This week I came across The 13 Characteristics of Adult
Children of Alcoholics. It makes
interesting reading even if you are not the child of an alcoholic.

As the author, Dr Janet G. Woititz, observes: “If you did
not grow up with alcoholism but lived… with another potentially dysfunctional
system, you may find that you identify with the characteristics described
here.”

It inspired me to rewrite it specifically for abused
women. The point of doing so is this:
to share the realization that the damage caused by a dysfunctional relationship
results in characteristics that are common to an entire category – in this case
abused women.

However characteristics are not the same as character or
nature.

Characteristics translate into behaviours. They are learned and can be unlearned. The essence of the individual, their
character or nature in other words, may be eclipsed by those characteristics
for months, years or even decades, but it endures.

Clear the characteristics – and let there be no doubt,
you can clear away those characteristics – and your true character and
nature will emerge, tempered, refined and strengthened by your experience.

The 14 characteristics common to abused women are:

 

• Abused women have to guess at what
  normal behaviour is.

• Abused women have difficulty maintaining their focus and
  drive.

• Abused
  women are often paralysed by their own negativity so that they find it hard to
  start something new and an uphill struggle to see it through.

• Abused women judge themselves without mercy.

• Abused
  women feel they always have to justify themselves.

• Abused
  women have difficulty being light-hearted.

• Abused
  women have difficulty trusting.

• Abused
  women take everything very seriously.

• Abused
  women overreact and catastrophize even over small problems.

• Abused
  women faithfully record every last criticism they experience and they discount
  the praise.

• Abused
  women need approval and affirmation and tend to look for it in all the wrong
  places.

• Abused
  women usually feel that they are different to other people as a result of their
  relationship.

• Abused
  women are extremely loyal, even despite the evidence that their loyalty is
  undeserved.

• Abused
  women envisage a future that will be just as hard as the present.

Whether or not you feel
able to shift these characteristics right now, please bear in mind that they
are superimposed, they are not an integral part of you.