconstructed by her abuser, leaving her at the bottom rung of the psychological ladder. Using her template, I’ve followed the events that led me personally to that same point.

Full credit must go to Army of Angels for bringing to my attention such an insightful healing tool and I encourage you all to follow her example. The original post can be found here: http://armyofangels2013.wordpress.com/2014/08/03/narcissistic-abuse/

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Maslow’s theory, it basically states that as part of our development, each human being must pass through a series of stages that reflect a set of needs that must be met before we are able to move onto the next stage. He suggests that if our needs for a particular stage cannot be met to an optimum degree, we will be unable to move forward with the process of psychological maturity. We will become stuck. To put it in layman’s terms, a person who is consumed by hunger and lack of adequate shelter cannot even think about his self-esteem needs (confidence, self-esteem, achievement, respect by and for others).

My abuser systematically destroyed me (temporarily) in the following, chilling manner. Continue reading →

A word on Rage

17 Thursday Jul 2014

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Rage

Rage is a normal response to abuse. It is an appropriate response to being deprived of the liberty to act from one’s own reality, to live by one’s own standards and values, and to being silenced.

My ex-husband recently sent me an email in which he states that, even after 10 months of separation, during which time I’ve been essentially homeless, he does not want me to return to the property. For first time visitors to my blog, the brief story is that there are two dwellings on our rural block, both fully self-contained and separate. I wish, and have wished from the beginning, to reside quietly in the second dwelling until we’re able to sell the property and move on. I am well within my rights to do so, and anyone who knows me also knows I’m perfectly capable of going about my business in a peaceful manner. The property market is extremely slow right now and it may take another year, or perhaps longer to sell such a lifestyle block.

But my husband has banished me, expecting me to continue this itinerant style of living indefinitely, despite my debilitating health condition. His reason? My rage. He states he and his family don’t need the inconvenience of having me around, since I have, on occasion, been very, very angry. He goes on to smoothly say that he understands now that my rage comes from past childhood abuse, exacerbated by my physical illness, and he has much compassion for me. Sounds sweet, doesn’t it? If only it were true. Continue reading →

Crazy-Making Behaviour: Part One

15 Thursday May 2014

Posted by in Abuse, Relationships

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Help on the sand

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net /Simon Howden

Therapist and author, Patricia Evans, claims she has spoken to thousands of victims of domestic violence and that ‘battered women have always told me that the verbal abuse was the worst.’ (From her website www.verbalabuse.com) She goes on to say that for those who have experienced “worse than battering,” it will take time to recover.’

I am now free from a relationship in which I was cruelly verbally abused while having the expression of my opinions, feelings, attitudes and values tightly controlled through various forms of manipulation, all involving fear. Consummate verbal abusers are invariably hell-bent on controlling their targets. They will also tell you that you, the target, are the abuser. Most of us engage in the occasional behaviour or speech that can be considered ugly, but it’s not abuse unless it’s a pattern that’s fairly well-entrenched. You may also be driven ‘crazy’ by the abuse itself and retaliate from your own pain. There’s a difference between that kind of reactive, defensive behaviour and true emotional and psychological abuse. While you’re deep inside those restrictive psychological walls, it will be hard to tell the difference, but rest assured your abuser will consistently maintain his innocence while pointing the finger of blame directly at you. This, in itself, is a clue to unravelling the puzzle.

It’s all about control. abusers engage in crazy-making behaviour to keep you in a state of confusion about your own reality. If you doubt yourself and your own sanity, you’ll look to him to define reality instead. That’s when he’s got you right where he wants you.

 Recommended: Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Program:

Melanie Tonia Evans

Continue reading →