Let’s un shame using the word or talking about “abuse”. Like alcoholism it’s not always what we think it is. *see article below
I have been accused of all of these things.
Plus called crazy when actually the crazy thing is NOT to speak (unless your life or health is being threatened.)
I’m privileged and practiced and safe enough in my body and have enough skills support and experience and capacity to use my voice.
I teach nervous system regulation and mindfulness healing for a living, otherwise I probably would not be equipped to speak and take the backlash. (Honestly, BECAUSE I know how to regulate my nerves I ended up tolerating way more than I needed in the relationship so funny how it but me in the ass AND fyi it’s been a real fucker taking the backlash but I do it anyway bc I care about reprogramming this deeply harmful pattern of not only emotional abuse in close relationships but in our society by pathologizing emotions and in myself by feeling the need to look “unaffected” or fearing your judgement etc.)
I kept asking and praying for guidance and purpose in my experience and trauma and how to make use of it.
Or if I needed to “just let go, forgive, and move on” like sooooo many of you have told me in a thousand different ways- like “just make the best of it, just see the good, you’re making it worse by speaking up, you’re focused on the negative, this is here FoR you” as infinitum
As if to say what I’m doing isn’t purposeful, integrous, honest, or helping others etc or worse as if to say “shut up” but w a smile on their face.
I can see through your “nice sounding well meaning” but actually self serving - not caring about me while saying you do -aka harmful words just like his and my former friends.
Rigorous honesty.
Impeccable with our word.
Actions aligning with intentions words and intonations.
That’s integrity.
That is truth telling.
Even if the truth is shit.
Even if ppl will think alllll of the above and gossip BACK about you “gossiping” oh the irony.
Am I talking shit or is the truth shit and I’m telling it?
Do you think I’m making a bigger deal of this than necessary? That’s a common gaslight he gave me when HE was being a jerk and I contiously “sought to understand him”. Forgave. Cleared my resentment and anger.
That’s what society tells all of us to keep us complicit in harms. That’s what my parents told me, my community, his parents told him and their parents told them and here we are.
So
Am I tearing him down or is this a hope to help us all see a deeper truth and stop abusive systems hiding under spiritual language and good guy and good girl guides.
Am I tearing him down or did he tear me down in subtle covert jabs (no not all abuse is extreme, nor constant and that’s what makes it covert and so insidious and damaging) over the 6 years of us and when it was time to clean up his behavior according to a licensed psychologist, he instead abruptly abandoned me and left me to pick up the pieces AND hoped I’d stay quiet bc he said “sorry I was such a dick to you” and returned a tiny portion of my investment in our home but took the rest as if that cleans it up. As if I was gonna say what I often did “it’s ok I understand cuz you’ve got trauma”.
Today I say “I understand the trauma and dis-order in him and in so many of us that mistreat people AND it’s still NOT OK unlessssss you turn back toward those you hurt and change your behavior.”
A single sorry is not an amends.
Saying I love you and then doing the opposite is not love.
Though I will say it’s better than most abuse survivors get, that’s also the head-fake bc it’s one more reason for everyone to think he did his part, he tried, and I fell for it at first.
At first.
Until I started doing deeper healing and realized the truth and extent of his damaging covert behaviors.
Especially when the same passive-aggressive condescending jesting stonewalling neglect and emotional abuse is continued by the silence or letting others continue to think I’m “the crazy ex” and not correcting their vision.
I’ve lost close friends and a giant chunk of community bc he won’t admit his wrongs or clean them up with me. (Or bc some of you think me talking about abuse IS abuse and I can’t stress enough how wrong that it… it’s like saying telling you someone is an alcoholic makes me a mean person. It depends on the tone, if I’m saying it with “shame” or as the fact it actually is. It also depends on how YOU receive it.
Check yourself- can you understand the difference between someone naming abusive behavior and shaming it?)
I’m so grateful I healed enough IN the relationship even WITH the covert abuse that I found my voice then too and it’s what got me discarded.
I could stay silent about all of that too BUT THATS MY OLD PATTERN and as they say, if nothing changes, nothing changes, so here’s the change.
Here’s the break in the pattern.
Here’s the responsibility I have in that relationship.
To speak up.
This is the healing.
I’m facing and dealing.
Don’t mistake me speaking up repeatedly for that being my only focus either. Just bc I’m not posting my other moments on fb doesn’t mean I’m not living my life and moving forward.
And I hope y’all can do it where it applies in your life too.
Read here for more about what constitutes emotional abuse and neglect. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/childhood-emotional-neglect/202207/how-tell-early-emotional-abuse-emotional-neglect?amp
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