Abuse
More people than we like to admit have a capacity for cruelty and abuse. Such behaviour might be expected toward enemies or rivals but disturbingly, it is often aimed at friends, relatives, co-workers, employees, or romantic partners.
Another quirk of human nature—the fact that if someone behaves badly and gets away with it they feel encouraged to repeat the behaviour and escalate its severity—makes abuse of all kinds extremely common.
Any sort of abuse is always about control. The aim of abuse is to change the victim, to condition their behaviour so that it meets the abuser’s requirements and guarantees the victim’s compliance and submission. Your abuser ‘breaks you in’ by demoralizing you and weakening your resistance and will. Abuse is a form of indoctrination that creates a sense of uncertainty, insecurity, fear, confusion, and a diminished sense of self.
Behind all abuse is the abuser’s belief that they are superior to the person they abuse.
Whether overt violence is used or not, all abuse is a form of hostility and aggression. To be abused is to be attacked (either physically, mentally, emotionally or socially).
If someone repeatedly behaves toward you in any of the following ways it is abuse:
- Violence and threats of violence: The most obvious forms of abuse.
- Inequality: An attitude of disrespect along with numerous messages, subtle or otherwise, that you are not the abuser’s equal. They tell and show you that you are boring, insignificant, unimportant, faulty.
- Devaluing: By letting you know you are ‘less’ the abuser feels ‘more’. If you disappoint in any way you are worthless, bad, inferior, useless, weak, stupid, foolish. The abuser will try to make you look and feel small by putting you down, criticizing you, pointing out your slightest fault or mistake, correctingyou, putting you in your ‘place’, teaching you how wrong you are, insulting you or calling you names. They will label you (and so de-personify you) as a nag, selfish, greedy, neurotic, petty, hysterical, wimp, or as the ‘missus’, ‘the ball and chain’ etc. They don’t listen to you, walk away when you are speaking, interrupt, tune out, read or watch TV. You get the message that what you say is not important. They belittle your opinions and concerns, denigrate your ideas and ambitions. They are dismissive of anything that interests you and in public like to humiliate and ridicule you. They will even turn your positives into negatives. If you are careful with money for example, they label you a ‘miser’, if you are conscientious you become ‘obsessive’. They inflate themselves by deflating you.
- Domination, power and control: The more dependent the abuser is on you the more they need to control you. The abuser is always right, must have whatever they want, and you must comply and submit or take the consequences. They see you as inferior so feel it is their ‘right’ or even their ‘duty’ to control you. For them to win you must lose. And as proof and evidence of their power the abuser needs an emotional response so is actually pleased when their behaviour upsets and hurts you.
- Manipulation: Abusers use deceit and misrepresentation, false information, lies, or promises to persuade you to give and do what you otherwise would not.
- Exploitation: Abusers are users. They take through cunning or force without giving anything in return. They will use your property, assets, money, time, labour, ideas, creativity, information, and talents as though they were their own without request, permission, or giving anything in return.
- Imposing a definition: The abuser makes you up as though you were a character in a novel. They decide who you should be and what they want you to be and are outraged or disappointed when you are yourself. The abuser is not interested in getting to know you—only in assuring that you fulfill their expectations.
- Withholding: To demonstrate their power, as a form of leverage to get you to do what they want, or as a form of punishment, the abuser withholds love, attention, affection, time, interest, information etc. Abusers can be emotionally ungenerous, unyielding and closed up. They don’t want a two-way relationship of depth and quality; they just want their own way. They are often indifferent, disinterested or neglectful. They do not encourage, support, appreciate or value you. They show no empathy or sympathy.
- Sabotage: Only the abuser is entitled to anything, so they sabotage your friendships, career, education, hobbies etc. They undermine your confidence and subvert your efforts. They trivialize anything important to you if it is not important to them. They break promises, change plans, disrupt your schedule, and white ant your self-confidence. They are emotional vandals.
- Anger: Anger can be a controlling tactic, a weapon to frighten and intimidate, or result when unrealistic and irrational expectations are not met. It can be either cold-blooded, explosive, passive-aggressive or stubborn resistance. In an abuser, anger is usually the tantrum of a child not getting his own way, rage at others for not agreeing with his or her opinion of themselves or for refusing to submit.
- Blaming: The abuser never admits to being anything but perfect. Everything is your fault (or someone else’s). Even the abuser’s bad behaviour is because you didn’t do or be exactly what they wanted. You (or the Devil) made them do it. You suffer abuse but if you complain it is all your fault—you are neurotic, or overreacting. Even after a violent assault the abuser blames his victim—he was provoked, she let him get away with it, she deserved it, asked for it.
- Demanding: You have no right to say ‘no’. The abuser gives orders and issues instructions, never asks. If you request anything they never, or only rarely comply.
- Possessiveness: The abuser ‘owns’ you and demands total and unconditional commitment. You are not allowed to be yourself or do anything without permission. Everything you are, have or do, should be for the abuser and the abuser alone.
- Jealousy: Normal jealousy is about fear of losing the loved one but some jealousy is more about self-love than love. If you give your attention to someone or something else, you deprive the abuser of it, which they find humiliating, infuriating or unbearable. They want your full attention and want you to be constantly available. Such jealousy can lead to isolating you from family and friends or even activities such as hobbies.
- Revenge: When you fail to play the assigned role, disappoint, criticize, or ask for something—in other words, when you fail to totally support the abuser’s sense of superiority —you must be punished, you must be taught a lesson. Sometimes punishment is not the result of anything you did or didn’t do but simply because the abuser hates their dependence on you and lashes out, or because they have made you a scapegoat. Many spouses for example, pay the price of a partner’s resentment of their parents.
- Secrets: Some abusers lead a double life. They keep crucial information about themselves from their partner—who they are, where they go, what they do, who they are with, how much they earn, how much they spend. They deny their partner the right to a full relationship. This makes them feel superior—if you believe their lies you must be stupid and if you can’t figure things out you must be inferior. Deception is a permanent state of mind that makes a mockery of the relationship.
- Hostility: Even if not linked to physical violence the abuser teases, annoys, hurts, is sarcastic, spoils things, frustrates, denies you things, and upsets you. This can be negative reinforcement to train you how to behave, or it can be punishment, or pure spite. Many abusers are sadistic.
So why on earth would anyone put up with such behaviour? Because abusers gradually condition their victims to tolerate more and more abuse. But also they are not constantly abusive, only consistently so. The cycle of abuse always includes ‘good’ times (tenderness, kindness, warmth) to give the victim ‘hope’ that things will change, that things really aren’t that bad, or that they really are loved. Unfortunately if we fall for this ‘honey trap’ we are doomed, because abusers rarely if ever change.
If anyone treats you in such ways don’t wait for them to change because they won’t. Put a stop to it, walk away, get help, do what is necessary to protect yourself. Abusers can and do psychologically (and sometimes physically) destroy people.
Copyright Ultimate-self.com 2007. All rights reserved.
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