The hump of healing; getting past DENIAL

Have you ever refused to admit that a situation was as really as bad as it seemed? Haven't you "made excuses" for others behavior that bordered abuse? In the midst of trying to understand and make allowances in order to "get along" with personality disordered person (may also be an abuser) I have been the one who has been accused of "side arm psychology". I chose to try to see the underlying reasons for abuse.

"I didn't understand that I didn't understand,
UNTIL I understood"

I have actually been meditating, thinking, analyzing and hoping to find our I made progress through the process of healing from abuse. The first thing that I realized was needed, ONCE I HAD THE EPIPHANY, was that I HAD BEEN IN DENIAL. It is my "I didn't understand that I didn't understand, UNTIL I understood". When we are DEEP in denial, a defense mechanism that is used to help us survive actually can turn into the weapon used against us in our healing from the abuse that initiated it. I DENIED that what I was experiencing could have been abuse. I was "not being abuse". I had a "difficult or needy partner" but I was "not being abused". I would "not allow others to be treat me that way". All of this self-talk was DENIAL. I would not admit to myself that I was married to an ABUSIVE MAN who called himself a christian. I was not married to a christian man with "abuse problems". I had told him time and time again to STOP and he totally denied the possibility of ever being abusive toward me; even unintentionally. He was also a liar and turned into a bigamist. I was not the only one he had lied to. I also was in denial and under the belief that I had "no right" to leave him that since I was a christian, nor could I leave the abuse.



But first, I had to recognize the behavior as abuse.  The GREATEST breakthrough of denial for me was when I realized that "not everyone who calls themselves a christian; behaves like one" and the one that I was married to, certainly DID NOT behave with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, goodness, gentleness and self-control. The fruit of the Spirit as listed in Galatians 5:22. The book "Foolproofing your life" by Jan Silvious was instrumental in giving me the TRUTH that I needed to break the denial that held me in bondage in an abusive "christian" marriage.

Don't let DENIAL keep you in an abusive relationship. TRUST your instinct. GET information and believe THE TRUTH even if it is "unbelievable". BREAK FREE from abuse and HEAL!