Saying NO doesn't mean that they will listen

IF a person doesn't want to stop abusive behaviors, that is up to them...

If we want to stop being abused,

that is up to us.

Sometimes I have wondered if I took the long path to understanding what abuse was all about because I felt that I was "conditioned" to accept it as a child. You know those things that parents of our generation said "Play with little Chrissy, she doesn't have any friends" and you responded "I don't want to play with her, she is mean and that is why she doesn't have any friends"...and then my mom would reply. "Play with her anyways". I loved my mom but I realized several years ago that her insistence that I be "the kind one" was really setting me up for being abused by others. I felt that "saying NO" was being disobedient to my parents. It was not being a nice person. This is one way that we can be conditioned to accept abuse in our lives.

After many years, of loving a person with a severe personality disorder and high IQ and after a "friendly" but not truly loving marriage with my first husband, I was nearly 40 years old before I recognized verbal abuse. I thought that it was just disrespectful speaking and did not see the pattern of abuse forming. From verbal and emotional abuse came spiritual, psychological and financial abuse. It was nearly full blown control and disrespect of me as a person before I called it "abuse". This was just about seven years ago. Being married to a christian at the time, was the conmplicating issue for me. (I have written about this several times; check abuse and christian marriage labels on this blog for more posts). I felt that saying NO made me "not a good christian woman and wife". This myth perpetuated for nearly 7 more years before my NO; whether or not it was heard by my abuser, was said and followed. Saying NO doesn't mean that they will listen. It means that we will NO LONGER allow ourselves to be treated that way; sometimes this means leaving our abuse. This is usually what is needed. They don't lightly take NO for an answer.

Bullies want to abuse you. Instead of allowing that, 

you can use them as your personal motivators. 

Power up and let the bully eat your dust.

~ Nick Vujicic ~ 

When we SAY NO to abuse; we are really are speaking to ourselves. We are saying "I will not allow myself to subject myself to anyone or anything that will speak so disrespectfully to me". It is "setting a boundary" with ourselves FIRST....and then when we SAY NO, we know that we mean it, we know what we deserve (respect) and we expect it to stop OR we will be prepared to leave the presence of the person who will not take NO for an answer.

Saying NO doesn't mean anything to a bully. Oh, it may tell them that they have to work a little harder to control or manipulate us. We are no longer the push over that they have become accustomed. We must tell OURSELVES that we will no longer entertain abuse. We can say NO to abuse and mean it. We can not stop them from abusing them but we CAN stop ourselves from being abuse by saying NO and walking away.

One very important thing to remember: Saying NO doesn't make us a bad person...not at all. It tells others that we are finally thinking of ourselves for a change. We are not the selfish ones. Matter of fact, anyone who doesn't kindly take our "NO" without a quarrel, IS being selfish and abusive.


Say NO to abuse, YOU are worth it!!!

If you have loved and lost...

"'Tis better to have loved and lost 
than never to have loved at all." 

- Alfred Lord Tennyson




I have loved. I have continued to love. I will continue to love; no matter how much I have lost. I have taken refuge, comfort and consolation in Tennyson's famous quote: "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." It reminds me that NO MATTER WHAT I have lost; I have not lost "love". I may have lost the subject, the person whom I loved, or may have lost them "for a time" but I have not lost LOVE. I do NOT REGRET LOVING no matter how painful that it had become to LOSE that one whom I loved.

Most of us have parents. Some of us even had good parents. Upright mother and father; maybe a bit quirky and not so perfect, but loving, providential and respectable. They may not have done everything right but we are thankful, like so many others, that they did not do everything wrong. I have enjoyed my parents who are both "gone" now. Today would have been my father's 90th birthday (Mom would have been 91 this coming January 18th). I miss them terribly but I don't regret anything that I did for them out of love. I regret nothing and am thankful for so much. 

I lost a child to stillbirth. That is really a loss that no one can prepare a woman to endure. That lose included the loss of my dreams. The loss of being a mother to a daughter of my own. I was going to name her Mikaela Rose (my family name as her middle name) and she was expected to be beautiful. A mixed and conflicting feeling overcame me as I learned that the child whose heartbeat had stopped just a few hours before, was a boy. A beautiful boy, I later found out after I "gave birth" to this precious child. My dreams of being a mom of another boy or girl of my own evaporated into a fog of sorrow and "loss". 

I have lost a love...one that I thought was "the one". One whom I had loved most of my life. I had lost him to mental illness. He was unable to "find himself, heal from abuse and learn to dream again". Maybe, it was during this time, that I realized the value of "Singing a New Song" for so many people who did not suffer from mental illness. Unlike a person who suffers from mental illness, one who has suffered mind bending, heart wrenching and soul crushing mental illness and was beaten with verbal and emotional abuse has HOPE for healing, health and wholeness. The loss of that love reminds me of an "eternal loss" as I promised that "I would not return to him...again". I loved him deeply and I am so glad that I had some opportunity to share my love for him, with him. It was a love that mental illness stole from both of us. I don't know which is worse: having lost it or having it stolen from you. I still do not regret loving him and never will. 

Never, ever regret loving someone. Even if it is someone who did not deserve your love. You have LOVED and that is the most wonderful, the most valuable power on the face of the earth that dwells within the human heart. 

Love til it doesn't hurt

A loving person that has endured abuse and mistreatment perhaps due to what we thought was "naivete" was really because we "loved til it hurt". You will find yourself BEYOND hurt and into a place of REAL LOVE in your life; no matter who has hurt you or how badly life has treated you...
when WE LOVE, we win. 

Many of us who have suffered abuse in our lives. We have endured the horrible disrespectful speech and behavior of another person have loved until it HURT and we continued to love through the hurt because either we held a religious belief that "we had to love the unloving" or because we might have thought less of ourselves for not forgiving them for their behavior toward us. We suffered in loving them, not as much for them as we need to "love until it hurt and then some" to prove something to ourselves.  Once we realize that love is NOT intended to hurt and that we don't have to be hurt to love or be loved; then we will be just beginning our healing journey of "finding ourselves, healing from abuse and learning to dream again". 

Are you willing to keep loving even if it keeps hurting? We all have that choice to make. No one is making us take the abuse from another person for the "sake of love" but ourselves. I see it this way...I loved a mentally ill man...very much, but I chose, over time with the help of his abusive behavior to stop loving him and stop wanting to be with him.

Abuse doesn't deserve our understanding; it deserves our absence.

We are worth it!!! 

What money can't buy...

Money can't buy: 

• happiness
• peace of mind
• health
• joy
• comfort 
• friendship
• true love
• and so much more...

Sometimes we don't know how TRULY RICH we are until we meet someone who seems to "have money" and NOTHING else. They have no peace, joy, love, friendship, TRUE LOVE because; though they may "have money" they are the "poorest of the POOR"...they do not possess the WEALTH that cannot be bought because they do not "have themselves". 

Even when we are RICH mentally, emotionally and spiritually, may not realize that there are persons who are NOT AS WEALTHY as we are...and they cannot purchase what we have with all the money in the world...only TRUE wealth can acquire for us.

I have immeasurable wealth and resources that supply more than what I need each day. I am a genuine example of a person who is "Singing a New Song". I am a loving, intelligent and VERY vital woman who LOVES wholeheartedly, LIVES life fully and freely, ACCEPTS and LOVES MYSELF because I "know who I am". How did I get HERE??? I followed my heart; I "found myself, healed from abuse and learned to dream again".

So when you look at your life; look at WHO you have rather than WHAT you have. WHAT you have will never "make up" for WHO you don't have, if you don't "have YOU". If you have YOU and I suspect that you do, you are RICH BEYOND MEASURE and it is about time that you realize it and start living your life in the RICHNESS that you deserve.

”If We Command Our Wealth, We Shall Be Rich And Free. 

If Our Wealth Commands Us. We Are Poor Indeed ” 

~ Edmund Burke ~ 

Do you love someone with mental illness?

I find "word clouds" to be a fun visual way of learning about a topic without actually studying it. Take Mental Illness for instance. Even the term "mental illness" is laden with feelings of foreboding and hesitation.

WHY are we allowing the stigma of mental illness to control our education about it???

I guess we really never learn about something until we have to learn it in order to survive through it. I had never understood that a person could be "mentally ill", and setting aside all the childish classroom humor of other students being "crazy", "retards" or "weird", I always saw people as "people" and believed that everyone was different and that difference was what made the world an interesting place to live. Little did I understand that there is ACTUALLY an illness of the mind. 

The body has illness. We can see when we have a runny nose. We hear that we have a cough or strained voice. We FEEL the pain of overexertion and carry in the way we walk for others to see that "we don't feel well" for whatever reason. We can see the cast on someone's arm or scar which was wrought by a tragic injury. We even sympathize with ourselves and others when we "don't feel good". 

But what about a "mental illness"? It can be an invisible barrier between people; dividing families and binding up the minds of wonderful people who are in constant struggle and pain with an invisible enemy; their own mind. They may try to hide it from themselves within addictions; they are the most common with alcohol and drug abuse, eating disorders and addictions to nearly everything from smoking, video gaming and even something that may seem more accepted by society and even looked at as being positive traits like obsessive compulsive disorder, perfectionism and compulsive cleaning.  

I began to understand that I did not understand that MENTAL ILLNESS is real when I began to see OCD traits in my ex husband. When I mentioned his anger at me for not doing things as he did and that "I was ok just the way that I am" he would retort with hurtful and very extrapolated reasons as to how my behavior was not right and that his demands and anger over the salt and pepper shakers being set back into the cupboard where he found them was really a character flaw and evidence of my weakness as a person. 

I quickly realized that in some ways, he was not like me and the ways that he behaved seem unrational, unkind and very unloving but the purpose was for him to "feel good about himself". I realized this and began to explore the reasons WHY a person behaves this way. I started to learn about Obsessive Compulsive disorders that lead me into studying about Personality Disorders. I must have been on every website and forum and read nearly every book on these subjects in order to educate myself on "what had come into my home" under the guise of something lovingly accepted as "being his own person". We can "make allowances" for quirky behavior but when it crossed the line from quirky to abusive, THAT is when I started to listen to my heart and mind and start learning about mental illness...it is real. Sometimes we don't believe something exists until we "see it with our own eyes" and even then, we must brace against the tendency to deny it and delude ourselves into writing it off as "quirky behavior".

You have heard the saying "hurt people HURT people". I believe that this is true and probably truer for a mentally ill person than about anyone. They suffer daily. They may not realize at all that their behavior; their thoughts, their expectations and demands are putting a strain on their close relationships. They may have so much pain that they do not realize that they are "not emotionally connecting" to others as healthy people. 

If you are wondering why a loved one is miserable all the time, blames you for his/her problems, even says that YOU are "the problem" or that you are "mentally ill"...you can be sure that you love a very mentally ill person. Though they do not really intend to be so abusive, the unrequited love and lack of reciprocity in a relationship with a mentally ill person can suck the life right out of us if we allow it. Seriously, how can they have a relationship with us when all they find in us is fault (projection) and spending time with their addictions in order to cope? I have read about instances of severely addicted video gamers who admitted that their games were "the only joy they had". They hid the real reason for their misery in an addiction. This is a denial so great; that unless a mentally healthy person has direct contact in close relationship with a mentally ill person; we may not even give it another thought. It is "just the way he/she is" and since we don't have to deal with them all the time, we can "just live and let live". But for the person who is married to or in family relationship with a mentally ill person; the picture changes.

Educating ourselves about mental health and mental illness will help us recognize these traits in ourselves and others and enable us to live our lives to the fullest.

We CAN "let go" and still hold onto ourselves

Photo: Scott Wright Photography

"We must be willing to let go 

of the life we planned 

so as to have the life 

that is waiting for us"

~ Joseph Campbell ~

Have you ever "clung onto" pain, hurt, regret, sorrow, grief and a myriad of other confusing and frustrating emotional states longer than you really needed in order to "heal and move on?" I think we all have done this. We tend to hold onto the familiar because the dreams that we have held deep within our hearts seem too far away. We are afraid of change. We are needing to "find ourselves, heal from abuse and learn to dream again". We are not alone.

I was well into my late 20s before I realized that I had been abused; emotionally and physically by my father. I had always yearned to have a "daddy" like my school girlfriends but knew that I did not have one. I had a father. One who went about his life; even neglecting his own children. Being a middle child, I naturally withdrew into my own world and being an introvert on top of it, I retreated into my own imagination and thoughts. I became a singer, writer, song writer and "philosopher" of sorts; all because I had to let go of the dreams of wanting a "normal and healthy" family life and sought to find my own instead.

Sometimes we are disappointed by life's circumstances as they are thrust upon us so cruelly. Abuse, neglect and betrayal are just a few that we face, have to deal with and heal from in order to hear the song of hope and courage within our hearts; to "sing a new song". We all face these things but we may not deal with them in the most healthy ways. I have sought to FACE my life, my hurts, my pains as well as my joys and successes. Being empathetic and compassionate to others, I can see the hurt in other's hearts and minds. It is in these times, that I realize that I had to "let go" of what I thought life "should be like" for myself and others and just learn to ACCEPT LIFE as it is. This has made my life much more interesting, healthy and happy even.

I believe in healing wounds, second chances and dreams coming true. It hurts neither myself or others to believe this and only aids me in helping others find the healing path that I have found. It is a healing journey of self-awareness, self-acceptance and truth. It is not the life that I had sought to find because I had not been aware of it. 

I didn't understand

that I didn't understand

until I understood.

~ DER, Singing a New Song~

Another thing that I "did not understand" was mental illness; some are now calling it "behavioral illness" and it certainly is a dis-ease of a person's behavior and those who experience thus behavior can easily detect the "disconnect" between their loved ones hearts and minds as well as between each person involved. Mental illness is something that we MUST accept as a reality. It exists. It is insidious. It can ruin lives and loves. 

May I encourage you today to "study yourself"...what kind of person are you? What are your dreams? What is deep within your heart that you have never told another soul and what would you truly LOVE to share with someone, anyone who you could trust? Has mental illness of a loved one or even yourself, "held you back" from venturing into the "wonderful world of you"?  I know that mental illness does NOT make anyone "bad" or "less worthy" of love, respect, joy and LIFE. But if you know of someone who suffers from it and may even be the "one" who suffers with them, you are NOT alone. LET GO of the "life that you had planned", radically accept (check out radical acceptance ) the "life" that you may be living and a loved one may have been suffering through and "find yourself, heal from abuse and learn to dream again". Though you may have seen "your dream" fail for whatever reason, that does not mean that you can't find a new one. If you are reading this, you are already seeking MORE from life; you KNOW that you have a dream deep within you that is just waiting to be brought out "into the light" (Love (poem) by Roy Croft ) and LIVED out. 

Just believe that "YOU ARE WORTH IT", because you are and you can start on your healing journey.

Dealing with difficult people

Not everyone is as easy to love as I am...I hope you are laughing at that and that you realize that we all have "our moments" when we can be a "difficult person" for someone else. There are times that we may respond through our pain with defensiveness. We withdrawal in fear of conflict or attack. We may even use anger to push others away. These common defense tactics are developed in response to abuse and its damage and sometimes we may be able to see this behavior and attitude within ourselves.

A difficult person, is, like, you know who I mean. You have a picture of a loved one who rages or acts irrationally or immaturely. Their behavior is at times irrational, rage-filled, unloving and even abusive.

We are accused of many things:

1. Not listening
2. Being disrespectful
3. Interrupting when they are talking
4. Twisting their words
5. Not speaking English
6. Being "crazy"
7. Being "evil"
8. Not caring about them
9. Only caring about ourselves.
10. Being "the problem" that they have.

These behaviors are not rational, kind or reasonable. They are far from being considered "loving" and if someone is saying these things to us, we have the right to ask them to STOP the accusations, blame and just plain senseless behavior (JPS...coined by Patricia Evans in her book Victory over Verbal Abuse (Amazon) ). They are "defining" us when they call us names like "crazy" and "evil". Defining, or telling someone what they are thinking or what their motives or feelings are is considered to be symptoms of abusive behavior; verbal, emotional and mental abuse. It is not only hard to remain in a loving relationship with someone who behaves in the above ways, but one must question "why" we remain in such an unloving situation.

We could "label" them as being verbally abusive when it is more likely a situation that is revealing how mentally and emotionally unhealthy they are. They are unable to see how their behavior is affecting us. Some have said that "hurt people hurt people" and I have found this to be so true. We do not cause their behavior, we cannot change it and we cannot cure them. We need to radically accept that "something is wrong" and do our best to develop good self-talk, mindfulness and "taking good care of ourselves". In some instances, when the difficult person is refusing to accept responsibility for their own behavior and denying its affect on us, we must develop detachment and see ourselves with objective eyes rather than the eyes of our difficult person.

We deserve to "find ourselves, heal from abuse and learn to dream again". We deserve to have loving, supportive, fun and happy people in our lives. We really are worth it!!! 

It is okay to yearn to be loved

As abuse survivors, we are most often SO hard on OURSELVES. We accept the weaknesses of others, allowing them to say hateful words and showing themselves to be unloving toward us. We are confused and TRY to make arguments that we are blamed for; make sense. We TRY to not do or say those things that seem to set off our loved one. They do not like for us to see them as being emotionally destructive or damaged but in all likelihood, a person who is unloving and SAYS that they love, is at least, self-deceived. We try to figure out "what we did wrong" when actually we are just loving them in our way. We are loving THEM at their worst. We may have learned or hoped that IF we love, we will be loved in return. This is not true with an emotionally damaged person who is abusive to us. They may deny that they have any problem in dealing (or loving) us. They may say that WE are crazy and need to be evaluated. They run from intimacy and fear abandonment but say that we are the ones who starts ALL the fights and we are ALWAYS wrong. These are behaviors that become known as ABUSE.

Authenticity

original quote by Newsong4him.blogspot.com

Authenticity truly is a "higher level" aspiration in our lives and even more so after our self-esteem has been damaged by abuse. I have found that DECLARING who I am and even stating that "and I don't care who likes it" has been like a machete in a jungle bringing clarity to my path and safety along my way. I have the right to respect myself. To love myself and to BE REAL. I have the right as a human to "be who I am" with no apologies. As the above quote says: I may reflect you but I am STILL ME...

Part 2: Healing from Emotional Abuse

As my Personal Note of Welcome to my blog says:

I realize that my writing is not for everyone; 

it is for the HURT and the HOPEFUL; 

for those who want to "find themselves" 

and learn to DREAM AGAIN! 

Here is Part Two of a three post series:

HEALING FROM ABUSE

I may not be formally educated and may never feel that I am qualified to give advice on HOW to heal from abuse. I have learned so much through the school of life that I feel more than qualified to share the progress that I have made on my healing journey from abuse.

I would like to add that I have learned that healing is a process; as with the proverbial peeling of an onion, each layer may cause tears but as we peel each layer away, we get closer to the "sweet spot" of the onion; a place where HEALING is.

Healing from abuse:

Learning to live after abuse

Stages of Healing

Starting over...again.

Practising good self care

Find your own voice and sing your heart song

The Power of NO

Out of the Abundance of the Heart 

Real life healing from abuse

New-Years Resolutions for abuse survivors

RePost: One of many effects of domestic abuse: Complex-PTSD

*** A VITAL RE post to bring awareness and help to those suffering damage from abuse***

The effects of abuse are vast and very obscure and even misunderstood as being symptoms of having endured disrespect and degradation by another person's words and behavior. Over a long period of time, it can manifest as Complex Post traumatic stress disorder.  This is not a gender specific disorder but one that can debilitate either a woman or a man and be symptoms of either childhood or adult abuse. I have personally endured and "tried to live with" so much more mental and verbal abuse that I would ever care to admit. At first, after leaving the abusive environment, I didn't think that I had been "mentally damaged" as much as "emotionally scarred"  by the inhuman verbal abuse and mind-bending mental drama of living with a personality disordered spouse. I was diagnosed with C-PTSD several years ago and underwent one year of therapy which helped me considerably.  

I believe now, that the extreme mental fatigue and confusion that I experienced actually minimized my ability to emotionally heal from the long term effects of abuse; leaving the symptoms of C-PTSD.





Please consider this a PSA (public service announcement). If you, yourself or a loved one has exhibited the following "symptoms", please consider practising some "good self care" and educate yourself on the effects of abuse; even behavior that you have not previously thought of as being abuse. Your mental and emotional health could depend upon it.

One of many effects of domestic abuse: Complex-PTSD

The effects of abuse are vast and very obscure and even misunderstood as being symptoms of having endured disrespect and degradation by another person's words and behavior. Over a long period of time, it can manifest as Complex Post traumatic stress disorder.  This is not a gender specific disorder but one that can debilitate either a woman or a man and be symptoms of either childhood or adult abuse. I have personally endured and "tried to live with" so much more mental and verbal abuse that I would ever care to admit. At first, after leaving the abusive environment, I didn't think that I had been "mentally damaged" as much as "emotionally scarred"  by the inhuman verbal abuse and mind-bending mental drama of living with a personality disordered spouse. I was diagnosed with C-PTSD several years ago and underwent one year of therapy which helped me considerably. 

I believe now, that the extreme mental fatigue and confusion that I experienced actually minimized my ability to emotionally heal from the long term effects of abuse; leaving the symptoms of C-PTSD.


 


Please consider this a PSA (public service announcement). If you, yourself or a loved one has exhibited the following "symptoms", please consider practising some "good self care" and educate yourself on the effects of abuse; even behavior that you have not previously thought of as being abuse. Your mental and emotional health could depend upon it.

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a psychological injury that results from prolonged exposure to social or interpersonal trauma, disempowerment, captivity or entrapment, with lack or loss of a viable escape route for the victim. 

Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) is a condition that results from chronic or long-term exposure to emotional trauma over which a victim has little or no control and from which there is little or no hope of escape, such as in cases of:

• domestic emotional, physical or sexual abuse
• childhood emotional, physical or sexual abuse
• entrapment or kidnapping.
• slavery or enforced labor.
• long term imprisonment and torture
• repeated violations of personal boundaries.
• long-term objectification.
• exposure to gaslighting & false accusations
• long-term exposure to inconsistent, push-pull, splitting or alternating raging & hoovering behaviors.
• long-term taking care of mentally ill or chronically sick family members.
• long term exposure to crisis conditions.

When people have been trapped in a situation over which they had little or no control at the beginning, middle or end, they can carry an intense sense of dread even after that situation is removed. This is because they know how bad things can possibly be. And they know that it could possibly happen again. And they know that if it ever does happen again, it might be worse than before.

The "Complex" in Complex Post Traumatic Disorder describes how one layer after another of trauma can interact with one another. Sometimes, it is mistakenly assumed that the most recent traumatic event in a person's life is the one that brought them to their knees. However, just addressing that single most-recent event may possibly be an invalidating experience for the C-PTSD sufferer. Therefore, it is important to recognize that those who suffer from C-PTSD may be experiencing feelings from all their traumatic exposure, even as they try to address the most recent traumatic event.

This is what differentiates C-PTSD from the classic PTSD diagnosis - which typically describes an emotional response to a single or to a discrete number of traumatic events.

C-PTSD results more from chronic repetitive stress from which there is little chance of escape. PTSD can result from single events, or short term exposure to extreme stress or trauma.

Therefore a soldier returning from intense battle may be likely to show PTSD symptoms, but a kidnapped prisoner of war who was held for several years may show additional symptoms of C-PTSD.

Similarly, a child who witnesses a friend's death in an accident may exhibit some symptoms of PTSD but a child who grows up in an abusive home may exhibit the additional C-PTSD characteristics shown below:

C-PTSD - What it Feels Like:

People who suffer from C-PTSD may feel un-centered and shaky, as if they are likely to have an embarrassing emotional breakdown or burst into tears at any moment. They may feel unloved - or that nothing they can accomplish is ever going to be "good enough" for others.

People who suffer from C-PTSD may feel compelled to get away from others and be by themselves, so that no-one will witness what may come next. They may feel afraid to form close friendships to prevent possible loss should another catastrophe strike.

People who suffer from C-PTSD may feel that everything is just about to go "out the window" and that they will not be able to handle even the simplest task. They may be too distracted by what is going on at home to focus on being successful at school or in the workplace.
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Article from Out Of the Fog.net
Complex-PTSD (Complex Post traumatic stress disorder)