BELIEVE

Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.
Norman Vincent Peale

About Me

I am a 28 year old single mom of a 9 month old boy. He is my world and my life. Before I was pregnant I was in a very physically and emotionally abusive relationship. My son gave me the strenght to leave that man to create a good life for my child. My life has now become a matter of protecting my child to make sure the pattern of abuse does not get imposed on him so he is a "benefit to society" not a "menace to society". I am in the midst of a court battle for visitation and child support and it is taking all that I have to stay strong for my son. His father harasses me every chance he gets and is trying to take control back of my life and I won't let that happen. Please note I am not a counselor or psychologist; I am simply sharing what I have learned through my personal experience and time through counseling and groups to recover from abuse.

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Tuesday, February 2, 2010
On to the next section of the power and control wheel. For me personally, I feel the strongest and still have undealth with feelings on this part of the wheel...I find this tactic the most frustrating and irritating of them all.

*your abuser will not take the abuse seriously, nor your concerns about it and state that the abuse didn't happen. They will deny that they are abusive until they are blue in the face. To them, their actions are "manly or masculine" not abusive. Actually, with you raising your concerns of the abuse, it will cause your abuser to be more angry and for the abuse to get worse. They will blame you and tell you that you are hurting them and the cause of all the problems: DON'T BELIEVE THEM!

*Your abuser will shift the responsibility for their abusive behaviour. They may blame you, their work, their stressful life, the children, the busdriver...anybody but themselves. They never see themselves as the problem, and are ALWAYS angry at somebody for something. Hence my prior post "misplaced compassion"

*And of course the abuser will say you caused it. They may even go as far as stating you were abusive too! But facts show, most women only become abusive in self-defense. Your abuser will tell you you're crazy, you caused them to be like this, they are only angry around you nobody else. They will make you feel like you are the problem: But, you are not. They are! They are choosing which actions and behaviours to take and are making the wrong decision. You have nothing to do with it!

All in all, don't allow your abuser to blame you. One common question or thought that I see is "I blame myself because I ALLOWED him to treat me this way and cause it for so many years"...you didn't allow anything. Your abuser would have abused you, no matter how you acted or what you tried. Actually, had you fought back, the abuse would have been worse.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow, I actually said and still say that very thing "I allowed the abuse". I try to take responsibility because I think it was my fault for choosing to be with someone like that. On the other hand, even before I married him he was giving me ultimatums. "I will only marry you if you do this..." I didn't give myself any credit for 1. being able to take care of myself, 2. that my family might help me out if I decided to walk away from the relationship, 3. that I deserved so much better than the treatment I received.

This area of minimizing, denying, and blaming was a huge part of my abuser's tactics. I always ended up taking responsibility for my abuser being unhappy with our relationship, our marriage, his life, his unhappiness. I kept changing my behavior, according to what he would tell me to do, thinking that would "fix" everything. I finally realized that no matter what I did, his behavior and unhappiness and treatment of me stayed the same. When I finally starting standing up for myself (after 20 years!) the abuse escalated to include more physcial abuse than there had been in the past.

It astounds me now when I realize that the night I was engaged to my abuser he was really mad at me and kicked a big hole in his parents wall, right before we decided to get engaged!!

One thing I have read is that domestic abuse is not about the abuser losing control, its about them using control. It's why other people will say that they have never seen the abuser act the way the victim is describing. Although in my case, once it got out that I was divorcing him, other people started seeing the behavior that I had been subjected to. My abuser was no longer able to control himself all the time in front of people he had been in control in front of before.

abusemom81 said...

it astounds me that most women believe that they allowed the abuse. I remember my first counseling session when I said that, my counselor removed that thought immediately from my head. It's the reason I wanted to post that short story "misplaced compassion" it's disturbing but it shows abused women not to take the blame. I love the line "One thing I have read is that domestic abuse is not about the abuser losing control, its about them using control." THAT'S SOOOO TRUE!

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