Category: Uncategorized

One of the biggest questions for victims of abuse is “Why me?”

“Why did this person hurt me? What did I do? What what did I do to deserve this?”

And the most important answer to that question is “nothing”.

The abuser abused you because they made the decision to take those actions that were harmful.

Even if you’re a person who is biologically compromised –

…maybe you have a hormone imbalance or something like that and you are not a safe person – you recognize, “Oh, I’m not a safe person. I don’t want to harm other people.” And so then you take actions to remove yourself.

So even if it’s not an abuser’s ‘choice’ to abuse, they’re still making choices.

Once you realize you’re a loaded gun, you put the gun away, lock it away in a gun safe. Just like we put it away so that it cannot harm people, we remove ourselves so that we do not harm people.

And so if you’re a victim of abuse and that person for whatever reason is taking those harmful actions towards you, that is because of who they are, not because of who you are.

However, we do get to a point where we go, “Okay, I really want to move forward in my life in a way that is safe and and doesn’t unintentionally leave any areas, ways, avenues, doors for these abusers to get to me or hurt me. How do I help prevent that?”

And so that’s when you’ll see the information about, for example, boundaries.

Like, “It’s good to like have good boundaries. Enforce your boundaries. Pay attention to people who violate your boundaries.”

(Unfortunately, we have a big problem in the victim community where a victim who is in an abuse dynamic or is just out of an abuse dynamic is getting this later stage information too early. They’re being told, “Why you?” “Oh, because you have bad boundaries.” No. However, later when the victim needs to feel empowered, to find a way to empower themselves to take decisions on their own behalf so that they are safe, then that boundary discussion is really important.)

But there’s another factor at play, and that is how abusers hijack your mind and then use it against you so that you end up making poor decisions that then compound.

We all know about compounding interest in financial areas: every little bit more creates more interest which compounds, and so the more you have, the more it compounds. It’s like a snowball effect but in finances.

Well, the same thing happens with our decisions.

And so, it’s very easy to take one decision that leads to the next decision that leads to the next decision and then suddenly you’re down a road you never really intended to go down.

So what I see with a lot of victims of abuse is unintentionally they are making poor decision after poor decision that compounds in these drastic ways and leads them down this path that they never would have chosen.

And why that happens is because often, if you were a child victim of abuse for example, you had your parents telling you things about yourself. They define you to yourself. They’ve put labels on you and then you as a child internalize those labels, that defining, and start to make decisions from that position.

And the thing is, this isn’t intrinsically bad.

(Meaning the process.)

I do that with my son. A good parent will do that with their child in a positive direction:

• “Wow, you really work hard. You’re a hard worker.”
• “You’re making great grades. I love what a great student you are.”
• “I see you’re being athletic and I love what a great athlete you are.”

Kids internalize these labels – “I’m a great athlete, I’m a good student, I work hard” –

…and then they make decisions in line with that identity.

As parents, we have a lot of authority and ability to shape our child’s identity. And that is not intrinsically a bad thing.

However, when you have emotionally immature people or you have abusers

…or you have just shitty parents who are using what is supposed to be a mechanism for the child’s benefit against the child – “you’re lazy”, “why are you so stupid”, “you’re such a pig”, etc. – it then wends its way into our souls.

And you hear it enough times and you start to believe it, and it’s a form of brainwashing for the child.

They’ve been defined in a very negative way and they hear the parent’s internal voice in their mind and they don’t necessarily realize that its the parent’s voice that has been programmed into them, that it’s not their own voice.

Not every voice that we hear is our voice; not every thought in our mind is our thought.

We do not need to take ownership of of the thoughts.

And I love how this works on any paradigm that you want.

If you are an atheist or you’re more psychology-driven, you’ll see the language of “depression lies”, “anxiety lies”, “fear lies”, “don’t listen to those thoughts”. Or they’ll talk about intrusive thoughts like ‘this thought came out of nowhere’.

Let’s say you’re spiritual and you could you could think of it as entities or spirit guides, and many entities are negative.

If you are a Christian it’s going to be that classic ‘good angel’ and ‘bad angel’ on your shoulder, influencing you one way or the other

…but the thing is that we internalize the abuser’s thoughts and voice when we’re in an abuse dynamic

– when our defenses are lowered – we aren’t as mentally strong and able to repel the incorrect things. To mentally defend ourselves to ourselves.

And then just over time it wears on you, and you move forward in your life with these thoughts that you may follow, and each time you follow it in that negative direction, it compounds and you make worse and worse decisions.

Sabotaged self-esteem will have you sabotaging yourself, and over and over again.

Or let’s say you give somebody a chance that – if we’re discerning – we would not have ‘given them a chance’.

Or the the way an abuser will manipulate a victim, weaponizing their own moral framework against them

…and they often do it in a way that’s during an emotionally charged period of time, so you’re not even able to engage your cognitive thinking.

They’re trying to bypass your ability to think and use your mind, and so the decisions compound just like in the financial sphere interest compounds.

The more money you have, the more interest you make. The more interest you make, the more money you have. The more money you have, the more interest you make.

The same thing for decisions.

The more good decisions you make, the more good outcomes you get, the more you have the ability to make more good decisions, the more good outcomes you get.

And the same way for the negative.

So, when you’re sitting here and you’re like “why me? why is my life like this? how did this happen?”

…sometimes it’s because that underlying programming that was thrust upon a victim is leading them to make decisions that then compound in the wrong direction.

I noticed that the friends that I made when I was in abusive relationships were not friends, whereas the friends that I made when I was living my best life have been great friends. And I think part of it is because of this decision compounding.

It’s hard to make good choices when you’re being abused…and the choices add up.

One of the most important things I learned from my current bosses is the ability ‘to let that which doesn’t matter truly slide’.¹

Everyone I work for is not only a leader in their respective fields, but they are also people of significant influence in the area in which I live. And their ability to deal with stress – on matters that impact anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of people – is near unflappable.

Part of that is because they know how to fix things.

But a significant factor is that they are simply too busy to take shit personally.

If there is one thing I have noticed over the years about victims of abuse as well as abusers is how drastically self-centered self-focused they often are. They are thinking about themselves in some capacity all. the. time.

Obviously there are nuances depending on what the personal situation is, and there is a point for victims of abuse where it is important and needed and necessary for them to do so: after having centered an abuser for so long, it is important to re-center yourself in your own experience.

But one of the biggest aha moments I had was realizing that not everyone experiences everything in relation to themselves.

This includes people acting like assholes toward them. Disrespect. Bullshittery.

Their vibe is very much [rolls eyes] “anyway”.

I’m not saying they don’t feel annoyed and frustrated in the moment. But they are remarkably action-oriented and their thought process is essentially “What do I need to do here?” and it might be nothing or it might be some kind of hand-holding and acquiescence or it might be (usually privately) setting a boundary or enforcing something.

So when I have fucked up at work in the past, and I am all up in my head obsessing about it, literally drowning in anxiety, they are like “What? Don’t do that again. This is why we do [thing].”

…and then we all move on. The amount of time they spend thinking about me and my actions, or anyone else and their actions, is minuscule. Quite simply, they are too busy for nonsense and have shit to do. Their ego is not on the line, they don’t feel a need to validate themselves, they are literally just trying to get shit done so they can relax and enjoy their time with their family on their ‘off’ time.

The biggest mistake I see obsessive people making is that they have not enough happening in their lives.

And so issues with one relationship or a thing at work or a friend or something at the store takes on outsized importance.

I have definitely changed the way I approach situations over the years as a result of what I have learned from them.

My aversion to high conflict people and ‘drama’ is now very high; I do not have the emotional energy for that shit and I do not want to spend my time focused on people who are determined to bring out the worst in everyone and every situation anyway.

From where I’m sitting, and from what I have learned from my bosses, high conflict people do not have perspective.

The amount of give-a-shits I have for someone with a competitive instead of cooperative mindset, especially with regard to my family, is so low as to be below ground. If you don’t want to respect the feelings and experience of the person you say you love, if you want to create conflict around literally every. single. thing. – you do you, boo.

But I do not need to be involved.

Have. other. shit. going. on.

And then their ridiculous actions and behaviors and demands are in appropriate context and perspective. Because, honestly, who has time for this nonsense? And also: reality can take care of itself.

Their ‘disrespect’ has nothing to do with me and everything to do with them.

And I’m busy. You should be, too. True friends know your character and trust you, and if not? Next. On its face, that makes it seem like friends are disposable but the outcome is actually that you have incredibly long-term friendships because the people who aren’t real-real aren’t people you keep around or engage with.

Same thing with dating. If they spend so much time trying to argue with you and change how you are and what you think/believe? Fucking next. That just means you aren’t a good fit and are not compatible and do not share the same values.

We’re giving unstable people the benefit of the doubt when in reality we need to be distancing ourselves.

And so you don’t take anything personally, you take it as important information to act on, you respect boundaries and appropriately assert and enforce your own, and you don’t let one person’s perspective of you determine your self-concept (especially if they are an unreliable narrator).

No one person is your ‘mirror’ because you have enough other people you get feedback from.

You have your own sense of yourself in which you are grounded.

What helps the most is having a ‘rubric’ that allows you to make decisions without getting sucked in to someone’s exercise in image management and control.

With my abusive ex, he would try to convince me of all kinds of things. Instead of arguing, I’m going to agree where I can –

You know what? I agree that our dynamic is not healthy and that there is abuse present. We do not agree on reality. The appropriate and safe thing to do here is to not be together.

It’s a form of ‘confrontational jiu-jitsu’.

Find where you agree, determine the safe outcome, don’t get attached to their opinion and perspective of you, and be firm on your boundaries. With the exception of my abusive ex I’ve been getting pretty solid on boundaries, and even there I have made a lot of progress.

And you’ll see that they are their own karma.

Like I said in the other post, losing you is their karma. Being that way is their karma. Being surrounded by toxic people who put up with their B.S. or whom they don’t respect is their karma.

And meanwhile?

You are too busy with real shit and living life to put all your validation and sense of self on this one person.

_____.

¹ Quote from Chuck Palahniuk’s “Fight Club”: attributed to the character of Tyler Durden.

See also:

• One of the characteristics of abusive relationships is a constant flow of criticism of the targeted person
• Predictable patterns of high-conflict personalities
• The WEB Method: Pay attention to their WORDS, your EMOTIONS, and their BEHAVIOR
• How to spot high-conflict people before it’s too late (video)
• The 5 Types of High-Conflict People & What To Do: the yeller, the wall, the sneak, the ‘confused’ one, the sociopath
• How to communicate with unintentionally high-conflict people <—– not for intentional abusers or those with strong alloplastic defenses
• “Who has time for this?” – ‘putting up’ with disrespect
• Signs you grew up with a high-conflict parent
• Spotting Emotional Immaturity in High-Conflict Personalities (see below)

Emotional maturity is, in essence, the ability to deal with reality (Gibson, 2015).

…emotionally immature people are often unable to deal with reality and tend to alter their perceptions of reality to fit their own needs.

–from Spotting Emotional Immaturity in High-Conflict Personalities

Violence and anger are not the same thing.

Plenty of people get angry without being violent.

We teach children this starting from the beginning.

“Your feelings are okay, but it’s not okay to hurt people.”

And victims of all people know this well, this tension between being angry and not harming others.

…that they are entitled to punish you.

Or that they ‘just have an anger management problem’ or ‘have trauma’.

That you should work harder – do ‘your part’ – not to ‘make’ them mad.

But plenty of people get angry, every day yet not everyone is violent or harms others.

There is a difference between violence and anger.

And I would also say that there is a type of abuser that is ‘crazymaking’ where they will engage in lighter-seeming provocations for the purpose of triggering an outburst, for the purpose of making the victim seem like the abuser. (A lot of school bullies fit this mold.)

Or, there are many abusers will actually feel and believe that they are the ones ‘walking on eggshells’

…that the victim is engaging in ‘crazymaking behavior’, even though that isn’t reality. (See: Certain abusers delude themselves into thinking that whatever they are doing is a reasonable response to what they perceive you are doing to them)

This is why I always recommend to victims that they never attempt to litigate abuse with the abuser.

The abuser’s mis-perspective of reality and their ego defenses will prevent them from being able to understand that they are abusive. (Not to mention that most victims aren’t good at argumentation, nor should they be, and if they are, the abuser often resorts to physical violence because of their impotence in logic.)

If you believe there’s always someone at fault that should be blamed, but you also do not want to ever believe that someone is you, then you see these mental gymnastic that have nothing to do with reality but everything to do with preserving their beliefs: someone is always to blame and it is never me.

And so they reverse cause and effect.

Off the top of my head, there are three classes of ‘traumatic bonding’:

• bond created when someone harms/traumatizes you in the context of a relationship
• bond created when you go through something traumatic with someone
• bond created when you and/or another person share your trauma together

We use “trauma bond” casually for all three situations

…and invariably, whenever someone uses the phrase, another person pops up in the comments being pedantic about how “trauma bond” only applies to victims with an abuser. They’re technically right, but it’s extremely annoying, since “trauma bond” (in my opinion) best describes the situation where two people in a crisis have bonded to each other through the crisis. But it honestly could also describe when two people share their trauma with each other.

So I’ve been workshopping better language for each iteration of the ‘traumatic bond’:

• A “trauma bond” definitionally is the ‘abuse bond’ a victim has toward an abuser with whom they are in a relationship. (It could be considered “pathological attachment” since the victim is attached to someone despite being harmed by them.)
• A “trauma-forged bond” (crisis bond?) is what happens when we go through something traumatic with another person, not because of that person. Not only is a bond forged, but the level of intimacy is reinforced since people who did not go through the crisis cannot relate to or understand it. (I was originally thinking along the lines of “trauma-induced bond” but I think I like “trauma-forged bond” better because it’s clear the bond comes through experiencing the crisis together.)
• A “trauma-sharing bond” is when you and/or another person create a bond (intimacy), or attempt to create one, by sharing trauma. This one is a trap because it can rush intimacy with another person before you really know who they are. When we do this, we think that sharing our trauma equals ‘sharing who we are’, when in fact it is only over time that we can truly know someone and build intimacy. Trauma-sharing is a shortcut to emotional vulnerability. This doesn’t mean we can’t appropriately share our trauma with someone else (who has consented) but that we shouldn’t confuse the closeness this fosters as ‘knowing someone’, even if you’ve been through the same things. The reason this is different than the intimacy built through a crisis bond, is that that intimacy was built being with the other person and seeing how they act/react in a crisis. Witnessing someone’s character, and seeing how they treat you in a crisis, is vastly different than a person giving you a narrative about what they have experienced. One is direct knowledge not only of someone’s character but also how they treat you, and one is basically a story you are being told.

I’m landing on:

• trauma bond
• trauma-forged bond/crisis bond
• trauma-sharing bond/trauma-disclosure bond

(I also considered “trauma-linking bond” and “trauma-intimacy bond” but I think they run into the same problem that “trauma bond” has, which is that they aren’t clear enough about the origin of the trauma and the relationship dynamic the bond exists within.)

See also:

A trauma bond occurs when you have become emotionally attached to someone that abuses you.

Emotional attachment is not the same thing as love. It can co-exist with love, but extreme and intense emotional attachment itself is not love. The attachment in a toxic relationship becomes a chain that binds, not something that lightens the yoke of the relationship.

See also:

• Trauma bonds often form due to repeated cycles of intense emotional experiences, where periods of abuse are followed by periods of kindness, creating a confusing and addictive emotional rollercoaster
• Intense relationships also tend to hijack all of a survivor’s relating capacity from this amazing website
• Trauma bonding
• Signs it is not love but a trauma bond
• 5 signs you’re in a dangerous trauma bond with a toxic person
• The 7 stages of trauma bonding
• Trauma Bonds are relationships with a dysfunctional cycle that keep people physically addicted to one another
• Undoing a trauma bond can mean undoing an emotional addiction to a person
• HOW OXYTOCIN CAUSES TRAUMA BONDING AND ATTACHMENT
• During a toxic relationship a dysfunctional attachment is formed
• Trauma bonds v. Authentic connection
• Types of trauma bonds
• Trauma bonding with a narcissist
• Trauma bonding is loyalty to a person who is destructive
• 10 Steps to Recovering from a Toxic Trauma Bond
• Trauma Bonding: How to recognize and break traumatic bonds
• Going no-contact gives us a chance to break trauma bonds
• You might be trauma bonded if…
• Why is it so hard to leave the narcissist in your life? <—– trauma bond through a blend of intermittent reinforcement and abuse bonding
• Trauma bonds involve a cycle of addiction where you keep coming back in hopes behaviors will change
• Narcissists use trauma bonding and intermittent reinforcement to get you addicted to them: Why abuse survivors stay: Exploitive relationships create betrayal bonds. These occur when a victim bonds with someone who is destructive to him or her. Thus the hostage becomes the champion of the hostage taker…
• What is a trauma bond? A trauma bond is an attachment to an abuser in a relationship with a cyclical pattern of abuse
• Healthy relationships nourish and support us. Like poison, a TOXIC relationship is one that is damaging to us.
• “I knew I was done with trauma bonds when I stopped betraying myself to be chosen.” – Nicole LePera
• When we confuse connection for love, we hold on to people that harm us <—– the difference between ‘love’ as a feeling and actual love)
• Abusive relationships are like bookends. The honeymoon period in the beginning is so sweet because they mirror your good traits back at you. By the end, you’re mirroring their awful traits back at them
• “Your partner is not supposed to be the pain and the relief. They should not be hurting you and also soothing you. That’s not love. It’s a trauma bond. That’s not how love works. It’s how abuse works. ” – Synthia Smith
• Trauma bonding isn’t healing

and while I’m at it:

• The REAL role and purpose of forgiveness
• The truth about forgiveness and why healing doesn’t require forgiveness
• The ‘forgiveness tulpa’, and how the false forgiveness paradigm perpetuates abuse dynamics
• The forgiveness imperative, and compassion
• The role of anger and pain in the healing process
• Before you can ‘hold on’ to negative experiences, negative experiences hold on to you
• The misunderstood role of blame in healing and why you should blame your abuser
• Forgiveness is for the purpose of preserving relationships
• “Forgiveness is usually confused with permission.” – u/ ThrowRAReallySadH, comment
• “When people insist on forgiveness, very often they’re not expecting it at all. What they’re expecting is FORGETTING, that the wounded party will simply pretend there is no damage and then nobody will ever need to examine what was done. forgiveness requires repentance, which requires changed ways.” – u/ smcf33, excerpted and adapted from comment
• Our pop-culture understanding of forgiveness is based in Christianity…but even Christians misunderstand the Biblical underpinnings of forgiveness
• “Everyone wants OP to make peace because her pain is inconvenient. They don’t care if she hurts for the rest of her life as long as she shuts up about it. Their indifference is cruel. Their relentless badgering for OP to ‘forgive’ is a form of bullying too.” – u/ LissaBryan, comment
• ‘Forgiving someone is packaged [incorrectly] as allowing this person back into your life so they feel “forgiven” for what’s happened.’ – Nicole LePera (adapted)
• A lot of what we see in terms of healing is prescriptive (forgive! let go! move on!) tends to actually be DESCRIPTIVE.
• Trauma Recovery Rubric

My original solution to having bad boundaries was to never be in a position where I would have to have them.

Once I realized that there were people who did not have my best interest at heart, and that I had been conditioned from childhood to appease aggressive people, I started avoiding aggressive people like the plague.

And I still stand by that.

As a strategy, it’s fantastic for protection.

The problem is that it hinges on your ability to control the people in your environment.

So it fails as soon as you have to go to work or deal with police officer, or any situation where you don’t have a choice about whether you can opt out or leave.

It also doesn’t help build our ‘psychological immune system’.

It’s good to develop the proactive ability to assert yourself and your boundaries.

Not only is it a core line of defense for how you protect yourself, it’s your MAIN line of defense legally.

• If you allow people to trespass on your property, and they create a trail or road they use frequently and without your objection, you may have given them an ‘easement’ on your property.
• If someone builds a fence on your property but you never contest it, they may actually be able to claim your property through ‘adverse possession’.
• If you allow someone to stay with you, after a certain amount of time, they are legally a resident or tenant: with rights. A situation you may not have ever intended, and one that means you may have to actively evict them to get them to leave.
• If a police officer stops you, you often have to actively assert your rights in order to preserve them.

A lot of people are non-confrontational.

They ‘go along to get along’, and in the process, can accidentally disempower themselves legally or otherwise.

As the economy gets worse, takers take harder.

And if you’re an over-giver or someone who struggles with boundary and confrontation, it’s important to realize how crucial it is that you’re able to set boundaries.

They’re going to have a sad story, and it may even be true, but you have to figure out where your “no” lies because it isn’t possible to give them everything they want or need.

And if your boundaries are poor, you can end up with a tenant in your house you never intended.

It isn’t just hobosexuals, it could be anyone who ‘just needs a place to stay’

…and then pushes and pushes and pushes to stay, until they’ve suddenly established residency or tenancy without you even realizing it.

It’s one thing to decide you want to help someone, it’s another to be coerced into giving them what they want.

…or to be tricked into giving them rights in your home.

This actually happened to me with my abusive ex many years ago.

He was suddenly living with me, and when I told him I wanted him to go back home (to his momma’s house – I know) it was our first big argument. I said I wanted to be able to decide when we did that, not ‘slide into it’, and he insisted that he didn’t live here, just ‘stayed here’. And then told me I was the one who wanted him there, and hadn’t he done all these things to help around the house and make it better? And apparently letting him be there was a irrevocable choice that I could never re-evaluate. Then he told me I was weaponizing my ‘power’ over him because I had the ability to make him leave, and that was abusive.

Oh. my. god.

And now it’s years later, and I’m watching people be evicted from their homes onto the street. People that young-me would have jumped to offer a place for them to stay, where current-me knows that I have to be extremely careful who I allow in my house. Not just for legal concerns, but because I have a child, and their safety takes precedence.

What I can do is help them self-rescue.

Provide respite, a place to charge their phone or take a shower, give them a tent (I should own stock in tents), direct them to specific resources, make calls on their behalf.

I can still be on their side.

But if I took no-boundaries Invah and brought her to today, she would be eaten alive.

I mean, I’m still working on it.

But I’m doing better. And I hope everyone in this community is doing better too, because it is going to be a mass disaster.

And when people are drowning, they will drown the rescuer.

Sob stories work; that’s why con artists use them.

And it is so successful as a manipulation because it’s hijacking natural interactions that exist between people and that rely on the benefit of the doubt we give each other for society to work.

It pricks someone’s compassion

…it can also make a person be aware of how they would look to others if they said “no”. It can even cause a minor existential crisis because you might be aware that it is manipulation but you don’t want to be the kind of person that manipulation would no longer work on.

Manipulation often occurs from weaponizing our good qualities.

The only sure way to prevent that kind of manipulation is shut down the parts of yourself that would be kind to someone in distress and to assume everyone who tells you a sob story is trying to con you in some way, or that everyone who says they need help or are in danger is lying.

I find that victims of abuse in particular are extremely concerned with being ethical and want to be good people (versus just appearing to be a good person).

…genuinely being concerned on an ethics- and human-level, especially since that was likely a major component of HOW they were abused. Being told they were a bad person or partner, a bad child or friend.

And so victims may have to retreat from compassion – at least for a time – to give themselves space to learn healthy boundaries and what safe people look like.

But part of learning to protect oneself is figuring out how to be open to supporting others without making oneself vulnerable, and without cutting ones heart off from connecting with people, while recognizing that there is a point where ‘helping’ becomes enabling.

And so much of the healing process for victims is a process of navigating their understanding of what is ethical, what it means to be a ‘good person’.

…how to participate in the fabric of humanity without being torn themselves.