Why Have I Allowed Myself To Be Abused?

[GDPR]

I have been abused my entire life. The first 17 years were filled with every type of abuse. Then I was in a very abusive relationship. Married an abuser.Married another abuser. Now my children are abusive.

I don't know why I have allowed myself to be abused all these years. I don't know why I never put a stop to it. I don't know why I have always had a hard time believing I don't deserve it.

How does a person go from being abused their entire life to putting an end to it once and for all? How do you make yourself truly believe you don't deserve it? How do you stop finding reasons to blame yourself? How do you stop justifying it?

I'm not being abused at the moment. It's been a few weeks since I have decided enough is enough. But how do I keep myself from falling back into old patterns? I worry about it happening again. Right now, I just keep telling myself I will not put up with abuse. And my husband is not allowing anyone around me when he isn't around. But eventually, there will be times that he's not around to protect me. What will happen then? Will I let myself be abused and then keep it hidden or blame myself? I don't plan on it or want to, but I do worry it will happen.

Why is it so hard to say I don't want to be abused anymore, that I don't deserve it and I will not put up with it anymore and stick to it?

Why do I always think if I would have said or did something different, it wouldn't have happened? Why do I believe there must be something about ME that causes the abuse? Why do I feel like love=abuse? Why do I feel like loving someone means you have to put up with being mistreated?

Why am I so screwed up that I have to ask these questions?

 

[rdw]

Why did you - it was your "normal". The good news is you have decided to make changes so it won't happen again. Be proud that you had the courage to realize what was wrong and start correcting it. The more you practice those boundaries the easier they get - one step just one step at a time.

 

[forgetmenot]

Boundaries theres that word again something i never even understood I am just starting to like you are

Boundaries are hard to put into place even harder to keep but fo YOu to heal hun you need to set them and keep them there ok.

When one is raised with no boundaries in place it is hard to know what to do to keep one safe.

I hope with your h usbands help you will continue to learn and to use boundaries to get you feeling better about yourself hugs

 

[Darkside]

Abuse patterns are like the gravitational pull of a planet. You have to reach escape velocity to break free and that's not easy. Sometimes it is enough to orbit, but the orbit will decay and you will fall back.

I'm a male and I have been abused all my life by various people. It started in my family where I was the youngest and the smallest. When I tried to stand up for myself the abuse came faster and harder. Both of my siblings and my parents could overpower me physically. But as I grew older they perfected their emotional and psychological abuse. Mainly that consisted of lying and denying. Males tend to abuse physically or by using authority and power, but women tend to abuse emotionally. As a child I learned that to make the abuse stop I had to comply. If I was as good as possible, did what they wanted, and was very still and quiet (may have been some sexual abuse) they would either stop or it wouldn't hurt as much. If that failed I dissociated. (went somewhere in my mind and blocked out the abuse) I was usually very angry afterwards. Angry at myself, angry at the abusers ... but I couldn't do anything about it, and I would be abused for the anger so I suppressed that too.

The gravitational pull of childhood abuse draws us into relationships where we behave as though we are still being abused. That attracts abusers and, I think, sometimes brings out abuse in people who are unaware of their own feelings and needs. For me, an example would be my compliance. I don't express what I feel and need, and I generally believe that my own thoughts and feelings are unimportant so I slip into the role of the over-adapted child. That "ego-state" invites the other person to slip into the parent role and if they are unaware they may find themselves playing the abusive parent.

Here's the kicker. As we develop and grow in awareness the people we have relationships with based on abuse don't like it. They don't know what is going on and find our behavior odd and foreign - sometimes infuriating. Usually they will increase the level of abuse to try and force us to go back to into the compliant child/overbearing parent dance. The more we escape the pull of the past abuse and behave in new ways the more they will escalate. They don't say it in so many words, but if you were to read their true thoughts and put it into words they would be saying, "Why are you behaving like this? Why won't you act like you always do when I abuse you? This is not fair and I don't like this new you." This is when the gravitational pull is the strongest.

I'm having this experience with my sister right now. She makes demands on me and tries to bully me, guilt me, and outright lie to get me to do her bidding. She can't physically overpower me, but she uses every trick that used to work. But if I become compliant, defiant or I withdraw into my mind then I have fallen into the old pattern and she has successfully manipulated me just like when I was 6-12 years old. My mother is the same way. She called me the other day and asked me to come see her because she missed me. I told her I was too busy, but the perfect answer would have been, "really, what do you miss?" See, I'm not there yet ... not by a long shot. My mother was not a direct abuser. She used proxies - my dad, my sister and my brother - to do her work. When I complained she did nothing. That was how she controlled me. She also manipulated my brother and sister against one another. I have caught myself doing some of that.

The worst scar of a highly abusive childhood is that we can contaminate new relationships by continuing the pattern. A relationship starts out fine, but then something happens that reminds us (the part of our brains on which the abusive patterns are imprinted) of abuse and so we slip into the role and behave like the abused child using all the coping mechanisms we learned long ago. We begin to teach this new person how to treat us and pretty soon they will fit the role - unless they happen to be particularly aware and conscious people who know themselves well. I've met a few of them and they usually will say something that alerts me that I've been playing the over-adapted child. It is a wonderful experience to meet someone who is not only enlightened, but willing to gently tell you, "you don't have to do that because I am not going to abuse you."

What we all have to understand is that as victims of abuse we have the potential to be abusers in the right circumstances. It is hard to admit, but I've done that before. Once I did it physically, but mainly I have seen myself using emotional and psychological abuse. When I realize it I am disgusted.

But the key is to avoid people who insist that abuse form the basis of a relationship - unless they become aware of it and are willing to change. The second step is avoid teaching people we have a new relationship with to make abuse the basis of the relationship - either as giver or receiver. It is hard work and sometimes all we can do is maintain the orbit; which is to say, stay aware, in touch with our feelings and be willing to walk away when abuse escalates. Escaping the pull entirely means staying in an adult ego-state. That means ask questions, gather information and make a decision whether we want to stay or go. Sometimes, asking questions forces us to stop; sometimes making a joke or simply being assertive about our own feelings and needs defuses the abuse. When I reach the point that I can do that successfully in any relationship I will have escaped the event horizon of a huge black hole. I've got a long way to go, but I am getting there ... little by little.

So, I try to raise my awareness, read, learn and consciously practice breaking the patterns - I even do it in front of a mirror; and this is something I have just learned: if I lash out in anger it is still adaptive coping behavior to old abuse just like compliance and dissociation are adaptive behaviors. I am beginning to believe that at least some anxiety and depression may be learned adaptive behaviors too.