|
I agree with Redembers.
It is a good thing you are now aware of it even if it hurts you, means you are on your way just like Red embers describes to you.
If you are not aware of why you are the way you are fully, I know I was not myself so it is in no way an accusation, you have to do a little digging in the memory-bank to see the connections, the revelations. This can take time. I would remember things I had forgotten long ago.
This does not mean in any way that you are destined to always end up with that type of partner, but you have to consciously work on yourself for it not to happen again.
It hurts to change. That's why we rather not do that. We have after all found our surviving Technics and it has worked so far. We wanna move forward and not backwards but sometimes you gotta go backwards in order to do it right forward. I remember when I had to go back to painful memories - it hurt, takes much energy from you, you feel exposed, hurt, foolish, lost. But then you are able to remold yourself once you gone through that. We are too human of habits, and it can be hard to change, and not return to the same old patterns still.
This is in no way to say this is your fault, that you deserve this, that there is something wrong with you because it ain't, alright? You just learned to accept more wrongdoings to you as a child as that was normal by your parent or parents or care takers, but it was not.
Your ability to endure is stronger than some others and it has too become your normal. Because you have been taught this is right you have learned to accept more, than someone who has not been treated that way during childhood.
I have a luv with a narcissistic parent and that has been his normal, the entire family's normal, why he did not even reflect that the parent treating me badly was as bad as I said it was, also to his defense the way this narcissist worked is that it happened when no one else heard. I was, as it turns out, not the only one the narcissist did, still do? that sick little trick to.
If I could use one example. My mom used to do silence treatments on me, just me, nobody else, for days or weeks at a time. She was one of those who could go a long time with her angry-pouting. I wasn't like that. I wanted things sorted out, fighting about it at first, but to just sort it out and move on. Life is beautiful, right, why waste time on that. But not her. No. She could drag it on, and on, and on... She could be normal too, she could be loving too. It was all mixed in. She had her reasons (not excuses) to why she was the way she was, and what you have not fixed in yourself you then expose the next generation too. Fair game? Nope.
Sometimes when wrongdoing has been done to us humans and we are suddenly in the position of power we can be ignorant enough to go from one self having been a victim to it to then becoming the abuser, or we can have enough empathy and wisdom in our souls not to repeat the pattern, as we know ourselves and have not forgotten what that pain is like and refusing to pass that on. It's all up to us. The victims of it are not to blame, the one who's doing it - is. Those are my thoughts on the matter.
I would check in on her now and then, do a little test, ask something. No reply, No look. Would not even look at me. Still. OK. So we were in - what could it be anything now from the third day to the 12th day of this. I had to go to school and back, I had to do everything and still act normal, but I felt it in my stomach, the pain of what she was willingly doing to me. As a loyal child I never told a teacher or anyone outside, not a relative, nobody. Because children are beyond loyal, and can be frighten into not saying anything.
Was she aware of how much damage that did? I don't know. Did she care? Not then she didn't. I think she only saw her own pain, she was too selfish, and above anything else she wanted me 100 procent under her like she had done any other child, only I always had that little part to myself, she and nobody was ever getting that. That was mine and I knew it. I think that has surprised some over the years as they first read me off as being all softy all the way.
Later on I got to be in a relationship with a boyfriend a psychiatrist thought for sure was a psychopath. He would do silence treatment on me as well, second time that happened then in my life (my first love never ever did that to me). Why did I not just then go out the door? Why did I check in on him, to see where he landed now, would he look at me? Would he speak to me? Or was I air still? (I was air still...). It was a normal treatment of me. He had it mixed in with love, that is how they all do it - it gets mixed in, that is why it is more difficult to see it for what it is. It is not until now so much later I could remember this was done to me, not just once, it was one of his favorites doings.
It was one of my siblings that said to me that remembered how awful that was when we were kids and this happened to you (me, referring to my mom's silence treatments for so long) and nobody could do a thing, that the other family members would still talk to me, but she had the entire household under her grip when she was doing her silence treatments of me. It was normal. To her, and I knew she loved me, this was a justice-punishment, treatment of me. Not abusive. But it was abusive! And the psychopath I can imagine thought I too deserved that - I deserved his silence treatments of me, they justify it, when it had been something wrong with them the whole time, not me, as they both clearly were not whole enough within themselves to even know that. I had a stepdad one time who had such harmony and silent strength in himself and I think he knew she had the problem, not him. he was always good to me and had respect for me with or without mom or anyone in the room, I had other whole people in my life. She would later say there came a point in them splitting up that because of how he carried himself, and the family, there was this moment when she felt ashamed of herself. She should have. Good on her to at least establish that.
Me enduring, me being "the better me" putting up with someone so selfish, someone wanting me harm for so long, it was not an impulsive act (which they do while the silence treatments go on) was my normal. Was what I thought I deserved. My value. That this was just something I had to endure. I never told my mom how it made me feel throughout. I never told him how it made me feel. And why would they care, right? They thought they were in their rights - completely in their rights to treat me like that.
I remember there were times with the psychopath, as he did no direct communication with me either, that I would carefully ask him if I should leave (even if I lived there! if he had been a gentleman he would have left but he wasn't one, he would get the difference but naturally someone like him wouldn't) and he would then, only then, say yes he thought that would be the best. So you can see - this was a guessing game.
And then - and this is typical, proves he knew what he was doing all along - he told me he would call me and he said a particular day and a particular time. I would leave. Always, and I mean always, he called that day, that time. And I was so ruled by him by then (not at first this is of course a breaking down process they do of their victims) that I remember I had one part of me ready to answer the call when he did, and a very small one who said Nope, don't think you should take it. I would take the call. At my most I would have enough power in me to not take it right away, wait like 3 times of him calling one after another til he couldn't do it no more. That to me too says he was getting somewhat frantic, I was not all in his power, but still enough so, and I would be back then afraid of his punishments so I would then - pick up.
When I picked up he would be normal, as if nothing had happened, even to the extreme, being very sweet to me. This is of course still just one example, I have not and never will write the whole story of all the things I remembered that psychopath being up to.
One good thing though was that because he was a psychopath he valued himself, saw himself as superior, as someone really intelligent, like way up there, and he could not at first recognize that he had made one mistake - he had let me get a little too much normal air to me - that is distance from him. Then he made his second mistake which was to think he was still superior to me and it showed in his demand, his attitude when he contacted me (when it was over). A normal thinking person do not go into a situation where you want to win someone back by having that sort of attitude. I got both disgusted and afraid when he had that attitude. That entitlement. But you know he was after all a psychopath so he did not know any better. I had these epiphany during the split that were just so awesome - that instantly returned my clarity and my strength and my skin right back where it belonged in my body and spirit. And I think I have mentioned it before. It was that wait a minute! We don't have to agree. If I say it's over it's over! And - It's over. Magic words, did wonders - finally I realized I had given away my power, thinking we have to agree, we have to work on this (that is him taking most of the cake and me hardly anything). Some people, including myself at that point before, did not realize they, or I, had given away my own power. Nobody forces, can force you to do that. I had done it, but now realizing that was one big fat mistake I reclaimed it, it was mine to take. And you betcha I took it.
I knew I did not walk on this earth mentally abusing others and I knew by that fairness of thinking that I did not deserve it either. That was my law, my new law. Not saying I never do other people wrong, of course I happen or can do that, but then try to repair the damage.
I don't think I did enough work on myself back then either, as I have put up with too much idiotic stuff as it is, but hey, I'm learning :)
I think I read somewhere that silence treatment done in the style they did it goes under the list of what is mental abuse. You go and check that list, Izz, and see for yourself if you can find other things in there that has been a "normal" treatment of you when you were a child and growing up, to then got to be normal in the relationship/s you've been in? It did something to me anyhow when I saw them all there in pure writing. It got to be more real then, in another way. I could be wrong though, you're free to correct me and as this is a public forum you don't have to tell me or anyone anything you are not 100% comfy telling and that is how it should be.
I just wish that some people would get the whole thing with mental abuse and what it does and stop thinking oh they were drawn to it, they wanted this, it is on them themselves (the victims). I can promise that they all start out very nice and like everyone else, everyone else normal. They can to have built a world around themselves with people who buy their image and help and support them convincing you to give that person a try, that was how it was for me. They didn't know, to their defense - they didn't know, they too thought he was normal. They know when to start the abuse and they do it when they have you trapped or hooked, they carefully leave some of those abusive things there to mix in with the rest, and it keeps on going. Had it gone from one extreme to the other of course anyone would have gotten up and said what's wrong with you and left.
When I have been mentally abused it is from men who seriously claim, and I do believe they are right which is so twisted btw, that they would have been indifferent, they wouldn't have cared had it been another woman. It is because they are having very strong feelings of love for the woman they are abusing. This is why too a man (women too of course, can be reversed, absolutely) can function what we view as normally in a relationship for several years and not abuse their partner in that relationship, and then they can be in a relationship where their much greater love for another woman stirr so much up inside of themselves - and they are not whole, they're not normal, they have their stories why they got to be that way - that they are subconsciousness and consciously treating that woman badly - the one that they love, genuinely love, much, much more than the other woman that they treated normally. Now that's twisted, but that's how it is. Had they now been normal to begin with - it wouldn't have happened, there wouldn't have been any kind of abuse, just normal fighting like everyone do but nothing on a scale like that.
Sadly I can see now - having gone on my own inner journey for some time - that it has surprised, even bewildered someone in my life, a family member from my first family. This one individual to the same little tricks of abuse that our mom did once, has done that in it's own romantic love life, hasn't changed, is still this way, things are not going too well... It is only now I can see ah, I get now why this person is surprised and does not know what else to do in our socalled communication, because this used to work on me! I used to be the "better me", I used to put up with that sort of treatment of me. If someone wanted to make piece they would not ever have to go 50%, I would gladly go 80% or so, they did not have to make much efforts, I had too much empathy for others and too little left for me. I have a responsibility too how I allowed myself to be treated. Today I don't let it happen no more. Its these little things that I notice that people, even my luv (too why we partly ended up splitting up and going in therapy to then reconcile.) had to re-learn.
We teach people what's ok and what's not in how to treat us, in that regard we can't say we are only victims, as a child 100% yes you can because you are then vulnerable and they are in a position of great power over you - so that's different. But there are ways, and situations where we can, maybe not always, sometimes we can be in a dangerous inferior situation and we gotta survive, but those other times stand up for ourselves and say, behave accordingly that we do no accept that sort of bad treatment of us.
There's this video I like, youtube, forgot now who did it, but the saying went that you gotta think in terms of you being a lifeguard. The lifeguard swims out to help rescue someone and if that someone panics and do things wrong, try to grab them a certain way they have to push them back, and they can say then I risk drowning and the lifeguard goes if we do this your way we are both going to drown, I can help you if you listen - and so on on how to go about - to take them safely to the shore. I think that is a good example. Sometimes people are heading face down and you think they are better than that, but they value themselves and you too, taking hold of you the wrong way, and it is then only going to drown you too. If a person do not learn to do it the right way, as long as that goes (and sorry to say I have not yet seen a narcissist change in any way) you gotta push them back, or else they will just take you down with them. There are those others that go down and it is only when they have hit rock bottom they know what they have done wrong and then start to treat themselves and others better and then one can have them more close by. Its like you sort of saying I don't agree with the way you're going, and I'm not going with you if you go that direction (down). I still love you but i'm not going in that direction, you're not taking me with you.
I am still softy :) I do not go around bitter and ready to fight, I am not suspicious, but I recognize now more than before what is abuse, the whole concept of it, I think while I grew up and even when I got to be an adult the concept of what is mental abuse was not widely spread, known, and the concept of narcissism was not known either, now it is out there, which is good, and I know what used to be my vulnerable-"spots", that is how they got away with it, they're not getting away with it no more, that's the difference.
Wish you all the best with your recovery! You are on your way, being aware means you are :)
Last edited by asearcher : 29-01-2022 at 06:01 PM.
|
Linear Mode
