“How did I learn to care so much what other people think of me, Annie? And how can I stop?”
Nina
Dear Nina,
Let’s see what your question reveals about you.
It shows me that you’re a delightful, caring, warm-hearted, generous-spirited woman. And you’re a people-pleaser, and a permission seeker; you’re desperate for other people to validate you.
Sadly, […]
Most women who are in an emotional abuse relationship have an inkling, or a sense, that things are not as they should be, that their partner’s treatment is not appropriate, or acceptable. However, they also deeply confused. They are confused both by what is happening, and by what their partner tells them. The result is […]
Abused women act and feel and perform in accordance with what an abusive partner tells them. They do not act in accordance with what they are capable of.
This morning I awoke in a ‘dark place of the soul’. As an abuse survivor, my dark places of the soul are often very dark indeed. Life in the Abusive Kingdom is relentlessly tough. But everyone of us has what Dave Pelzer terms a ‘hair-thin-thread belief’ that it can get better. Sure, an abuser will do what he can to rubbish it; but try as he may, he cannot ever sever it. That hair-thin-thread cannot be cut.
As a general principle, abused women are far more effective in insisting on good behaviour from pets and children, than they are from an abusive partner. For most women, including me, the only rule was: “whatever he says, goes, and I’ll either like it, put up with it, or complain about it ineffectually.” So we limp through our abusive relationship, living by the “put up and shut up” rule (or more correctly, the “stay and get hurt” rule as Gary Chapman defines it in his book “Desperate Marriages”) with our eyes fixed on the ever receding mirage of His Potential.
In my working life I hear so many women make misguided claims for abusive men who can behave nicely on occasion. And, yes, confusing the odd loving behaviour or statement with a loving temperament is a kind of ‘sleight of mind’. It’s called persuading yourself that second best really isn’t second best. In the end, that bad decision always comes back to haunt you.
The richness and the magic of you lie hidden just behind your pain. Only you and your abusive partner are deaf and blind to the very best of you. Trust that your job is to get through today and tomorrow as constructively as you can; by this I mean without getting caught yet again on the old abusive hooks. That is all. Do that and a better future will start to create itself around you. Yes, it may take time but it will lead you back into the world of personal peace, happiness and self-acceptance.
You are acting on this misguided notion that until you can go back and heal your past you can’t enjoy the present. You can’t heal the past as such, although you can change the meaning you place on it
“My
counsellor has been telling me for months that I don’t listen to
her. But when you say something, Annie, I hear it.” Mimi P.
[…]
Every time you continue to put yourself down, you do his work for him. In fact, he may have left to start another relationship undermining another woman, but inside your head nothing much has changed.
Over the next 5 days, I'll send you some lessons and tips that I've found have really helped women to heal from narcissistic abuse. Starting with the basics.
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