The Unfortunate Resistance to Change Themselves

Underneath anger is always the wound of grief. Sadness is the undercurrent characterizing the life of the verbally abusive. Underneath the ugly words is a great deal of heartache. For men, in particular, it is much easier to stay with the surface emotion of anger -- to humiliate, point fingers, yell, curse and claim that another is the source of one’s righteous rage. The “fever” of anger manifesting in verbal abuse is fierce. It intends to harm the feelings and control the actions of those nearby. The wounds in ourselves.

 

“If we do not know how to transform and heal the wounds in ourselves, we are going to transmit them to our children and grandchildren.” -- Thich Nhat Hanh

 

"Good parenting” crafts an environment where a child feels safe and is able to develop “a more positive affective style.” This lessens the chance that she or he grows up to be an anxious adult. On the other hand, if a child’s daily environment is full of “uncontrollable threats,” then “the child’s brain will be altered, set to be less trusting and more vigilant.” When situations of stress are repeated often in a home, the amygdala – the part of the brain that signals danger – remains on high alert.

 

******* "… the more we ‘fly off the handle’ the more our children get the message that life is often an emergency. They build a brain that’s geared for self-protection, which makes the child more aggressive.”*******

 

Hence, the cycle of verbal abuse is primed to repeat itself. For adults who were raised by parents with amygdalas on high alert, childhood homes were characterized by yelling, name-calling, blaming, screaming – or worse. These adults grew up in homes where a chronic sense of conflict lurked around each corner, waiting to transform Jekyll into Hyde. A great deal of mindfulness is needed to bring healing to such wounds.

 

“The cost to my soul has been a numbness that I can hardly put in words,” I said. “I didn’t want them to become used to it. I didn’t want my daughters to think this was normal.” a verbal abuser doesn’t seek out intimacy in relationships; rather he or she seeks control.

Perhaps this control is sought because so much of the inner landscape of the verbal abuser is under lock and key. Their wounds are purposefully frozen, forgotten and pushed aside. If a verbal abuser lets go of his or her grip, the underlying anger and grief would feel unbearable. Yet, by bearing the “unbearable,” we make room for healing.

 

 "I know he had a very troubled childhood,” she reflects. “But he never wanted to discuss it.”  For nearly 13 years, I was blamed when he lost control. Once I had kids, the balance of power shifted, and his unwillingness to explore the roots of his own suffering suddenly came with a steep price.  My story was twisted beyond explanation, and I was the accused.

 

Gratefully, not all verbal abusers are so intransigent. Many are willing to examine their anger, underlying sadness, patterns and past. I wished that had been the case. Certainly, all parents have said words in anger, and too often, “little ears” hear them. We then do our best to make amends, resolve differences with adults in private and put forth (once again) our best efforts to model emotional regulation for our children.

Here I found the courage to confront and transform a situation of deep suffering for the sake of my daughters.

 

In “Parenting with Presence: Practices for Raising Conscious, Confident, Caring Kids,” Susan Stiffelman writes: “That is what parenting does; it invites us to stretch beyond ourselves, move through resistance, and tap into inner resources we didn’t know we possessed.” I worked through,  allowed myself to feel and integrate the anxiety, fear and guilt. We can make room for difficult feelings to move through the body and breathe with gentle acceptance. In doing so, the shadow energies dissipate, integrate and resolve.

Thich Nhat Hanh writes: “… when the mental formation that arises is negative, like anger or jealousy, we should go back to ourselves and embrace it tenderly, calming it with our mindful breathing, like a mother would soothe her feverish child.”

 

The “fever” of anger manifesting in verbal abuse is fierce. It intends to harm the feelings and control the actions of those nearby. Children who witness or experience verbal abuse are at risk. Consider the physiological overwhelming experiences my daughters 5 years of  their father’s angry words sent shock waves through their being. Their lamygdala was immediately triggered to send out the stress hormones of fight, flight or freeze. I had become accustomed to living with the constant threat of conflict in my marriage. 

I  want something better for MY daughters.  “I wish him well,” everyday, I said. “I wish him peace. I sincerely hope that this time spent in fatherhood eventually inspires him to untie the knots that block his true expression in this world.” I share this heartfelt LOVE.

Validating and Affirming my Boundaries - EXAMPLE

If I am to be honest about boundaries,  I need to recall why my integrity is at a higher level.  Going THROUGH this. And not for a moment believing I am worth so much more than what I allowed.

 

Some men spread derogatory messages, false rumours and confidential material to embarrass, humiliate and defame their partner. He may use his MySpace, Facebook status, and other Social Media to write degrading statements about her. These tactics are intended to damage her self image.

#FAIL

  

Because Words Carry A Vibration...VERBAL AND WRITTEN - DRAFT

Those who are verbal abusers chronically see themselves as victims. 

 

****Their sense of themselves as victims is deeply entrenched and feel that their time invested in this relationship needs self radification****

 

They may feel “the victim” of many many things, including being inconvenienced, or their needs not met.  It is from their self-engendered victim-status that blame flows so naturally; from blame, the anger/rage; from the anger/rage, the rationalization of aggressive/abusive responses. They put it all back on you.

 

 

It’s also the case that once abusive individuals have established a pattern of their self-perceived victimization, their threshold for feeling subsequently victimized decreases; now, it takes less and less for them to feel victimized, perhaps only a minor disappointment or frustration. As time goes on, it becomes VERY EVIDENT AND DEFINED.

 

This is why many abusive individuals can find almost any basis to complain, to feel slighted, thereby tripping (and licensing) their abusiveness. 

 

Abusive individuals, at bottom, feel entitled not to be burdened by whatever feels burdensome to them. It is your job, your responsibility, to alleviate their burden.

 

• Respond to texts on demand (not responding or not responding fast enough to their satisfaction)

> attempt to demand contact from you, typically using a manipulative way to do this so you will respond, usually with sympathy or urgency.

 

And when you don't respond...WITHHOLDING, THREATS AND PERCEIVED ASSUMPTIONS AND DEMEANING HURTFUL, SARCASTIC WORDS WILL COME AS THE RESPONSE.


 

 

Your failure to do so, from their self-centered perspective, is an abdication of your duty, a form of betrayal. There are also threats to non-response, or ways in which they demean you verbally, in a text or on social media.

 

 

 

 

 

Not surprisingly, many abusive individuals tend to think in paranoid and problematically rigid ways.






INSECURITIES - ASSUMPTIONS

ASSUMPTIONS OF INSECURITY
 

They tend to RIDGIDLY ATTRIBUTE MALICE to those who disappoint them, OR ACTUALLY POINT OUT WHAT IT IS THEY ARE DOING OR BEING.

ACCUSATION BASED ON JEALOUS ASSUMPTIONS OF INSECURITY
 

 

 

Deploying spectacular powers of rationalization and projection, they see themselves ironically (and, of course, conveniently) habitually as victim—as the betrayed, exploited party—a warped perception that ratchets up their anger, lubricating their impending abusive response.  

 

 

Sometimes underlying abandonment issues (including borderline personality disorder) fuel the possessive/controlling behaviors of abusive individuals.
 

Emotional and Verbal Attack Damage to the Brain

It wasn’t that long ago that most neuroscientists thought we were born with most all of the neurons we’d ever have. While we might gain a few more during childhood, they believed that after that, all we could look forward to was the death of brain cells. Now we know differently. We are aware of neurogenesis, a process whereby new neurons are birthed in a part of the brain known as the hippocampus.

The hippocampus is part of the limbic system--also known as the "emotional brain." Why? Well, because it controls most of the involuntary aspects of emotional behavior that are related to survival. These include feelings that fall into the painful category such as fear and anger, as well as more pleasurable such as affection. Furthermore, the hippocampus is involved in the processes of learning and memory.

The fact that is such a thing as neurogenesis is the good news. But there is also some bad news to share if you are living in a toxic environment filled with your partner’s narcissism, addictions, and abuse.

I probably don’t have to tell you that when you’re living with a narcissistic man who engages in verbal abuse and emotional abuse regularly, that your life is stressful. You might also find yourself ridden with anxiety and feeling depressed as you strive to deal with all you face. We now know, through magnetic resonance imaging, that stress-related disorders such as recurrent depressive illness, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Cushing's disease are all associated with atrophy of the hippocampus. Furthermore, stress appears to decrease capacity for production of new neurons, too.

The hippocampus is involved with memory. While it participates in verbal memory, it plays a particularly important in the memory of "context," or the time and place of events that have a strong emotional bias. Memories associated with strong emotions--such as fear—are marked in such a way that the memory retains its vividness in a very persistent way. This is what happens in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

We typically associate PTSD with soldiers who have been in a combat zone. But women who’ve been in abusive relationships can suffer from PTSD as well. Like those former soldiers, they will often end up having brains that are hyper-vigilant, In other words, the brain is always scanning the environment for patterns similar to those in the memories associated with those strong emotions. This is the way this part of the brain is striving to ensure the individual’s survival. But it becomes overreact or responds to things that are not dangerous. The situation does not truly call for a fight or flight response that the brain ends up triggering.

You might believe that whatever it is that your senses take in, that the stimuli is first delivered to the part of your brain that is most rational. Then, once it is there, it is logically evaluated. As a result, the brain triggers a reasonable or appropriate reaction for the situation. In other words, you might consciously choose to engage in fight or flight behavior because your safety is threatened and this type of immediate action is required. Then again, if this rational part of the brain realizes that the pattern might have spelled danger in the past, but there is no imminent danger this time around, your body won’t react with the fight or flight reaction. However, it doesn’t always work this way. Instead, that more rational part of the brain is bypassed so that the automatic fight or flight reaction is triggered. Only after this has happened will the more rational part of the brain have an opportunity to decide, through conscious choice, what is a reaction truly appropriate to the situation.

Some have referred to this type of event, where the more primitive part of the brain is initially triggered versus the more rational part of the brain instead, as a hijacking of the brain. And in truth, this hijacking of the brain is most apt to occur in people who’ve experienced traumatic events in their lives. And remember, when you are being constantly abused by a narcissist spouse, you are ensuring ongoing trauma.

The trauma of the verbal abuse and the other forms of abuse you suffer may also result in cognitive impairment or memory problems. In fact, when I was married to an abusive narcissist and suffering the onslaught of his regular verbal abuse and emotional abuse, I know I suffered a decline in my cognitive abilities. I not only had more difficulty remembering things, but I also found it challenging to talk in complete sentences. Certainly, it was the worst around him. Was that because I was fearful of stating a complete idea because I knew he’d likely attack it as soon as I’d spoken it? Perhaps that had something to do with it. Nonetheless, I came to realize that this happened more often than just when I was with him. It came to occur when I was with caring friends, too.

I didn’t realize at the time that I was living in an environment that was resulting in the death of neurons and, of course, ensuring that new ones weren’t developed through the process of neurogenesis, either. Fortunately I did maintain enough cognitive functioning to realize that this was indeed a toxic environment in which to live and furthermore, things were probably going to continue to grow worse rather than better. I felt the environment was destroying my spirit and strangling my soul. I didn’t know to be concerned about the well-being of my brain. But then, we didn’t know about all this at that time, either.

Hopefully, you will be willing to acknowledge if you are living in an environment that is likely causing harm to your brain. This might not be a pleasant reality to have to face and accept. However, since many people won’t change until they’re awakened by something rather traumatic, perhaps realizing how you’re causing your brain to deteriorate just might be the wake-up call you need, don’t you imagine?

 The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Relationship today. It has been designated one of the "Best Books of 2009" by theLibrary Journal.

THE TURNING POINT...

The verbal, psychological, and emotional abuse, control manipulation all my life, that I allowed myself to endure were bad. Really bad.

But the things I’ve allowed to change in my mind and heart because of it are horrid beyond words today...

Manipulative Controlling Behavior Tactics

MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

I Wanted to share some very suttle tactics that eventually lead  to more evident and frequent behaviors that occurs on a daily basis.

- Controlling sleep habits (ie, deliberately interrupting sleep with loud noises, shaking one awake). wanting to have conversations at odd hours of the night

- Controlling email, social media, texts, etc. or making references  or comments about or to partner/spouse using these vehicles

These controlling behaviors, without laying a violent hand on someone, are not about "courtesy, decency, kindness or civility." They are learned behaviors by disturbed people designed to control the people in their lives. In my personal experience, these activities were far more abusive than the physical violence in either home. Watching one parent stand over the other while they cooked, ate, spoke on the phone, slept - the emotional impact is traumatic and abusive. On everyone in the home.

THE WORST KIND...

Structural, crippling emotional abuse should be a criminal offense
and thus should be punished as such. If you strip a person of their sense of worth and degrade them to the point that they unrealistically feel that they can't stand on their own, how can that NOT be abuse? It takes a toll, over years of repeating to  mentally break down a person to the point of feeling nothing at all.

These are unpleasant memories I've allowed myself to remember and be experienced again as if they just happened today.  Releasing them and letting  go of them for good is so important in the healing process...

Emotional abuse is a difficult  experience to go through, yet  rarely women  stand up to defend themselves against or go forth to pursue in court. Proving it is as hard as the attacks themselves.

A black eye is difficult to look past and a shattered sense of self by the words and acts of another...

Traumatic Experiences and HEALING.

The traumatic experiences that result in the most damaged, negative belief filled programming in an individual's subconscious mind  are prolonged and repeated, sometimes extending over years of a person's life.

NATURAL VS HUMAN

Made prolonged stressors,  deliberately inflicted by people, are far harder to bear than accidents or natural disasters. Most people who seek mental health treatment for trauma have been victims of violently inflicted wounds dealt by a person.

If this was done deliberately, in the context of an ongoing relationship, the problems are increased. The worst situation is when the injury is caused deliberately in a relationship with a person on whom the victim is dependent---most specifically a  parent-child relationship or partner/spouse.

This can take anywhere from a month to years to heal at the Subconscious level, depending.on his severe and prolonged the emotional and/or verbal attacks occured.

Programmed negative beliefs must.go through several sessions of hypnosis/psycho therapy, EFT, or other methods that tap into the Subconscious to reprogram new beliefs which replace the old.

HEALING THYSELF.

WAS... A Victim, Now... A Survivor

A victim of allowing myself zero boundaries most.of the time, which allowed it all to be "o.k."

Life's too short to carry all that anger into a beautifully present day.

Always have to remember...compassion and forgiveness needs to be something you are at peace with as soon as possible.

Healing relies highly on your ability to forgive, and dump all hurt and hate out the.door.

Everyone has their personal battles.

Using them against them to make them feel weak is not human compassion...

#loving #living with

Eyes .  Wide. Open.

Get Your Dose of Gaslighting Here...

It is 2/11/14, and I've allowed these circumstances to rule my emotions. NO MORE...

I get sucked into it more common than I thought...

Perpetrators of emotional/psychological abuse often consciously employ a strategy called, “gaslighting”  in which they present an alternate reality to their victims, police, therapists and judges. 

Gaslighting involves denying what occurred, offering plausible but untrue accounts of what occurred, or suggesting the victim is imagining things, exaggerating or lying. 

 Gaslighting strategies leave victims doubting their own perceptions, memory or sanity and serve to confuse police, judges and therapists into inaction or worse, supporting the abuser, while leaving the victims feeling helpless and alone against the abuse.

      ...I recognize it now and know it is definitely not me!!

 Monopolization of perceptions is often part of the abuser’s brainwashing-like tactics whereas the victim believes what he/she says is true and that they’re perceptions, opinions or ideas are mistaken or unworthy. 

Constant criticism, demeaning behaviors, threats, withholding affection or threatening abandonment for non-compliance with abuser’s demands and personal humiliation are further consistent, on-going tactics of the emotional/psychological abuser....

The continuous and unrelenting pattern of emotional abuse is often interspersed with warmth and kindness to create an “in and out” of bonding , “crazy making” experience.
 
Do they think this is LOVE????

 Fear, isolation, withdrawal, feelings of abandonment and helplessness, overly compliant/submissive behavior, self-blaming, and humiliation are common responses. T?

NOT ANYMORE...

Are You Abusive to Yourself?

Often we allow people into our lives who treat us as we expect to be treated. If we feel contempt for ourselves or think very little of ourselves, we may pick partners or significant others who reflect this image back to us.

If we are willing to tolerate negative treatment from others, or treat others in negative ways, it is possible that we also treat ourselves similarly.

If you are an abuser or a recipient, you may want to consider how you treat yourself. What sorts of things do you say to yourself? Do thoughts such as “I’m stupid” or “I never do anything right” dominate your thinking? Learning to love and care for ourselves increases self-esteem and makes it more likely that we will have healthy, intimate relationships.

      Basic Rights in a Relationship

If you have been involved in emotionally abusive relationships, you may not have a clear idea of what a healthy relationship is like.

The right to good will from the other.

The right to emotional support.

The right to be heard by the other and to be responded to with courtesy.

The right to have your own view, even if your partner has a different view.

.The right to have your feelings and experience acknowledged as real.

The right to receive a sincere apology for any jokes you may find offensive.

The right to clear and informative answers to questions that concern what is legitimately your business.

The right to live free from accusation and blame.

The right to live free from criticism and judgment.

The right to have your work and your interests spoken of with respect.

The right to encouragement.

The right to live free from emotional and physical threat.

The right to live free from angry outbursts and rage.

The right to be called by no name that devalues you.

The right to be respectfully asked rather than ordered.

Reprocussions of the Past...

Affect your future relationships.

                        TRUTH.

IF emotions are shoved aside and not resolved and you truly moved on...

Take time to heal. The last thing you want is what you just endured by another...BREAK THE PATTERN...

Make time for you.  I know this to be true.