Out of the Storm

I had a small epiphany today. I was thinking about emotional abuse and neglect, wondering why it's so hard for me to move out of denial.

That's the difficult thing about dealing with emotional neglect and emotional abuse - it's so easy for everyone to minimize and trivialize it. "Now you're overreacting." - "You simply just have to grow a thicker skin." - "You're oversensitive." - "Oh, well, yes, I can see how this-and-that wouldn't be precisely pleasant, but just stop dwelling on it and it will pass. You simply just have to look on ahead and focus on doing your duty, that will make you happy enough." In extreme cases, people even adopt an attitude of self-righteously wounded innocence: "I only said this one little thing! And now you're giving me all that grief for that?! What, won't I be allowed to say anything around here?!" Or my favourite: "You're only crying to make me feel guilty!"

On a grander scale, you see it in social groups who have caused or are causing other groups significant distress. You always, always, always get people in a self-righteous huff about "how those XYs are STILL going on and on about THAT little thing that happened so long ago and was really quite insignificant". The disadvantaged group can't even once simply talk about "see, this is what it's like for us, this is what we go through", without someone from the other group pouncing in and pretending it's all about THEM.
"You're attacking us!!"
"No, we're just talking about our daily lives."
"I know better! This is an attack!!"
"It isn't... you see, talking about their daily lives is what people do..."
"ATTAAAACK!! ARGH! MY FEELINGS! THEY ARE BEING TRAMPLED ONNN!"
"Please listen... what's happening is harming you, too..."
"Ah? Oh. Yes. Yes, it does, coming to think of it. Hah! Oh, this is so much better. Alright, carry on. Talk about my sufferings. Go on."
"Er, we were just talking about our..."
"But that doesn't matter, weren't you listening?"

That is a part of abuse. It's a way of thinking that causes abuse.

In order to admit that yes, they hurt you, they would first have to accept your side of the story as relevant. And to them, it isn't. You don't matter. Your feelings don't matter. Your opinion is always, always inferior to theirs, always erroneous. Your experiences don't matter. Your rights - well, they matter a little, maybe, but theirs matter so much more. And so they cannot and won't ever see your side of the story. After all, they can live with having caused you pain - so why can't you?! It's so easy! What they did and said was this little thing that was so easy to do. It didn't upset them in the least. It made them feel good about themselves. Patronizing you made them feel like they were above you. Excluding you made them feel all the more like they were insiders. Withdrawing from you gave them a feeling that they were in control of their own lives: uncomfortable truths could be silenced, it was marvellous! All of this was easy to do. It didn't upset them in the least. It often gave them a sense of pleasure, of control, of well-being. Therefore the thing wasn't upsetting. If they can live with the abuse they gave you, why can't you?! After all, it's so obvious to them that those were simply small, harmless things! Why on earth do you refuse to see?

And THAT is why they abused you in the first place. They never looked at you and saw another human being. They never saw you. Oh, they saw someone - a cliché, a two-dimensional figure straight from out of a cheap cartoon. They never had a real relationship with you. What they had instead was a series of triggers. Such-and-such an action on your part would trigger this-and-that abuse on their part. What you explained, what you asked, what you signalled them, that never even registered. If it did, it was quickly brushed aside.

They mattered. You never did. You never even existed, not as a complex human being with opinions worth considering, information worth having, feelings worth a simple, ordinary amount of respect and consideration. Your trauma made you feel like you were insignificant not because you're oversensitive, but because that's how they treated you.

And THAT is why they're idiots.

You matter. You matter so much. Your feelings count. Your opinion counts. Your actions make a difference. Your inner world is unbelievably rich and deep and vivid. True, maybe you're totally out of touch with yourself. Maybe you're numb, maybe you can't even feel the slightest thing, maybe the littlest opinion is hard to come by. But that doesn't mean it's gone. It's all still there, pushed out of reach, probably dinged up and squished and full of cuts and bruises. But it's all still there. It's waiting for you to come back. EFs are proof that this is true. Every EF is a message from your true self. It's like a little kid showing you a bruised elbow, going "look!" and trusting you to work it out.

And yes, EFs are overwhelming and horrifying. But they're a proof that you're still there. No matter what your abusers taught you to think: as long as you're having EFs, you can be very sure that a great (and subconscious) part of you knows EXACTLY what happened, knows the PRECISE truth of the matter, and WILL work as your advocate and champion in the only way it knows how. By elbowing you in the ribs. Hard. But this is a bit like having been in a grave accident, and waking up to find your legs are in so much pain, and your doctor going: "...pain? Great! Whoo-hoo!" You're excused if you think he's insane. But you see, as long as you're in pain, that means your spine isn't broken. As long as the EFs are there, that means your self-advocacy isn't dead. You're not dead. You're not even gone; not completely.

And you're coming back. Every day a little more. So keep on trying. You're absolutely worth it.

...sorry, I hope this isn't too sappy, I got kind of worked up by the thought that I'm not the only person having experienced this.

My words will fall short.

Bravo, Cat.    Beyond superb.   :applause:   :applause:   :applause:   :applause:


What you wrote should be printed up on posters.   These posters at the entrance of every therapists office worldwide.

These posters should be in the Town Squares worldwide for all to ponder.   If I could send the posters back in time, I would send them to Germany, and surrounding countries, in the 1800s in massive numbers ...it could have spared the world both world wars in the first part of last century.   Perhaps ended slavery in the US in its beginning days.  I could go on and on.

What you wrote, if truly grasped by everyone, could change the world.   If so, then "Love one another as you love yourself" would be the standard.

Holy crap Cat.
:yourock:

I'm with Rain, that that should be a poster...at the very least, you should submit it as an article to some kind of publication. It was so well written, and passionate!

And so very very spot on.

I go back and forth on the issue of whether or not I ever really mattered to my mother. There's a part of me that feels like...maybe she's denying that any of that happened because it's too painful for her to face? Maybe it's her own defense mechanism to protect her from her guilt.

Of course, it's entirely equally likely that, as you said, I never mattered in the first place. That she never connected with ME, and that our only relationship consisted of her reacting to her triggers...me.

You've given me lots to think about. Thanks.

Thanks. I'm glad you liked it.  :bighug:

Beautiful Cat, thank you  :hug: 

Very nice.  I had to create an account so I could post a THANK YOU, to you Cat.      :cheer: :cheer: :cheer:

Isn't it wonderful, findingmyhome?   I could not agree more.  I think it is the best post on the OOTS forum.

Welcome, findingmyhome!   I hope this can be a place that is helpful for you.

:hug:

findingmyhome - if you decide to stay with the OOTS forum, please do read the wonderful Welcome post by Kizzie in the Introduction section, along with an introduction about yourself.

If not, then Grace and Healing on Your Journey!    :bighug:

Rain

Thanks!  :yourock:

Quote from: Rain on October 08, 2014, 02:01:05 PM
findingmyhome - if you decide to stay with the OOTS forum, please do read the wonderful Welcome post by Kizzie in the Introduction section, along with an introduction about yourself.

If not, then Grace and Healing on Your Journey!    :bighug:

Rain

Hugs back Rain, thank you.  I read Kizzie's post and will write an introduction.

Posted by: schrödinger's cat
October 04, 2014, 12:57:21 AM

In order to admit that yes, they hurt you, they would first have to accept your side of the story as relevant. And to them, it isn't. You don't matter. Your feelings don't matter. Your opinion is always, always inferior to theirs, always erroneous. Your experiences don't matter. Your rights - well, they matter a little, maybe, but theirs matter so much more. And so they cannot and won't ever see your side of the story. After all, they can live with having caused you pain - so why can't you?! It's so easy! What they did and said was this little thing that was so easy to do. It didn't upset them in the least. It made them feel good about themselves. Patronizing you made them feel like they were above you. Excluding you made them feel all the more like they were insiders. Withdrawing from you gave them a feeling that they were in control of their own lives: uncomfortable truths could be silenced, it was marvellous! All of this was easy to do. It didn't upset them in the least. It often gave them a sense of pleasure, of control, of well-being. Therefore the thing wasn't upsetting. If they can live with the abuse they gave you, why can't you?! After all, it's so obvious to them that those were simply small, harmless things! Why on earth do you refuse to see?



And THAT is why they abused you in the first place. They never looked at you and saw another human being. They never saw you. Oh, they saw someone - a cliché, a two-dimensional figure straight from out of a cheap cartoon. They never had a real relationship with you. What they had instead was a series of triggers. Such-and-such an action on your part would trigger this-and-that abuse on their part. What you explained, what you asked, what you signalled them, that never even registered. If it did, it was quickly brushed aside.

They mattered. You never did. You never even existed, not as a complex human being with opinions worth considering, information worth having, feelings worth a simple, ordinary amount of respect and consideration. Your trauma made you feel like you were insignificant not because you're oversensitive, but because that's how they treated you.

Wow this is great Cat.... I'd like to send this to My husband! I mentioned to hubby about how he was continually abusing me.  He did not say anything just gave me  one of those blank looks! Between him, My uNPDSis, and My workplace I had a nervous breakdown! I don't really know how to say that without blaming someone else. I have a hard time blaming anyone. It was like I was doing OK and the boom! I fell apart.

H continually gives me BIG jobs he wanted me to finish by this fall. I have hardly done any of it! He preaches the bible at me and tells me I am supposed to be a submissive wife... :stars: :stars: like the time that he recorded a series by a preacher we both liked. He sat down and made sure that I watched the whole things about wives. He'd interject things like see You don't do this or You need to be doing this, or see this is what I have been telling YOU!  :doh: real funny thing is... he either did not record the part about Husbands and what they were supposed to do, or he erased it! I did look up the price of the series and IT was very high. I would have like to have made HIM sit down and a watched that with HIM and said Oh yeah this is what You are supposed to do. :doh: :stars: :sadno: OH no I am daydreaming!  :spaceship: B back to earth, calling B back to earth!  ;D

I had a small epiphany today. I was thinking about emotional abuse and neglect, wondering why it's so hard for me to move out of denial.

That's the difficult thing about dealing with emotional neglect and emotional abuse - it's so easy for everyone to minimize and trivialize it. "Now you're overreacting." - "You simply just have to grow a thicker skin." - "You're oversensitive." - "Oh, well, yes, I can see how this-and-that wouldn't be precisely pleasant, but just stop dwelling on it and it will pass. You simply just have to look on ahead and focus on doing your duty, that will make you happy enough." In extreme cases, people even adopt an attitude of self-righteously wounded innocence: "I only said this one little thing! And now you're giving me all that grief for that?! What, won't I be allowed to say anything around here?!" Or my favourite: "You're only crying to make me feel guilty!"

{I am doing it again... copying when I should be pasting and visa versus  ??? I do that when I am starting to have some clarity (Notice I said clarity instead of pain or EF, or Flashbacks!)}


I have been studying abuse from Parents, Husbands, psychopath's, sociopaths.  :doh: :doh: :doh:
Why is this part so hard for me? Yes I can say it. I was/am physically, mentally, financially, and sexually abused by H/ Yes I was physically abused,emotionally,abused by , PD M  and she did not keep me safe from Step D that sexually abused me, physically abused me and emotionally abused me!. (Hey I don't care how dumb You act, You see now I know that it is a ploy that You use to deny the bad things that You did to me, and let happen! How could You NOT hear when the trailer was only 35 ft long and only had sliding doors, and why would YOU shut the sliding doors. Especially when You were arguing about him wanting sex and You not wanting sex!  I might have some memories that I have blocked out but not this one!  :pissed: :pissed: :pissed: Yes I was financially, emotionally, abused by My unpdSis. Same with Nephew.. :doh: :doh: :doh:

Still in My heart I want to analysis and try and fix it.. Denial Denial Denial. I want to intellectualize it.. :stars: :stars:   :sadno: :sadno: :sadno:

Keep on Keeping ON!

Beautiful, cat. Powerful words, thank you for writing this.

Wow, very well said.  I especially related to the idea that the real you will keep nudging.  This has been partially fun for me.  It has empowered the person I was that originally felt wronged and the being that demands more and can still get it.  Not from the ones I needed it from back then, and who needed me even more.  It's trying to make it all seem normal that is too twisted and convoluted and a misdirection of energy.  There are people out there who can love and connect and nurture, and who have selves.  But it's still work to continually refine how to give and receive.

Quote from: schrödinger's cat on October 04, 2014, 07:57:21 AM

You matter. You matter so much. Your feelings count. Your opinion counts. Your actions make a difference. Your inner world is unbelievably rich and deep and vivid. True, maybe you're totally out of touch with yourself. Maybe you're numb, maybe you can't even feel the slightest thing, maybe the littlest opinion is hard to come by. But that doesn't mean it's gone. It's all still there, pushed out of reach, probably dinged up and squished and full of cuts and bruises. But it's all still there. It's waiting for you to come back. EFs are proof that this is true. Every EF is a message from your true self. It's like a little kid showing you a bruised elbow, going "look!" and trusting you to work it out.

And yes, EFs are overwhelming and horrifying. But they're a proof that you're still there. No matter what your abusers taught you to think: as long as you're having EFs, you can be very sure that a great (and subconscious) part of you knows EXACTLY what happened, knows the PRECISE truth of the matter, and WILL work as your advocate and champion in the only way it knows how. By elbowing you in the ribs. Hard. But this is a bit like having been in a grave accident, and waking up to find your legs are in so much pain, and your doctor going: "...pain? Great! Whoo-hoo!" You're excused if you think he's insane. But you see, as long as you're in pain, that means your spine isn't broken. As long as the EFs are there, that means your self-advocacy isn't dead. You're not dead. You're not even gone; not completely.

WOW. Powerful stuff. Speechless. Thank you for writing these words. Hit me in the gut.  :yes:

Thanks, both of you.  :hug:

 :yeahthat:

Thank you so much for putting this here - it is going in my journal.  :thumbup:

I think that's all so true, and a lot of that stuff is echoed in the OOTF site. They have created a coping mechanism that minimizes your issues so much that is works for them. Not you. And to them you are a cliche. My parents would accuse me of things a typical teenager would do my age, but things I never, ever even thought of doing. When I came home late from play practice, just about to do my homework, so that I could get straight A's in my advanced and college level classes, my mom would tell me she almost called the police because she thought I was off somewhere doing drugs or having sex. Nothing I ever did screamed I'm going to rebel and do those things. And I almost wanted to do those things anyway. You've already pegged me as that kind of girl, you don't trust me at all, so why not just go ahead and do it? I wouldn't be disappointing you, I'd be giving you something to complain about to your other mom friends. Oh my silly teenager. She's such a cliche.

And whenever an attending thinks of me as a med school student cliche, I get so angry and frustrated I want to cry. An emotional flashback for sure. I just had this epiphany today. Med students, they don't really want to get to know patients, they just want to sit and study for their exams. They don't want to sit and talk to patient's about their problems. Doctors also have this detached I don't care attitude because we all know full well under the surface we care so much we hurt. I'm not a cliche. I'm a person, and very different from most med school students I know, who either are or learned to be emotionally retarded. Feelings? What are those? I mean it just feeds my dysfunction. Any emotional abuse I speak of with my family I typically just get "oh silly parents, mine are just like that." response. No they probably aren't! Or if they did maybe you need help too! Don't minimize my problems!

Urgh.

Hello Cat,
and a big thank you! I can see in your words that many others think like me... or feel like me perhaps is a better way to put it!

Speak about minimizing and trivializing! I live in Australia now but was born into another culture, where parents had all rights on children and, short of killing us, they could do as they pleased.

My parents were very abusive and neglectful. Mother was a narcissist who of course refused to acknowledge ANY wrongdoing. Father was in thrall of her, despite living like cat and dog. And I was the scapegoat. They only joined together in agreement when it came to decide how 'an ungrateful daughter' I was. You know what I mean.

Well, I'm having a flashback right now so I will stop for now.

Thank you again,

Gabrielle

Quote from: Liliuokalani on March 25, 2015, 10:15:46 PM

Any emotional abuse I speak of with my family I typically just get "oh silly parents, mine are just like that." response. No they probably aren't! Or if they did maybe you need help too! Don't minimize my problems!

Urgh.

Lili, that infuriates me too. I have removed myself from the entire circle of "friends" I used to hang out with, because I got sick of that response. One previous friend IM'd me recently and asked what have I been up to, (had not heard a peep from her in nearly a year) and I said, "working on myself" she asked what that meant, and I said "deep emotional *" b/c I didn't want to get into it. She responds with "LOL! You're hilarious!" ... I did not reply, still going *???? Hilarious? Really?  :sadno:

Oh god. That sounds just like most of my friends. Gross. Just gross.

Why does no one know the phrase "working on myself'? Some people just have absolutely no self awareness. And then they laugh it off just like that. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.  :blowup:

Sometimes when I'm feeling spiteful I just flat out respond "it's not funny." And then watch their awkward attempt at keeping the conversation light. But I have found odd ways to get my kicks like that, as a coping mechanism I suppose. But most of the time, like you, I just don't respond. Not worth your time man. But then again, where are those people that ARE worth your time, where did they go?

Wow.  First post I read.  Absolutely amazing, cat!

Thank you for this post. I find that feeling of emotional overwhelm so frightening, and it is helpful to think that it is there for a reason - to give access to an authentic self. Such wise words...

B

Thankyou Cat for your impassioned writeup  :applause:

I think it's that our abusers - or at least those in my FOO did - see us as objects. In a very real sense we're not actually people to them, who have feelings and needs and likes and dislikes. I have to keep telling myself that my feelings matter, that they're important, that I matter. I think for most people out there that's a real 'er... duh!': of course your feelings matter (etc). But for those of us who experience/d abuse, and IMO especially emotional abuse, this is a revelation.

It's been nearly two years that I've been working on accepting and self-validating, and also noticing the objectification in the abuse from my FOO. I had a real 'oh wow' moment 18 months ago where I saw my mum talking to my great aunt about what she wanted to cook and ignoring her feelings in a joking manner. It was a low stakes situation and probably something where no one would call it out as bad or wrong, but for me seeing how she ignored her wishes and dismissed her likes just really brought it home. If everyone else is an object, then of course your feelings and opinions are the only ones that matter - no one else actually has feelings except for when you need them to to validate your opinion. Understanding that this was what had been happening for years helped me get out of the 'if only she would just listen' or 'don't they see that X is bad' or 'I'm a good person why can't they see that?' - basically, the fog of interacting with them and living in their world - and see clearly that this has been going on since I was born and that it is wrong and abusive. Emotional abuse is so hard to describe to others, that I think it makes it harder for us to describe it to ourselves and understand what has happened and the impact of it on our selves and our lives (actions are always easier for humans to understand and classify). By realizing that my parents had always seen me as an object I was able to 'see' their behavior clearly, and understand that it wasn't my fault.

That doesn't mean that all the guilt and shame went away of course, but it does help me get out of the mental replaying of situations trying to have them end better, ie the 'If only ...'s (you know, where you revisit that time that he said X and she said Y and if only you had said Z or done A it would all be ok, right?). I'm more able to accept that nothing I did or said could change it as it was about them: I had as much value and input as that chair over there. And you don't expect to consider the feelings or opinions of a chair, do you? !

Thanks again Cat!

Cat,

I'm new, here, and what you wrote was stunning!  You expressed, with great clarity and precision, how it feels to be on the receiving end of abuse, which in my case, is from my uBPDw.   And those EFs and moments of sudden feelings of rage do indeed remind me that I'm not gone.  I'm glad, because I the miss that 'me', before she and I crossed paths.  24 years of living in a bizarre, twisted, alternate reality to someone I thought was the love of my life and valued me as much as I valued her.  :sadno:

We live, we learn and if we develop insight, we rise from the ashes, to be strong and whole, again.

Quote from: schrödinger's cat on October 04, 2014, 07:57:21 AM
And THAT is why they abused you in the first place. They never looked at you and saw another human being. They never saw you. Oh, they saw someone - a cliché, a two-dimensional figure straight from out of a cheap cartoon. They never had a real relationship with you. What they had instead was a series of triggers. Such-and-such an action on your part would trigger this-and-that abuse on their part. What you explained, what you asked, what you signalled them, that never even registered. If it did, it was quickly brushed aside.

Thank you for putting this into words for me.  :hug: