Psychology # 62 : Fundamental Attribution Error

This typical cognitive bias can be found in many abuse-victim relationships, or even how public perceive about victims.

 

e.g.  if an victim was abused or raped, people will judge it’s because this girl / woman’s behavior is incorrect, seduce or being a sl*t or what and that’s why she was abused.

 

People tend not to consider external influence, such as the environment, security issues or even the behavior of abusers.

 

What do you think?  Have you ever make a simple judgment on someone’s behavior quickly, instead of thinking about other circumstances?

 

 

 

Quote of the day # 19: Be strong after abuse

 

You’ve got one go in life, so make the most of it. – Richard Brandson

 

Don’t let the past ruin your current and future life.  Stay focus and move on.

 

Similar to many survivors, we felt sorry occasionally for the time we have lost / stolen by abusers, sometimes sad memories bombarded me and it took me hours / days to reclaim my peace at mind.

 

I knew I can’t get the time back I lost, thus at the same time I reminded myself I only have one life to live so I better make the most of it, now it’s my turn to live it according to my own wish.

 

 

How do you make the most of your life?  Are you conscious about how short of life is?

 

Let me know how you live your life or share with someone who you think is struggling in their life now.

 

 

 

Image credit : Pixabay – Foundry

3 Common habits you can find from Abused Survivors

 

You can spend a lifetime trying to forget a few minutes of your childhood.

 

 

Guess not many people is well qualified like me to write this post.

 

 

Don’t care about Physical Appearance

 

I was there.  I gave up my appearance by dressing so sloppy, wore big baggy clothes all time.  It’s one the defense mechanism we, especially for sexually abused survivors from early age.

 

We were so scare to be noticed or center of attention.  We lost control of our body, abusers stare at our body sexually without our permission, or touched / kissed us while we felt extremely uncomfortable.

 

I piled up all the shame, guilt and self-blame inside.  The most safety thing I can do / control / protect myself was wearing large-size clothes, messy appearance. In such, we avoid evil attention.  This works!  Sadly, at the same time  I self-sabotage myself.  Not only make abuser lost interest on us but also all other people at our environments.

 

 

Surround with people who treat us wrong

 

Adults who grew up from dysfunctional family never learn how to treat others or to be treated in the right and proper way.  There were no models to be followed.  We thought this is how the world is running and how parents suppose to treat their kids or what kids are supposed to do : OBEY!

 

Then when we are adult, we have hard time to establish / maintain healthy relationship with others. Deep down our self-esteem / self-belief / self-confidence is so low so we unconsciously believe that we are “damage” products and not deserved to be loved / treated nicely and respectfully.

 

Because we look into ourselves in this way, this is also how we project to the world. Eventually, we attract same level of people or others, e.g. narcissists / controllers / abusers who spot our weakness.  This become a downward spiral : the more we surround ourselves with wrong people, the worst we make life decisions.

 

My life was kind of foggy until I started to meet nice fellows.  Doesn’t mean I’m be friends with them (still scare of too close) but I started to observe people I admire : how they think and handle emotions and struggles, etc.  Started to realize if I want myself to have a smilar life, or become this person – I should learn from what they are doing RIGHT.

 

 

Eat. Eat and Eat.

 

Of course it’s not the 100% formula.  But since I was there so totally understand how abused survivors / anyone going through emotional turmoils tend to stuff ourselves with food, lots of foods. We treat food not nurturing but a method to ease our emotions.   Many psychologists mentioned since we feel lives are out of control, this is the only thing we can control : i.e. EAT.

 

I was 100+ overweight years ago.  Until I told myself enough was enough, if I don’t care or love myself, how can I expect others will? So I changed.  Now every time when I saw someone who’s extremely overweight – not in a healthy way, I feel sad because I kind of feeling this person may experience something in his / her life.  Trust me, I know how it feels when you are stuck in life and there seems no hope.  Food is the easy way to escape from reality.

 

 

 

Wrapping Up

 

It’s extremely difficult for people who never gone through similar trauma to understand the truth behind fully.  That’s why it’s so difficult for abuse survivors to heal because along the journey we don’t have enough support or sometimes were misjudged / misunderstood.

 

Do you feel the same way? or you spot someone you know have similar symptoms? This may be the signal they cry for help from within.

 

You may ask / judge why he /she behave this and that? Answer is they have no choice because they never learn the right way to make the right decision, or handle chaos.

 

Some people are lucky enough to learn in a fast path, probably they meet a mentor or experience some life changing moments, but many are learn from a hard and long path.

 

 

 

Photo credit : Unsplash –  Leonardo Wong

Sensitivities to stress – Childhood Trauma

Once again, I fall apart, devastated by my emotion / low self-esteem, feeling overwhelmed.

 

Many times my emotion outburst uncontrollably so locked myself up in toilet cried for hours at work, or felt completely didn’t know how to handle so end up resign from the position, hate to let others see my weakness / vulnerable moments.

 

Trauma survivor’s stress level

 

In normal days, I’m ok be calm, relax and managed to deal with stress, but there are times triggers hit me hardly by all childhood memories and past hurts.

 

Lately, the competitive colleague made me feel extremely uncomfortable, not only because she steals my ideas or try very hard to step over / push me aside to “stand out” in front of my boss, but also deep down I know I’m comparing myself to her.

 

I’m jealous of her confidence, happy attitude, sociable skills – seems so easy to connect with everyone happily.  I’m introvert, low-key and respect others, she’s extrovert, high-profile and never shy away to show up for opportunities at all costs.  I jealous of her braveness and this hurts my self-worth / self-esteem.

 

We have cameraman come to do video-shooting for advertisement purpose, I tried to stay back and not willing to be shoot, but she has already thinking about what to wear even though nobody ask her to be shoot. That’s make me realize how lame I am.  I thought it’s nice always stay low in avoiding showing off, assume this is humble; instead, she always jump out / interrupt in the middle of people conversation, simply want to be acknowledged.  That’s the big difference.

 

When things get tough, like many abused survivor, I can’t respond to stress properly and kind of childish in many people eyes.  I’ll cry and resign if I don’t feel comfortable or fit in.  This is considered as immature as all working adults need to act professionally.

 

When stress arise, I just can’t handle very well.  Since young, I learned to shut down and locked myself in the cave in order to protect myself.  I don’t know how to confront or handle conflicts, don’t know how to relate to others more, because my dysfunctional family taught me if you don’t obey, then you are out and never be loved again.  In daily life, when people see you weak, they will step you more.

 

 

Weirdo and can’t fit in well

 

I’m afraid of gossip or too complicated / political environment, when colleagues become mean and calculated and ready to replace me, I don’t know how to react, fight back and stand up for myself.  I simply shy away and let other “shine”.  This make many people underestimate me and look me down further.

 

Like today I’m stressed out, cried and took a half day leave from work.  I know this is the great opportunity for this competitive co-worker to stay close to my boss (this is what she’s trying to do).  Dog eat dog society, my heart sink but there’s nothing I can do. Competition happens everywhere, I just not good at protect my territory.

 

I found myself have difficulties to fit in, guess, because I’m not comfortable to share much my personal lives, family background like everyone is sharing openly without hesitation at work.  This make me feel awkward and lonely.

 

Not only because I don’t have much good grown up stories like normal people to share, but also due to the bully history I got over the years, it’s hard for me to trust people 100% because I was betray / sold out from time to time.  Especially when people see you success or gain more power at work, people love to drag you down.  I was exhausted for drama.

 

I want to fit in and be more popular, like the competitive colleague. How come she can connect to everyone so quickly and have better relationship with others even though she joined this company later than me?  Though kind of fake / sweet-talk / people pleaser, but the truth is people buy it.

 

She just know when and what to say in front of different people, never shy away to show-off, make sure my boss know everything she did by reporting every / all small tasks e.g. photocopy, help another colleague wash lunchbox etc.  Never do the job without announce proudly to my boss.

 

In my mind, all these small tasks are just not worth to declare and show-off every time, and she kept on interrupt my conversation with boss to draw attention, which annoyed me.  It’s sad to see since my boss love people massage their ego, they fit with each other perfectly.  I’m getting less obvious as an assistant but she’s shiny than me because she kept on taking over my job.

 

And all the gossips at work, this drives me nuts and annoyed me a lot. I went through many dramas so don’t like to experience again.  The more people gossips at certain environment, the more quiet I became.  But how come there are so many people seem cope with the chaos / mess so easily? I just don’t know how to deal with it.

 

Self-worth crash completely

 

What hurt the most is when I was crying and upset, colleagues knew it but behaved more happily, laugh more loudly.  It seems nothing happened and people just don’t care about my feelings.  This hurts!  Why people don’t like me?

 

Once again doubted myself, what’s wrong with me? Although I don’t share much or gossip with them, but I always respect and teach / support them whenever they need.  Even though now the competitive steal my work but I still keep on helping her. Why human can be so cruel?  It seems that she wants to see me fail, and expecting me to resign so she can take my job.

 

Last time when I share my feelings and mentioned want to resign, she expressed without hesitation for her excitement.  That day I was hurt for being betray.

 

Though I’m not too close to colleagues, but my boss highly trust me and rely on me because I really a good staff : responsible, resourceful and hardworking.  I’m kind of like “a star” at work.  If she needs anything to be done, I’m the one to be called and I sense this make competitive co-worker feel unhappy and making face, become more aggressive to jump out to do my job.

 

I sense she pretended nice and respect in front of me but deep down she wants to replace me.  Today is a great opportunity for her to step up and show-off.  This scares me because my self-worth / self-confidence are crashed to the bottom.

 

It hurts and again feel betray when I heard she laugh, acting happily while I was crying. How come people can change so quickly and cruel? I used to teach her everything and so supportive, always give her tips to impress my boss and stay away from troubles. Is she using me? Now she starts to steal away my jobs / success and act so cold when I’m upset?  This really hurts me.

 

What’s my problem?  This remind me I never be the one who was loved by family. Always a scapegoat in bully situations.  All crappy / long ago childhood trauma memories rise up today.

 

What’s the point to stay in this unsupported environment?  Why I’m always trapped? How long will I heal and when will I really get over all past hurts that won’t affect my coming life?  No hope for childhood trauma survivor?

 

 

Final thoughts

 

It’s not the first time I found myself can’t fit in due to my unwillingness to follow the crowd.  It’s sad to find nobody understand me in the environment.

 

It’s frustrated to see others playing around, gossip but good at sweet-talk can climb up the ladder.  While I’m the one who is honest and be true, work hard but not accept/welcome by co-workers.

 

Do you think I’m childish? I tried, learned and sometimes I just feel tired.

How writing your trauma heals wounds

I can shake off everything as I write,

my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.

– Ann Frank

About a year ago, I’ll tell you I never feel comfortable / necessary / important to start my blog. This is however completely change now.  It’s been almost a year since I started, there are obvious improvements / benefits to many aspects of my life.

Always have doubts whenever I heard professionals’ advice of writing but today I would like to encourage / urge any abused survivors to share your own story NOW.

Emotional Stability

I’m not particularly emotionally unstable (or should I say learning to shut down emotions?). I learned to numb, detach, or don’t respond to external circumstances that potentially trigger my feelings / emotions since young.

Guess it’s a common attitude for many abused survivors, we just can’t feel and react all the times or situation since those events can be very hurtful / painful.  But as a human, there’s no doubt my emotions do jump ups and downs occasionally, especially when flashbacks / hurtful memories bombarded me suddenly.  This put me into depression, PTSD symptoms, anxious or other self-destructive behaviors, e.g. binge eating, only sleep or simply do nothing.  This distract my routine a lot but I just can’t control it.

But since I grab the habit of writing, I start to learn expressing my feelings / emotions more productively in words.  Though sometimes it’s still difficult to find right words describing true situation / feelings, but at least better than swallow all negative feelings / thoughts inward as I used to be.  Writing is one of the healing tools (besides of exercise) to help me calming my emotions in a more positive way.  It distracts me from over-thinking or other limit self-sabotage thoughts.

Anger eliminator

Basically, I’m kind of a soft, tender and mellow person.  Not many stuffs can make me yell, scream or jump around.  But there were times my anger was completely over-the top (out-of-control).  It happened when I start to realize my situation via self-education, I felt betrayed / hurt and angry.

I reached the stage of getting so furious to see / hear or stay in the same room with my abuser/by-standers.   I had evil thoughts to hurt those who hurt me.  That uncontrollable feelings happened many years ago and those angry memories are still very strong nowadays.  Of course I never really hurt anyone but all internalized anger was so strong which make me feel pains all over my body, muscle and organs.

According to my personality, understand I’ll never tough enough to confront with family authority figure.  Like many other abused survivors, no matter how mad we are, at certain point we’re so afraid to ruin the so-called family’s reputation / system, no matter how dysfunctional / toxic it is.   Somehow we feel if we disclose those secrets, we’ll be the one who ruin everything.

Writing things down help me to transfer my anger / frustration to a more peaceful platform.  It’s kind of like sharing feelings / thoughts with someone sit quietly in front of me without any judgment / critics.

Learn to open up

Same as many other survivors, we are very good at hiding secrets, especially if they are taboos.   People general enjoying hearing warm, loving and touchy family stories; all parents and family members are supposed to support and care each other unconditionally.

Well, that’s definitely not my experiences.  My family always “weird” according to my observation, it’s a war zone (though outsiders only see the best-fake side).  I’m always acting alert, tense and guard for any potential dramas throw to me.

Feel more safe to shut down, stay away or keep a length-arm distance from others.  Trust issue lead me afraid to open up and share intimate thoughts with others.  I embed shame, guilt and not-good-enough image as a target of abuse.  Most people tend to blind-fold, only want to see / listen what they love a family should be, and many outsiders tend to judge / confront victims rather than supporting them for justice.   This make victims getting more worry to share their stories because of “blame the victims” and “re-victimizing” symptoms.

Writing teach me how to open up myself gradually.  Not saying that I’m fake or bad to others, but I always build a huge wall around me.  I can communicate well but only reach to certain level of closeness, this avoid me to establish a genuine relationships with others.  I’m scare to open up – afraid to be judged or look down according to my history.

More Clarity

Writing help me to re-collect, re-organize my thoughts / feelings thus I’m getting more clarity about what happened to me. Surprisingly, we always think we know who we are or what we think, but truth is we’ll reach a much deeper and objective self-reflection / self-actualized status when writing all down.  This enhance any individual’s self-growth journey.

A baby you own

Once I heard a motivational speaker mentioned that we talk and talk all day long with friends sharing our thoughts / feelings, but after conversation all gone.  Fortunately, writing is a “digital record” that will be existed once we published online.  We never know how long we still alive in this world, but our articles / videos will be there FOREVER.  Your next generation or a stranger from another side of the earth can read your mind.  How amazing is it?

We never know when and who will read your articles, and somehow you change a bit of their perspectives, or alter their lifestyle etc.  A true story : a poor family lived in rural area never have access to business ideas but the father love to gather together with his kids everyday after work, listened to entrepreneur podcasts from a crappy old computer, took notes while listening.   After a period of time, the father gather enough knowledge so start his own business based on knowledge he learned from the net.  Now they earn better money and get rid of the several-generation history of poverty.

We are creating something that ultimately belong to us and possibly changing someone’s life.  This accomplishment can never be achieved when you working for your boss.  No matter how hard you work, the business / brand / profit still belongs to them.  But a writing platform is completely owned by you – which can be organized / created according to your own desire / purpose and rules.

Contribute to public education

Generally, it’s not a specific person can change anyone’s life dramatically.  But every bits of information this person absorb changing their lives subtlety and gradually.

Every writer is a contributor to plant a seed into a field.  We never know when and how it grows but sure one day will. Writing and sharing your memoir / story is actually adding a seed into another person’s mind / soul.  We are the farmer who plant the seed, lead the thought or break a taboo.  The more we share and talk about certain topic, the more it becomes normal, wide-spread and be aware.

I was so confused and hopeless until I came across more articles of narcissistic, toxic parents or abusive family etc.  Not too many people in my cycle hear these terms so it’s difficult to find someone to share or learn from.  But today I’m more educated and self-awareness – thanks for all contributors of books / videos / articles that came to my life.

Closing thoughts

I would suggest my younger-self or anyone who surviving from trauma start writing as earlier as possible.

Advantages may not be emerged at the first day / month / year, but sure will benefit to your life continuously, whether it’s physically, psychological or emotionally.  At least I do.

What make you want to write and share your story / experience?

It’s actually your hobby? or you have mission or purpose to do so?

How you feel so far since you start this writing habit?

Image credit : Pixabay – Foundry

Quote of the day # 11 : Family

Family is not always about blood, sometimes its about who is there to hold your hand and support you, when you need them

Image credit : Pixabay – Greyerbaby

Aftermath of abuse (2) – Feel like living in a Lonely Planet

May be I don’t cry, but it hurts;

May be I won’t say, but I feel;

May be I don’t show but I care.

Can’t remember since when I started to numb my emotions / feelings.  Of course I still have regular human responses, such as angry, sad or happy but mostly I shut myself up for a very long period of time, especially if they are family related.

The more self-education about abuse I obtained the more I understand this is a typical coping mechanism for many abuse survivors.  We must disassociate ourselves from people / environment in order to cease / limit any potential emotional breakdown.

Violated social norms

It’s just so difficult for any abusers to fight against social norms / expectations.  Like many other survivors, I never open myself up to share my story / experiences with others.  Because I understand what we are about to share are not what majority people love to believe or listen in society.

Don’t mean to judge but this is the fundamental comfort zone for many people, it’s uncomfortable for many people to know / accept the truth that there’s dysfunctional families, there are parents who are not good for their kids.  People feel more relieved or easy to digest for positive family stories.

It’s understandable but sure will make survivors feel uncomfortable to talk about their stories.  This make us feel isolated from the crowd.

Betrayed by family

I always have problems to understand whenever seeing movies / TV episodes showing how people cry for their parents / family members’ problems, illness or felt touched when they sacrifice to do something good for them.  I was confused and mentally stuck at those scenes.

This never happened to me as in my family, parents are non-questionable authority figures so kids must do whatever was told / ordered.  There’s no so-called unconditioned love as we need to exchange our benefits / welfare / rights for attention / love.

Though I was so naive, young without many concrete concepts about definitions of parenting or healthy family.  But somehow I sense how different of my family in comparing to others.

My mom was emotional abusive, neglected us and I was treated like her maid helped her to do housework.  She’s an unhappy, jealous and emotional unstable woman who married my dad at very young age, simply want to escape from an abusive relative.  I sense her regret for being tapped with a man not in love with.

Later when she found another man, she ran away and left 3 young kids (the youngest only 1 year old) with their narcissistic / abusive father, who cares only his benefits, lack of empathy.  Straightly mentioned, not really mentally / psychologically well equipped as a parent.  This further make me want to stay away from the “normal” crowd as I was so shamed for being raised in such kind of family.

Different from same age fellows

I was so self-conscious to hide all secrets for my own.  Whenever my friends / classmate chatted about their families, parents or siblings.   I just can’t resonate, feel stuck, staring at empty space in avoiding my turn to share.

Today when I look back, realized that I actually spent lots of lonely times at school during my childhood / teenager years. People think  I was very shy / introvert, well, I do have many introvert traits, but most of the time was because I was afraid to attract attention, be asked for what’s going on in family or how I was doing during holidays.

I just don’t have much to share as I was not living like a normal kid / teenager.  When my classmates / friends hanging around with their friends, participate different extracurricular activities, I was busy at non-stopped household works, raising my sisters and took care of my childish father.  There were tons of chaos running daily in my life.  Remember I used to take a deep breath and sigh whenever I put my keys out in front of home, just exhausted not only physically but mainly emotionally – don’t know what would happened that day after I step inside my toxic family.  My unique life distance myself from majority of normal kids at my age.

Alien at workplace / Love environment

Generally, parents like to see their child has better education, success in career, happy and own their families one day.  But that’s not the case in many dysfunctional families again.

Manipulative / toxic parents never want to see their kids grow because this will eventually challenge their powers or harm to their selfish benefits.  I was a good student with good grades but my dad was very good at using guilty / shame to trap me in his selfish / evil plan. He persuaded me that I was the one who need to responsible for chaos in the family after his divorce. Thus I was not encouraged to have my own friends, social life or continuing my education.

I was berated / blamed / insult for not being considerate whenever I want to have my own rights / desire.  I was so naive (stupid) to believe that’s what I supposed to do – take over housework and officially become a mom. I was insult for not putting family at first priority or whenever I try to explore outside world.  Of course today I understood how selfish my abusive dad was – who transfer all blames / responsibilities from his shoulder to a kid.

This make me had lots of difficulties relating to other colleagues when I step into job market.  Not only I never know how to establish healthy relationships with people since I was caged at home most of the time, but also I was afraid to be discovered about my family and how I was treated.  I was brainstormed need to sacrifice everything for my toxic family, otherwise, I was not worthy for the family.

Because of my abusive histories, I was extremely nervous to have any romantic relationships, not only because my dad humiliated me when I dress well or attempt to socialize with others, but also I was terrified once they know my secrets, will no longer like me.  To avoid getting hurts or dumped, I chose subconsciously not to step into any potential love relationships, or react stony when guys approach me.

Closing thoughts

Like the quote mentioned above, abuse survivors might not cry in front of you, but those hidden / unbearable hurts are tattooed in our hearts, which become part of our identities.

Abusive trauma make us have difficulties to connect with people, not only because of deep rooted trust issues but also we don’t feel safe / comfortable to share our stories or lean / rely on others.  Same as many abuse survivors, I learn and manage very well to do everything on my own since early age.  It’s sad / lonely but at least keep me peace, and in fact we can’t find the common grounds that can relate to majority of people.

Next time when you see someone who’s sitting alone during lunch break, please go forward or invite them as your companion.  They may not as weird / strange as you think, but simply feeling uncomfortable to approach others, or try to protect themselves from hurts after going through tough times.

They may not say anything at the beginning or react cold to your kindness, but I assure you that they actually appreciate your effort for being supportive.

Are you survivor? Do you feel similar loneliness even if you surround by many people? How do you handle it?

Photo credit : Pixabay – PublicDomainPictures

How to put a proper name tag on Abused Survivor?

Wise men do not wear name tags.  

The more people talk about their own skills, the more desperate they are.  

– NisiOisiN

Whenever I read books / articles written by abused survivors, those uniqueness always confused me to think about my own situation.  Well, how can I label myself? Or is it only my problems? How about other abused survivors?

Many writers are so specific about their personal experience / trauma, no offence but we can put a name tag for each individual easily, e.g. sexual / physical abused, domestic violence, child / emotional abused survivors etc.

But according to my complicated background, I always have difficulties to put a proper name-tag about my abuse / story. Seems like I’m stuck in the crossroads – somehow associated with different category.  This make me struggle from time to time during healing because I’m not dealing with one trauma, and don’t know how to relate with other survivors more appropriately.  How should I introduce myself to others?

Complication of dysfunctional family system

Guess it’s commonly happened in dysfunctional families, there must have toxic / abusive parents who ruin and harass healthy / functional system at first place.

Once the system is distorted, these toxic parents can do whatever they want according to their own desires / selfish purposes. Thus it always make situation more complicated / worse since many other abuse behaviors will be carried out in such toxic environment.   This makes abused survivors growing up in dysfunctional family have more challenges / emotional baggage to move on.

You may need a whole life to heal one trauma, but now you’ve got 2, 3, or even 5….it’s hard to image how long it’ll take to reach the final destination.  It’s like a magician / crown who throwing different balls in two hands at the same time.

More name-tags of self-destructive behaviors

Not only name-tags that originated from initial abuses, but now abused survivors feel extremely shame, guilty, betrayed and hurt.  Very often, abused victims will establish many self-destructive behaviors as coping mechanism.

There’s no doubt these self-harm attitudes are bad to soul, spirits or emotions, but since they don’t have role models to guide them how to deal with problems properly, this will become the only tactic they can lean on, e.g. smoking, alcohol, drugs, addiction, eating disorder etc. These are the only gateway we can numb ourselves, detach from drama or distress at any particular time.

I knew how it felt as I used to binge eating whenever emotions felt overwhelmed. I ate all my emotions down to throat. Eventually, like other survivors, I owned more name-tags, e.g. “Fatty”, “Glutton”; or “Cold” because of my trust issue.  Many other abused survivors who are suffering from PTSD / depression after abuse may be labelled as “Lazy”, “Slothful”.

Imagine abused survivors may need to bring a bag carrying all the name-tags in case someone asking about “who are you?”.

Shall I introduce myself as a emotional abused survivor? but what about those bad consequences / effects after years of verbally abused and childhood neglected?  Which label is more appropriate for me to address myself, so outsiders will understand me more?

Closing thoughts

I assume nobody want to be labelled or stereotyped.  But this is the Must-Have life-long challenge for many abused survivors, wearing different hats and change according to different situation.

Outsiders may think ….well… as long as they manage to heal their trauma after narcissistic abuse, (for example), they will be fine and live a happy life thereafter.  But the truth is many abused survivors may need to tackle other emotional / physical / psychological trauma simultaneously that come with other abuses they were experienced during a period of abused years.

They may also have difficulties to have mutual healthy relationships with others, since it’s extremely difficult to address themselves properly.  When we don’t know how to position ourselves, we’ll have problems to be truly authentic or even aware our wishes / expectations.

I still believe there’s hope for healing, but just need more time, patience, strength and support.

Do you have similar difficulties as like as me?

Winners never Quit – is that true?

There’s a difference between quitting,

and knowing when you have had enough.

Binge watched reality TV show lately, in which a husband declared several times that he’s not a “quitter” so kept trying to mend his marriage, sad for audience to watch since they really not compatible with each other, but he just hold on a thought of “being loyal / nice”.

Well, I’m kind of a “quitter” from many people’s perspectives.  This always give myself lots of doubts and ask : am I too soon to quit?  What if I stay and let circumstances continuing?  Should I be more patience, realistic, conformity to policies / regulations / social norms? Am I over-thinking / over-sensitive / over-reacted ? Many people seem doing OK to survive their unhappy / conventional / unfulfilled life / job without any resistance.

At some point, I have to admit I do quit easily, happens often when I feel scare / pressure / uncomfortable, mostly related to relationships.  Still struggling to handle stress / relationship / emotions healthily.  But at other times, I consider myself as braver than many people.

It may because since awake from years of abusive history, I’m getting more conscious, less willing to waste time on things / people that harm to me, physically, emotionally or life.  I’m more determined today to let go and leave when I found an environment or people I interacted with will never change.  Assuming it’s better to invest my precious time / energy on meaningful matters instead.  Time is really too short, I got to cut the loss as quick as possible.

Suggest to quit when …..

After years of self-education about abused topics and healing, I learned there’s a reason behind any individual who tolerate non-stopped abusive / toxic relationships without leaving, feeling or expressing anything.   It’s because when an individual doesn’t own a healthy sense of self-worth, don’t love / value themselves, will have difficulties to stand up for themselves, or even worse, make excuse for abusers who treated them disrespectfully.

Self-care is not only dress nicely, but also learning how to respect ourselves with dignity.  We never can expect others respect us if we don’t do this to ourselves at first place.  Sometimes we have to teach others how to treat us if necessary.

Abusers / narcissistic / toxic people raise up the bars of abusive gestures gradually and continuously towards victims.  At the beginning, they may put all dramas like a joke, behave offensive / insulting in a causal manner – aim to make all these like : they didn’t mean to do this to you; it’s just a joke; or simply treat you as their closed friends / mates so there’s no need to fake.  But in fact they have purpose to test your limit : see how you react and how much you can tolerant their BS.

I dealt with so many so-called professional / successful people, what irritated / annoyed me is they’re actually very smart (cunning) – understand how to wear different masks in front of different people, know exactly who must be treated with respect / civility, but who can be verbally, emotional and psychologically abused.  They evaluate / distinguish people carefully into different category to fulfill their different desires / purpose.

Many nice / warm / civilized people tend to have difficulties dealing with this type of fake-fellow.  Similar to me, my personality and moral value make me cherish peaceful / harmony.  I used to think everyone will treat each other with respect.  I thought everyone understand the moral of “don’t say anything to others that we don’t want to listen, or do anything to others that we don’t want to be treated”.  This unrealistic perception was vanished once I finally realize there’re people holding a complete opposite moral standard from me.

Frequently these people are acting so humble, nice and normal when we first met.  Unfortunately, after a certain period of time of communication their true-self are surfaced.  Once they noticed my standard / limit, they’ll no longer care how I feel thus my daily working life is like living in hell.  I can’t sleep, binge eating, depressed, so stressful not because of the work load but all emotional burdens.  That’s why I keep on quitting from abusive working environments.  Of course never expect there’s a perfect job in the world, but when the environment is out-of control and already fueling poison to my soul / spirit, what’s the point for me to continue?

Or there are times when I overheard others said divorce is bad.  In my opinion, it’s better to leave a rotten relationship than stuck in an unhappy / mental-tortured environment.  Many parents might think it’s better for kids owning a so-called in-house father / mother but the truth is : how kids can learn to love / establish a healthy relationship in such a toxic environment? How kids can concentrate on their study while there are non-stop arguing / blaming / fighting at home? Don’t we think it’s wise to quit, let kids learning how to maintain a healthy relationship while breaking up?

Closing thoughts

Enough is enough, our life is blinked away every second at faster-than-you-thought speed.  If this is what we hate or not align with our core value.  May be it’s really a right time to quit.

What your thoughts on “quitting”?  Do you think a quitter is a loser? Have you ever quit on someone / something that no longer benefit to you?

Photo credit : Pixabay – ericbrn13

Psychological Bias and Abuse (2)

We think we see things as they are – that we are objective.  

But being truly objective is to realize that we are subjective.  

We see the world not as it is, but as we are.

This is part 2 – relationship between cognitive / psychological bias and abuse.

The Halo Effect

Human’s nature not only tend to rate people according to physical appearances, but also more likely perceive those beautiful people as smart, have better skills, knowledge, good moral standards and favorable personalities / traits / characteristics. That’s why this bias also known as “physical attractiveness” stereotype.

We are not merely attracted by superstars / celebrities / models etc. because of their beauty but also fantasize them as a more successful, likable, intelligent, wealthy than normal people – one who looks pretty, he / she must be nice too.

This is how victims always foolishly attracted by abusers / narcissistic / toxic people in the beginning.  Many great looking guys understand how to deliver a perfect image by saying / behaving what outsiders expected.  You will never spot their fake-self until you become their targets of abuse / manipulate / betray, etc.

Social experiments demonstrated when people well-dressed, they can easily deceive people’s perception, e.g. a stranger dressed sloppily  and try to help a lost kid to find their parents, there are more passersby feel suspicious then stop him; but when the same guy change clothes become more well-dressed, more passersby ignore his attempt in approaching a kid.

Another research indicated attractive people less likely viewed as guilty of criminal behaviors, one of the reasons why we were shocked whenever we found those so-called successful, charming individuals were finally charged for child sexual abusers, serial killers etc.  We were betrayed by their look!

Since they look so great, people will have difficulties to believe they have negative characteristics / hidden agenda / dirty secrets.  We oversight the important element : abusers / criminals must use their convincing appearance to attract their targets and earn their trust at the first place, before they carry out any any evil thoughts.

Attentional Bias

Human nature tend to shorten cognitive process time to make quick decision in daily life, focused only on information that majority of people owned it and neglected other possibilities / choices, even though we may have doubts / uncertainty.

“If everyone do / say / buy similar things, I should also react the same”.  Initially, not every individual feel comfortable to step out comfort zone constantly because many people afraid making alternative choices on their own will lead to mistakes / loss.  Certain risk are under consideration.

Advertisement is a good demonstration of this bias, we see many ads daily on different media platforms, those recurring ideas / suggestions will influence us to make decision in later days.  An experienced ad-agent told me they don’t really care if customers buy their products immediately after advertisements, but want to make a recurring impressions on customers’ brain. One day when they are in supermarkets and look for a product, will less likely searching around but pick up the brand they see from news / media early ago.

This happened when a person who always praised by majority of your friends, you will have a good impression of this person and consider him / her as a nice / fine person, even though you have never met this person before.  Your defense system will be lowered and if unfortunately this person is actually a criminal or bad person, we will be trapped in toxic relationship, or even a more terrible tragedy.  We have heard stories from news occasionally reported that victims usually attacked by the one they know / trust.

There’s no doubt we will be more caution when communiting with strangers, but if everyone say this person is a good fellow, we tend to underestimated potential risks behind.

This however can make good use of this bias to help our self-growth, e.g. we only focus on positive things / people or surround ourselves in positive environment, all can help and enforce our self-improvement : emotional, physically or psychologically.

There’s a saying “Recurring thoughts become words to ourselves, words become actions, and actions will soon become habits, which as a result benefit to our whole life”.

Ingroup Bias

This bias is fun because personally I tested it out several times and the theory works exactly how I imagined.

People kind of over-praised the importance of group-thinking / brain-storming etc. in fact, we sometimes can’t make rational judgment on our own when we are putting in a group setting, especially when we are bonding to that in-group members tightly, e.g. close friends, loved ones, family members or colleagues.

Strangely, when we are make decision / judgment alone with reference to our own experience, education and intelligence etc. it’s more likely or much easy for us to act / think objectively.

This is because when we were placed in a group, our judgments will be influenced by other group members’ characteristics / opinions / judgments or our relationships with them, e.g. group setting make us become more suspicious, fearful, worry to offend or hope to relate to others.  Overall, we tend to overestimate or rely on immediate group members’ efforts, abilities and value.

That’s why it’s difficult to confront with abusers, or ask for supports / helps from family members, relatives or cycle of friends sometimes, because they need to think and react in the same way to protect their so-called inner-circle’s reputation, unity and harmony, at the expense of victims’ benefits and justice.  It’s not surprised to discover abused survivors get more supports / helps from outsiders sometimes.

Closing thoughts

Learning what bias human nature usually made can help survivors understanding how to relax, laugh away when they are dealing with BS / non-sense / injustice.  When it happens, stay persistent in your core belief, don’t mislead by the dramas, absurdity and foolishness.  If necessary, stay no contact and moved on, to live your own life.

Do you have similar bias that you notice or don’t noticed?

Photo credit :  Pixabay : ladybugkreativ