In an abusive relationship your heart is systematically trashed and vilified. You walk, or limp away feeling that your heart is worthless because that is the way it has been treated.
And so you put your trust in your head. Because your head must be clear and rational, must it not? That is what heads are meant to be, after all.
Yet your head will not lead you out of the impasse. Such wisdom as you hold in your head stops at the jaw bone or the neck.
When you are consumed with hurt and rage hatred may feel like a more constructive outlet than love. The downside is, of course, that you remain just as focused, even fixated, on the person as you were before. So how, you might ask, do you arrive at indifference?
I am well aware that for some people it may sound daft to enter into a dialogue with yourself, and ask yourself questions to which the habitual, emotionally battered you does not have good answers. But that is only one part of you, the part that has been shaped by your negative experiences. It is by no means the only part of you. You too are endowed with the human spirit that has miraculous powers of healing and regeneration.
Abused women are so anxious to get their needs and wants met that they fall over themselves backwards to meet all of their partner’s needs and wants. (There is no point in suggesting that they try to get boundaries respected, because they don’t even know where they might like to put a boundary.) Underpinning this anxiety to please is the misguided hope that it is their partner’s turn first and then it will be theirs. Unfortunately, it’s like giving a small child a much desired toy ahead of his or her little friends and hoping that after a reasonable period of time he, or she will say: “Ok, I’ve had my turn. You can have it now.” It just doesn’t work like that.
We become fixated on our partner’s potential – and of course he has potential, whatever we mean by that word. If he hadn’t had potential why on earth would we have bothered in the first place. Few of us have a robust enough sense of self, or are that crazy that we choose to have a relationship with someone we feel has less to recommend him than the average cockroach.
The ‘l’ word – love – sanctions everything. ‘Love conquers everything’; ‘love means never having to say you’re sorry’; love gives rise to any number of justifications, feeble excuses, lame hopes. I’ve certainly been there, done that and worn the T shirt. Then one day I got the point and burned the T shirt.
Love is… a feeling you have for and about another person. That other person may say that they love you too. Does that mean that your love is reciprocated?
What you believe is what you get. It’s the old story that what you focus on increases or becomes more present. It’s like the way you really notice teenage boys when you are a teenage girl and then when you get older and have different interests, they become invisible. I believed my entitlement was a bad relationship, and I got it.
ou never will reach perfection, because human beings were never programmed for perfection.
But you are more than good enough, right now, exactly as you are. And you are the seed of what you will become.
I’ve always found that misery begets more misery. Focusing on what you don’t want has an unfortunate but predictable habit of drawing more of the same into your orbit. Focusing on something different, however modest that something may be, has the effect of producing a different, and better, result.
The greatest, possibly the only real power we have in life is over what goes on in our own head. My Inner Sh**bag behaviour, I realised, was once upon a time the best – if not the only – strategy available to a very disempowered woman. I am not that woman any more. Nor do I wish to resort to those behaviours again. Ever.
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.
Want daily reassurance and inspiration? Sign up to my Instagram account. @dr_anniephd
