There are 2 types of pain : pain that hurts you & pain that changes you.
Somehow, pain and struggles we went through make us stronger or change us completely in a positive way.
Don’t you agree? Do you have any experience that your past eventually lead you to be a better self today?
Photo credit : Pixabay – Unsplash
This is very common in dysfunctional / toxic family, or even at toxic work environment.
Abuser choose ignore or pretend victims are not exist, at the same time, they may over-empathize another person’s behavior, praise and adore them with no sense.
The aim is to downgrade the status of victim, make them know that they are not valuable / worthy to the abuser. This can damage target’s self-esteem / confidence seriously as they may feel / think they are useless.
Some of the abuse survivors will use food to shift their focus from painful flashbacks / thoughts, others may dive into video games the whole day to eliminate the stressful situation.
I used to use food to channel my anger and frustration, which is a self-destructive behavior which end up triple my problems.
How about you?
When I was young, thought it’s what every child suppose to do at home.
Since we were not allowed to have a healthy social life, kind of locked up in the dysfunctional family so I don’t know what’s normal.
This until the more I approach outsiders, the more I read and educate myself, I was noticed that my role is exchanged with toxic parents.
In personal experience, sure it will damage child’s basic needs and developmental journey.
From time to time, I depressed for all those years I lost and took me years to establish all the necessary skills to survive in the society.
From time to time, we found there are people who are very clingy and needy.
Don’t know if it’s because I am related to another category “Fearful / Avoidance”, so I always feel it’s very exhausted / tiring to hang around with this type of people.
Both of our categories can never lead us to a fulfilling relationship. Better learn how to connect with others healthier.
What other people think of us usually has very little to do with who we are.
It’s a lot more to do with that person’s own prejudices, fears & projections.
– Beverly Engel
The more I educated myself, the more I understand there’s nothing to do with myself, it’s how abusers think about themselves.
What do you think? Please leave comments below.
Photo credit : Pixabay – RyanMcGuire
I was very confused why Narcissists can always escape from their abusive behavior while everyone adore him / her without notice their true personality.
Spent lots of time to research and understand the truth behind, finally a new term “narcissist supply”came up to me. Wow. Now I knew there’s a logic of demand and supply.
If there’s a narcissist, it must have someone to supply this to fill his / her ego. Otherwise, narcissist can’t exist without support.
My younger sister is typically the supplier for my abusive / narcissistic father. The more she supports him the more he feel comfortable to do whatever he wants, while keeping a nice guy image to the public.
What I found people who is willing to devote to narcissistic supply, usually is related to co-dependent characteristic. Narcissists bribe them with fake attention / love, they spot the supplier lack of confidence and self-esteem so take the advantage of them.
I used to jealous my sister’s privilege but not now. She’s very depressed, no friends and no jobs due to all the toxic relationship she built up with narcissist. She became resentful and dependent, cling to relationships.
It’s sad to watch and remind myself better work harder on my own self-improvement because I don’t want to follow her path.
The most damaging aspect of abuse is the trauma to our hearts and souls from being betrayed by people that we love and trust.
Betray is one of the most damaging thing to our soul / spirits. We may never get heal completely once our heart was broken.
Photo credit : Pixabay – benscherjon
When we used to get hurt, we don’t know how to react when others appreciate us, so we end up pushing people away.
My new consulting career force myself go outside to attend seminars and networking occasionally. This totally out of my comfort zone since my life is quite routine (boring?) and mostly alone. Feeling uncomfortable however, this is a must for any soloentreneur.
Over the past few months, I’ve been observed many speakers / visitors etc. in public situations and noticed there are people who look very fierce / unapproachable or seem harsh. Whenever the host ask us to connect or take part of some activities, I tend to move away from this type of seem-unfriendly people.
This makes myself do lots of self-reflection. Am I one of them?
I used to consider myself as extrovert since I love to explore, travel and always curious to learn new things. No doubt to attend any talks / functions alone as long as it interests me. Until I read more articles about introvert from professionals then realize and rename myself as an introvert.
If you are also an introvert, you should understand what and how we introverts feel : although we still very curious to explore here and there, but eventually we need time to release our tension from activities. Our energy drained when spending too much time around people. In fact, we don’t enjoy social, chit chat very much. Not because we hate people but simply need lots of private time to recharge.
There are no problems for us to stay alone/silent for the whole day / week, by just diving into books / videos or anything that interests us. Seriously, I can speak to nobody for a week / month (though it’s unhealthy to wellbeing so not encourage).
I know it. Especially start from this year, realize and admit more about the importance of having a relationship with another human.
This is also one of the destructive habits abuse survivor developed since childhood. We were so exhausted / drained by all the chaos and trauma at home. After going through all the emotional / psychological battles….today when we are adults, we become cherish more to peace, quiet or no non-sense life, e.g. gossips, conflicts etc.
Same, my abuse family taught me to self-nurture and solves problems by myself since very early age. This lead me to grow up very fast, more resistant to other kids, but at the same time, we lost the tendency to ask for help / support from others. When our biological family betrays us, this disrupts all our beliefs and trust that others can rely on.
No doubt we become very independent but also dive into the dangerous zone : “ALONE” mode forever.
Combining with inborn personalities and after birth life history. This actually destroys my abilities to communicate with others. I found myself having difficulties to connect with others comfortably. Many of the times, either I feel exhausted / impatience or lack of motivation to connect.
The longer history of feeling comfortable to being ALONE actually destroys my willingness to connect. This is not a good sign and I consciously want to change this inhuman ability since this year. More self-improvament work need to be done.
Maybe, there are other survivors having similar struggles like me. They are misunderstood by others for the whole life, which in fact they hungry for love, care and acceptance. We just need more time than other normal people.
However, who else will stay so long, be patience to understand us, before we are judged?
Whenever I look around in networking environments, kept on asking myself ….. am I look alike these seem unapproachable people?
Deep down I know myself NOT, but may be the long established mode made me look-alike them for protecting myself being hurt again.
Encourage you to check on yourself, maybe you also project your inner fear / insecure to the public world? Is it the reason to explain why we always attract wrong people to us? They think we are the same group of people but in fact we belong to another group of people who misundertsand us?
Remember there’s a saying : if we want to have a certain type of partner / friend, we must become their type first.
What do you think? Are you react to the world exactly what you meant inside? Or you always give the wrong message to others? How do you feel about my findings? Welcome for your comments.
Image Credit : Unsplash – Tamara Bellis
In any dysfunctional family, if there’s a scapegoat, there will be a golden child.
When I was young, I was not understand / confused, how come my younger sister can do whatever she liked, go to school, enjoy after school activities without caring much about household or all the chaos in family.
Nobody will scold her for mistakes but I was the one who take all the blames.
It’s sad and miserable to grow up in such environment. Not only affect my own well-being but it damaged sibling relationships seriously. Never have close sibling relationships as many times it reminds me those betrays / laughs / gossips.
How about you? Are you the golden child and how you feel about this privilege?
Rebellious Scapegoat 