Abuser Red Flags and Victim Red Flags

[David Baxter PhD]

Abuser Red Flags and Victim Red Flags
By Barbara, Sanctuary for the Abused Blog
Sun, Jan 31 2010

We believe that we have identified some of the "early warning" signs that we missed in ourselves and our abusers. Note that the abuser can be male or female; the victim can also be either male or female. Not every behavior listed below will be exhibited by a single individual. However, you may want to question your relationship if you find that a large number of these behaviors appear in yourself or your partner.

Abuser's Behavior
Watch out for these behaviors in your partner. Members of my support group believe that these are warning signs that this person may be an abuser. Note that the abuser can be male or female.

• Jealous of time or resources you give others.
• Gets angry if you spend "too much time" with friends, family, or children.
• Insists that it is "a bad time" to talk to family on the phone.
• Feels that resources are "wasted" if given to children.
• Gets angry if you do favors for other people or give them things.
• Would rather throw something away than give it to someone else.
• Is disinterested in or feels threatened by your personal desires or goals.
• Finds your hobbies boring, pointless, unproductive, or a waste of time.
• Is uncooperative about attending parties or events that interest you.
• Picks a fight or creates a crisis just before an event that is important to you.
• States or implies that your interests should not interfere with spending time with them.
• Is rude or inconsiderate of others in a self-centered way.
• Insists on discussing something with you while you are trying to read or watch television.
• Expects you to be the one who answers the door or telephone.
• Expects you to drop what you are doing when summoned.
• Interrupts others while talking on a consistent basis.
• Will not act to accommodate others' convenience or comfort.
• Will not turn down TV or radio while others are talking.
• Is unconcerned and unapologetic if rude behavior is pointed out.
• Does not respect your right to make your own decisions.
• Insists that your decision "affects them" and therefore should be a "joint" decision.
• Gets angry or hurt if you don't take their advice.
• Criticizes or questions the wisdom of decisions that you make without their input.
• Considers their own logic or intellect to be superior to all others.
• Insists that their way is the "right way".
• Claims that their arguments are based on logic or sound evidence and that yours are not.
• Places no value on decisions made based on feelings or intuition.
• Believes that any opinion you have is invalid, illogical, hysterical, or selfish.
• Is completely intolerant of any criticism of their own behavior.
• Is confident that their employer and/or employees are all defective somehow.
• Considers your friends to be idiots.
• Extremely opinionated and critical of others
• Racist or sexist.
• Dogmatic about behavior in others.
• Unwilling to tolerate opinions that differ from their own.
• Has double standards for behavior.
• Is rude to your family.
• Dislikes your family.
• Has "trouble" at work.
• Is chronically unemployed or changes jobs frequently.
• Explains employment set-backs as some sort of victimization.
• Believes that their boss treats them poorly.
• Believes that their co-workers are working against them.
• Disregards laws or social customs that interfere with their own goals or pleasure.
• Is disinterested in following family or religious customs.
• Is very concerned about their public image.
• Treats you better in public than in private.
• Gets angry at you if they believe that you have somehow made them look bad to others.
• Brags about you or your accomplishments to others, but never compliments you in private.
• Attempts to make you jealous or insecure
• Threatens to leave you.
• Hints or states that they have other lovers waiting on the side.
• Compares you to previous lovers.
• Admires strangers and compares you to them.
• Tells you that no one will ever care about you the way they do.
• Is jealous and suspicious.
• Accuses you of infidelity.
• Insists that friends of the opposite sex are trying to seduce you.
• States or implies that you got a job offer or interview because of your appearance.
• Doesn't want you to take part in an activity or outing because you might meet someone else there.
• Rushes the relationship
• Pressures you to move in together.
• Pressures you to have sex before you are ready.
• Proposes marriage early in the relationship.
• Does not respect your privacy
• Reads your diary or journal.
• Opens your mail.
• Goes through your drawers and desk.
• Manipulates others to achieve their goals
• Uses guilt trips.
• Attempts to coerce you into doing things that make you uncomfortable.
• Threatens suicide or homicide if you don't cooperate with them.
• Lectures you endlessly until you agree.
• Is easily angered at others who interfere with their activities.
• Engages in "Road Rage".
• Reactions are out of proportion to level of inconvenience.
• Impatient
• Is intolerant of children or animals.
• Will not get up to feed or change the baby.
• Believes that children don't deserve the level of treatment or support as adults.
• Insists that THEY are the victim in the relationship.
• Accuses you of being selfish, rude, self-centered, uncooperative, etc.
• Claims that you are the one undermining the relationship.
• Accuses you of not loving them or not caring about them.
• Threatens suicide or homicide if you leave them.
• Lack of empathy
• Inability to put themselves in another's shoes.
• Unwilling to provide comfort to others unless "blame" clearly lies elsewhere.
• Makes minimal effort to care for others when sick or injured while complaining about the inconvenience.
• Cruel to animals.
• Unable to acknowledge or respond to pain in others or you that is not clearly visible.
• Turns up TV when you have a headache
• Expects you to help with chores when you are feeling sick.
• Tears down your self esteem and erodes your confidence.
• Tone of voice unreasonably deriding or scornful for the situation.
• Questions your ability to do simple things.
• Asks you to make a decision and then rejects your decision. Often asking you to decide over again.
• Accuses you of being overly sensitive to criticism.
• Calls you names.
• Criticizes you openly.
• Interferes with or attempts to control your career.
• Pressures you to quit or change your job.
• Thinks that your employer interferes with your marriage.
• Thinks that your co-workers/employer/employees are defective somehow.
• Attempts to resolve conflicts you have at work for you.
• Seeks to "help you" with your career, and is upset if you don't cooperate.
• Attempts to choose your job or work projects for you.
• Punishes you or threatens to punish you for "misbehaving
• Strands you somewhere.
• Gives you the "silent treatment".
• Yells at you.
• Lectures you.
• Believes that a "discussion" about your relationship is more important that any other obligation or activity.
• Makes you late to work or social activities because they want to discuss something.
• Picks a fight with you at bedtime and then won't let you go to sleep for hours.

Victim's Behavior
Watch out for these behaviors in yourself. Members of my support group believe that these are warning signs of low self esteem and behaviors that set you up to be abused.

• Fear of failure, and extreme insecurity about your own competance
• Try hard to conceal or downplay any mistakes you make.
• Are afraid to be seen as stupid, lazy, or weak.
• Feel that you are "supposed" to be able to handle a situation or task.
• Fear that others will think less or you if you quit.
• Believe that no excuse is good enough for a mistake you have made.
• Willing to overlook other people's flaws or mistakes.
• Believe everyone else but you is perfect and has a good reason for making a mistake.
• Believe that you can help others "live up to their potential".
• Not trusting your own judgment.
• Feel as though your opinion is not as "worthy" as someone else's.
• Find a "logical" argument to disregard your "inner voice" or gut feeling.
• Assume that criticism you receive from others is valid.
• Need another person's input before you can make a decision.
• Not feeling that you deserve to be treated well.
• Are willing to go to great inconvenience and trouble to avoid causing someone else inconvenience.
• Don't want to appear "demanding" or to be considered a "trouble maker"
• Assume that if someone treats you poorly then you must have done something wrong.
• Expect and accept criticism when you have completed a task.
• Are unwilling to be disruptive to the relationship.
• Avoid discussing issues that you fear will upset your partner.
• Are unwilling to break off a bad relationship because you don't want to hurt your partner.
• Secretly wish that your partner would die, move away, find someone else, or offer to leave the relationship.
• Allow others to make most decisions.
• Let someone else make all the decisions with no input or discussion from you.
• Allow others to talk you into a decision you don't like.
• Make a decision to please others rather than yourself.
• Choose a course of action because you don't want to hurt a particular person's feelings.
• Find it easier to "go along" with others decision rather than stand your ground.
• Hide behind "womanly tasks" like cooking, etc. - rather than dealing with reality.
• Behave as though you agree with others, even when you don't.
• "Parrot" someone else's opinions or behaviors.
• Keep quiet when you disagree with something
• Allowing someone to think by your silence that you agree with them even if you don't.
• Thinking that the subject is not worth an argument.
• Act to "protect" others at your own expense.
• Won't break up with a significant other strictly to avoid hurting their feelings.
• Avoid saying what you want or need to say because you don't want to hurt someone.
• Accept blame that is not yours to protect someone else.
• Giving up things that are important to you to please others.
• Give up hobbies or activities that aren't shared or approved of.
• Give away or sell precious momentos because they "clutter up the place".
• Keep photos or momentos in storage rather than display them because your abuser doesn't like them.
• Isolate yourself from all people other than your abuser.
• Allow friendships with people your abuser dislikes to wither away.
• Visit or call family less and less because your abuser dislikes them.
• Spend less time with friends, family, or co-workers because it "takes too much time".
• Never go anywhere without your abuser.
• Conceal your abusers behavior from others.
• Believe that others "wouldn't understand" why a situation or behavior is "justified".
• Are embarrassed that you allow yourself to be treated this way.
• Have been asked or coerced by your abuser to not tell.
• Are afraid of being accused of "making them look bad".
• Take responsibility for things that are not your responsibility.
• "Help" resolve other people's conflicts by acting as mediator
• Apologize for things that OTHER people did.
• "Cover" for people who are not handling their own responsibilities.
• Accept more than your fair share of blame in a conflict.
• Apologize just so that the fight will end, not because you think you did something wrong.
• Fix, clean up, or conceal something done by someone else to avoid being accused of having done it.
• Attraction to authority figures.
• Attracted to the smart, self-confident, powerful people.
• Attempt to prove your worth to them.
• Are thrilled if they "bother" to notice you.
• Assume that their advice is sound.

 

[Hermes]

Yes, indeed, improving the victim profile is so important. Abusers are able to see the victim "type" coming a mile off.

I also thought this might useful. Maybe some have read it before.

Warning Signs You're Dating a Loser

""There are a variety of "bad choices" that may be encountered each week - most of which are easily to identify and avoid. We all know to avoid people that appear insane or abusive and not select them as a dating partner. However, some individuals are better at hiding their personality and behavior abnormalities. In an effort to provide some warning about these very damaging individuals, this paper will outline a type of individual commonly found in the dating scene, a male or female labeled "The Loser".


"The Loser" is a type of partner that creates much social, emotional and psychological damage in a relationship. "The Loser" has permanent personality characteristics that create this damage......""

 

[Yuray]

What a realization to wake up to on a Sunday morning!

After reading the original post, I identified with many points attributed to an abuser, and to a victim. I was quite surprised to find it so. I re-read the post for some clarification and realized many good people, using the examples in the post, are both, or exhibit the signs of both at times. I realize the post is a compilation of victims of abuse observations, and not a diagnostic tool, and that the points mentioned are merely red flags to look for, not so much direct rules.

Nonetheless, I do qualify as an abuser and a victim, but certainly not as a malevolent abuser, or helpless victim. It was an eye opener of sorts.

 

[Hermes]

Turn Up Your Gaslight Radar. Check for These Twenty Telltale Signs
From The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life
by Dr. Robin Stern

Gaslighting may not involve all of these experiences or feelings, but if you recognize yourself in any of them, give it extra attention.

1. You are constantly second-guessing yourself.
2. You ask yourself, "Am I too sensitive?" a dozen times a day.
3. You often feel confused and even crazy at work.
4. You're always apologizing to your mother, father, boyfriend, boss.
5. You wonder frequently if you are a "good enough" girlfriend/wife/employee/friend/daughter.
6. You can't understand why, with so many apparently good things in your life, you aren't happier.
7. You buy clothes for yourself, furnishings for your apartment, or other personal purchases with your partner in mind, thinking about what he would like instead of what would make you feel great.
8. You frequently make excuses for your partner's behavior to friends and family.
9. You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don't have to explain or make excuses.
10. You know something is terribly wrong, but you can never quite express what it is, even to yourself.
11. You start lying to avoid the put-downs and reality twists.
12. You have trouble making simple decisions.
13. You think twice before bringing up certain seemingly innocent topics of conversation.
14. Before your partner comes home, you run through a checklist in your head to anticipate anything you might have done wrong that day.
15. You have the sense that you used to be a very different person - more confident, more fun-loving, more relaxed.
16. You start speaking to your husband through his secretary so you don't have to tell him things you're afraid might upset him.
17. You feel as though you can't do anything right.
18. Your kids begin trying to protect you from your partner.
19. You find yourself furious with people you've always gotten along with before.
20. You feel hopeless and joyless.

---------- Post added at 12:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:59 AM ----------

More:

Love and Stockholm Syndrome
Isolation from Perspectives Other than those of the Captor

Excerpt:
In abusive and controlling relationships, the victim has the sense they are always “walking on eggshells” – fearful of saying or doing anything that might prompt a violent/intimidating outburst. For their survival, they begin to see the world through the abuser’s perspective. They begin to fix things that might prompt an outburst, act in ways they know makes the abuser happy, or avoid aspects of their own life that may prompt a problem. If we only have a dollar in our pocket, then most of our decisions become financial decisions. If our partner is an abuser or controller, then the majority of our decisions are based on our perception of the abuser’s potential reaction. We become preoccupied with the needs, desires, and habits of the abuser/controller.

And, doesn't this sound familiar!!

Taking the abuser’s perspective as a survival technique can become so intense that the victim actually develops anger toward those trying to help them""

Hermes

 

[Hermes]

LoserRx - The Prescription for Unhealthy Relationships

How to Identify, Avoid or Detach from Manipulators, Controllers & Abusers
“Losers” are defined by Dr. Joseph Carver as high risk individuals who typically have Antisocial, Histrionic, Borderline or Narcissistic personality disorders. It is alarming to learn that over 15% of the population have these disorders.

With over 30 years in clinical practice, Dr. Carver has helped victims and potential victims of abusers, controllers and manipulators safely and effectively detach from these destructive and soul-destroying relationships.

 

[Andy]

LoserRx - The Prescription for Unhealthy Relationships

Wow. Personally I would put Dr. Joseph Carver in the "loser" category just for that first statement. lol

 

[Hermes]

STP:

Whatever you say. But an abuser is ALWAYS a loser. He (or she) got lost somewhere in life, for sure, if all they are fit to do is abuse someone else (physically, emotionally, verbally...) in order to feel better. And they lose those they abuse too, who either leave them, or are sometimes carried out in a box. So I don't see why they should not be called losers. They ARE! Maybe you think they are lovely people, and of course you are entitled to that opinion.

Hermes

Hermes

 

[Jazzey]

I think STP was being cheeky, Hermes....At least, that's how I read it. I don't think she meant any offense.

 

[Domo]

STP:

Whatever you say. But an abuser is ALWAYS a loser. He (or she) got lost somewhere in life, for sure, if all they are fit to do is abuse someone else (physically, emotionally, verbally...) in order to feel better. And they lose those they abuse too, who either leave them, or are sometimes carried out in a box. So I don't see why they should not be called losers. They ARE! Maybe you think they are lovely people, and of course you are entitled to that opinion.

Hermes

Hermes

Since when does being something like borderline automatically make someone an abuser?

 

[Hermes]

Believe me, Jazzey, abuse is no joke. At least I don't think it is a joke.
I find abuse (abuse of anyone, and in particular children) so abhorrent, that it is beyond me to even consider it as a matter of levity.

Dr. Joseph Carver's articles have opened so many people's eyes to exactly how the abuser operates that all I can do is commend him.

Sorry, but I think one has to stand up and be counted on this particular issue.

Hermes

 

[Andy]

STP:

Whatever you say. But an abuser is ALWAYS a loser. He (or she) got lost somewhere in life, for sure, if all they are fit to do is abuse someone else (physically, emotionally, verbally...) in order to feel better. And they lose those they abuse too, who either leave them, or are sometimes carried out in a box. So I don't see why they should not be called losers. They ARE! Maybe you think they are lovely people, and of course you are entitled to that opinion.

Hermes

Hermes

lol Well first of all, just relax.
I did not say abusers were nice people, please don't put words in my mouth. I said I thought Dr. whatever hi name was a loser for making that first statement. which says that all those people with those disorders are losers. I find that offensive, because I know people with those disorders who are NOT abusers and they are definitely not losers.
I don't know if you and Dr.Carver are good buddies or not and that offended you that I insulted him but this was not against you or anything you have said.
I agree that I am entitled to my opinion, and my opinion would still not call an abuser a "loser" was name calling not on one of those lists down there? Anyway, I'd say that they are people with issues and need to get serious help,I'm not saying it's ok for them to abuse, i'm saying that they are people with serious issues needing addressing.

*I also did not say abuse was a joke!

 

[David Baxter PhD]

I said I thought Dr. whatever hi name was a loser for making that first statement. which says that all those people with those disorders are losers. I find that offensive, because I know people with those disorders who are NOT abusers and they are definitely not losers.

Actually, that's not what the quote says at all, althiough it is badly worded (note that Carver didn't write that; it was written by the promoters of his workshops paraphrasing him and is not a direct quote from him).

It says that having one of the personality disorders mentioned (antisocial, histrionic, borderline, or narcissistic) is a risk factor for abuse. In the case of borderline personality, one of the well known psychologists doing research and publishing in the field of domestic violence (Donald Dutton at UBC) identified that link years ago, before testifying at the preliminary hearing in the O.J. Simpson trial.

It doesn't mean that all individuals with borderline p.d. are abusers, necessarily - just that it adds to the risk of becoming one.

In a similar vein, we know from several research studies that having ADHD is a risk factor for depression and persistent criminality. But that of course does not mean that all childrene with ADHD develop depression or grow up to become career criminals.

 

[Andy]

Your right, I jumped the gun on that one. It's not a quote by him and simply the writing of someone else. My apologies to Dr.Carver. lol

I did read it as saying that all those people with those disorders were "losers". I still kind of read it that way, but I do take note of the "increased risk factor" part that I seem to have skipped over.

Yeah, I just read it again. It's the whole "loser" part that gets to me.