Side Affects of Emotional Abuse
Abuse and trauma are hard things to talk about publicly. But things need to be put out there. People need to understand what happens in these situations. just because there is no outside appearance of the abuse does not mean that marks aren’t left behind. For me talking about abuse as a child is very hard, so I’ll leave that for another post. I want to share my experience of being abused as an adult.
There are some parameters that need to be set first: because of my childhood trama I went into adulthood with many issues. I knew I had these issues and I worked continually to overcome them. Another parameter is that I am a very empathetic person. My compassion can sometimes overrun my intuition about a situation. And lastly I, like many people, have insecurities when it comes to relationships. With all that said, those are no excuse for someone to abuse anyone.
Here is the struggle: Narcissistic people prey on people like me. This has been researched and I have read many articles about this. I’m not the only one to experience this and unfortunately will not be the last. I went into any relationship with an open heart and mind and my situation turned out bad. My ex husband has mental health issues, one of which is Narcissistic Personality Disorder. NPD is usually a learned disorder and he was taught this way of being by a ln abusive Step-Father. Now this is not an excuse for his treatment of me and others, just more a way of understanding.
The abuse in my marriage was slow to start, but escalated quickly when in got critical. It started small with just beInt critical of his w the cleaned the house or spent ‘too much time away from him’. My time away from him was usually church related, so this always confuses me. His way of controlling me was making it look like it was for my benefit. For example: I didn’t have a job outside the home. This was so ‘I could be a stay at home Mom’. The fault in this logic was that we were never able to have children. By no fault of mine. I spent a lot of time in doctors’ offices and getting many tests, even surgery to figure out my infertility issues. Guess what, I don’t have any! He always refused to get tested. Although he wanted children as well. So because of this abuse, I face the real possibility of never having biological children of my own. I have come to terms with this. I believe that God has his hand in this.
Near the end of my marriage the abuse grew in intensity. We were constantly fighting. According to him, I didn’t do anything right. He had a lot of physical health issues as well. And because of this I spent a lot of time being nurse to him. I took care of issues, drove him everywhere, mostly to doctor appointments. Once he began addressing his mental health issues, he went to another state and stopped communicating with me. At this point I thought my world was over. I couldn’t go on without him (affects of being isolated by him to him). I sought outside help from a couselor and trusted friend at church. I began to take steps to make things more secure, I got a job. In the end it all boiled down to him telling me I couldn’t do anything right, even have feelings and be emotional about my crumbling life. And the thing that broke me creek was the realization that I didn’t NEED him to take care of me. He could no longer control me.
Now as I have my freedom to be who I’m supposed to be and who I want to be, I get to fight my way back to me. The side affects of this type of abuse are such: I am very awkward and insecure with my interactions with men, my confidence in decision making was broken completely and I have been rebuilding it, my struggle with making plans and worrying about someone or something tipping them over is a big one, I have a trigger to balance my checkbook, frequently feeling like I’m not good enough (reinforced from my childhood trama).
I have worked hard to identify these issues in order to fix them to the best of my ability. I have been pushing myself to go out dancing.
I learned how to ballroom dance and West Coast Swing before my marriage. There are many opportunities to go and be social. And of course I have to dance with men. This is double challenge because I haven’t really danced consistently in 15 years and my body hates me for it. And I have a hard time asking men to dance, where I didn’t have that issue before. I do okay with men that I’m already friends with. And I try to be that way with new people. It’s just a struggle still.
My decision making is getting better. I do really well with big things, it’s still the little things that get me, especially when it comes to spending money on a need or if I should call and talk to a friend when I need help. Oh and asking for help is a huge struggle. I spent so much time putting out his fires and problem solving that I learned to just do it myself. Well, it’s frustrating because I cannot do everything myself.
I still don’t balance my checkbook. I just check the bank balance and keep a mental tab. Bad habit, I know, but it sends me into a panic attack to even check the balance.
Plan making: I’m super great at making plans and backup plans. My issue is the fear that someone or something will interfere with those carefully researched and made plans. I will exhaust ever source of information I can find to make my plans. This issue is that I would do this and just want someone to bounce my ideas off of. Well he would criticize them all and tell me how to do it. Even though the reality is that I had already processed his way and it didn’t work for me. So I guess I’m working on my Faith that things will work out how they are supposed to even if it doesn’t look how I had intended.
And the last real big issue is not feeling good enough. This one is a little t more complex. I am very secure with how I am and my abilities and talents. I do honestly feel that I’m a great person and have a lot to offer the world. I can bring a lot to friendships and relationships. I’m a honest person with a compassionate heart. My side affects of abuse are that I fear others will just judge me based on how I look and not how I am. I know that I am a beautiful woman, I’m just plus sized. Which is not a bad or negative thing to me, but society is harsh against it.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that just because you cannot see my trama, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. On some level we all want to belong: belong to a family, a friendship, a relationship, and so on. Just give everyone a chance.
There are some parameters that need to be set first: because of my childhood trama I went into adulthood with many issues. I knew I had these issues and I worked continually to overcome them. Another parameter is that I am a very empathetic person. My compassion can sometimes overrun my intuition about a situation. And lastly I, like many people, have insecurities when it comes to relationships. With all that said, those are no excuse for someone to abuse anyone.
Here is the struggle: Narcissistic people prey on people like me. This has been researched and I have read many articles about this. I’m not the only one to experience this and unfortunately will not be the last. I went into any relationship with an open heart and mind and my situation turned out bad. My ex husband has mental health issues, one of which is Narcissistic Personality Disorder. NPD is usually a learned disorder and he was taught this way of being by a ln abusive Step-Father. Now this is not an excuse for his treatment of me and others, just more a way of understanding.
The abuse in my marriage was slow to start, but escalated quickly when in got critical. It started small with just beInt critical of his w the cleaned the house or spent ‘too much time away from him’. My time away from him was usually church related, so this always confuses me. His way of controlling me was making it look like it was for my benefit. For example: I didn’t have a job outside the home. This was so ‘I could be a stay at home Mom’. The fault in this logic was that we were never able to have children. By no fault of mine. I spent a lot of time in doctors’ offices and getting many tests, even surgery to figure out my infertility issues. Guess what, I don’t have any! He always refused to get tested. Although he wanted children as well. So because of this abuse, I face the real possibility of never having biological children of my own. I have come to terms with this. I believe that God has his hand in this.
Near the end of my marriage the abuse grew in intensity. We were constantly fighting. According to him, I didn’t do anything right. He had a lot of physical health issues as well. And because of this I spent a lot of time being nurse to him. I took care of issues, drove him everywhere, mostly to doctor appointments. Once he began addressing his mental health issues, he went to another state and stopped communicating with me. At this point I thought my world was over. I couldn’t go on without him (affects of being isolated by him to him). I sought outside help from a couselor and trusted friend at church. I began to take steps to make things more secure, I got a job. In the end it all boiled down to him telling me I couldn’t do anything right, even have feelings and be emotional about my crumbling life. And the thing that broke me creek was the realization that I didn’t NEED him to take care of me. He could no longer control me.
Now as I have my freedom to be who I’m supposed to be and who I want to be, I get to fight my way back to me. The side affects of this type of abuse are such: I am very awkward and insecure with my interactions with men, my confidence in decision making was broken completely and I have been rebuilding it, my struggle with making plans and worrying about someone or something tipping them over is a big one, I have a trigger to balance my checkbook, frequently feeling like I’m not good enough (reinforced from my childhood trama).
I have worked hard to identify these issues in order to fix them to the best of my ability. I have been pushing myself to go out dancing.
I learned how to ballroom dance and West Coast Swing before my marriage. There are many opportunities to go and be social. And of course I have to dance with men. This is double challenge because I haven’t really danced consistently in 15 years and my body hates me for it. And I have a hard time asking men to dance, where I didn’t have that issue before. I do okay with men that I’m already friends with. And I try to be that way with new people. It’s just a struggle still.
My decision making is getting better. I do really well with big things, it’s still the little things that get me, especially when it comes to spending money on a need or if I should call and talk to a friend when I need help. Oh and asking for help is a huge struggle. I spent so much time putting out his fires and problem solving that I learned to just do it myself. Well, it’s frustrating because I cannot do everything myself.
I still don’t balance my checkbook. I just check the bank balance and keep a mental tab. Bad habit, I know, but it sends me into a panic attack to even check the balance.
Plan making: I’m super great at making plans and backup plans. My issue is the fear that someone or something will interfere with those carefully researched and made plans. I will exhaust ever source of information I can find to make my plans. This issue is that I would do this and just want someone to bounce my ideas off of. Well he would criticize them all and tell me how to do it. Even though the reality is that I had already processed his way and it didn’t work for me. So I guess I’m working on my Faith that things will work out how they are supposed to even if it doesn’t look how I had intended.
And the last real big issue is not feeling good enough. This one is a little t more complex. I am very secure with how I am and my abilities and talents. I do honestly feel that I’m a great person and have a lot to offer the world. I can bring a lot to friendships and relationships. I’m a honest person with a compassionate heart. My side affects of abuse are that I fear others will just judge me based on how I look and not how I am. I know that I am a beautiful woman, I’m just plus sized. Which is not a bad or negative thing to me, but society is harsh against it.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that just because you cannot see my trama, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. On some level we all want to belong: belong to a family, a friendship, a relationship, and so on. Just give everyone a chance.
Thanks for sharing. We think you are awesome!
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