Why your boundaries are not welcome in an abusive relationship

Women in (or after) abusive relationships are frequently told ‘you have no boundaries’, ‘you need better boundaries’. This ignores the simple truth; that your boundaries are not welcome in an abusive relationship.

People who abuse others don’t want to hear that they are at fault. They make you believe that it’s your fault they hurt you. Or that you’re over-sensitive, a nag, or too critical. Or a few really sadistic abusers will actually enjoy causing you pain. Either way, the abuser wants to treat you exactly how they want to treat you. They don’t want to be challenged.

So, you either fight, or submit, or a circling combination of the two. This is a normal response to living in a dysfunctional or even dangerous system. It is a trauma adaptation. You are normal.

In this article, I explore what happens to your boundaries in an abusive relationship, and things you can do that will help you heal.

HOW IT HAPPENS

We are habitually treated in ways that hurt or harm us. We are violated. We are repeatedly controlled, critisized, undermined, ridiculed, demeaned, humiliated, or verbally, physcially or sexually assaulted.

These are all boundary ‘violations’. They hurt. We hurt. It is painful to have a boundary that is repeatedly violated.

We are then silenced and blamed when we challenge how we are being treated.

The abuser has created an environment where it is not possible or permissable for us to protest about how we are treated. We are blamed for any painful feelings that we might have in response to their abuse, and then systemically silenced.

This can look like: punishment, name calling, violence, stonewalling, justification, excuses, turning the responsibility back on us, blaming or suggesting that we have done the same / something just as bad / are not so perfect ourselves. It can be dangerous to express our hurt or anger at how we are treated, or even to show it. Conversely some abusers enjoy causing pain, and so we might shut down our hurt in order to deprive them of this satisfaction.

Nothing we do ever seems to have an impact. Whether we say something, say nothing, try and keep the peace, we are told this is ‘wrong’. We cannot ‘win’, whatever we do. Because the only way for the relationship to change is for the abuser to cease their relentless campaign of coercive control.

Turning the blame on us actually helps them to stay in control. If we are always looking inwards, then we are always off balance, busy searching for the solution to their treatment of us inside ourselves. (It may or may not be a conscious strategy on their part, but that doesn’t diminish the impact on us.)

We lose touch with our own boundaries and feelings, and we turn the anger on ourselves.

We might become numb to the abuse, believing that it doesn’t matter, or that we deserve it anyway. We might stop noticing it, or minimise the impact it has on us. We might start to hate ourselves for hurting.

Horrifyingly, we start policing ourselves. The abuser has trained us well.

THE PROCESS OF RECOVERY

STARTING TO LISTEN TO YOURSELF

Because you have had to shut down in order to survive, it will be important to begin listening to yourself. Your inner wisdom is right there, in your body. You. You matter. Your voice, yourself, your feelings; they matter.

Start to listen to your feelings. Practice checking into your body: are you scared, angry, disappointed, sad? Where do you feel it? Can you allow it to be, just as it is, just for a moment?
What choice would you make, if you were free to?
Watch what the abuser does to disempower you. How do they hook you into feeling guilty, ashamed, like you’re doing something wrong rather than the target of abusive, shaming or controlling behaviour?
How can you support yourself in the moment. Sometimes a mantra can help; ‘It’s okay to feel hurt/angry’, ‘I hear you’, ‘I love you’.
How can you diminish the power of their words in the moment. A mantra can help with this too; ‘It’s just a tactic’ (to control me), ‘they’re wrong’, ‘there’s nothing wrong with me’, ‘I’m not the problem’, or whatever helps you feel steadier in yourself.
Practice working out what you think, rather than allowing the story to be defined by the other. Allow yourself the space for your own opinions.
Find ways to be around people who do listen to you. This is immensely important. We ‘take in’ how we are treated. This will make an enormous difference to your experience of yourself.

If you’re finding it hard to get in touch with yourself, feel intensely self-critical, or find yourself overwhelmed, dissociative or it feels too big or frightening, stop, take a breath and allow yourself to do something comforting. It’s fine not to press through. The trick is to find a way to feel without becoming too overwhelmed. If you are struggling, becoming repeatedly overwhelmed or having shame or panic attacks, you might want to seek professional help to support you in your journey of reconnection.

RECOVERING ‘RELATIONALLY’

Firstly, do be thoughtful about becoming more assertive in a relationship that is, or your fear may become, physically or sexually abusive. It can be very unsafe to challenge a dangerous perpetrator, so please do seek specialist help if you are at all worried.

Even if your relationship is emotionally rather than physically/sexually abusive, it is likely that the abuse will escalate if you find more of a voice. This isn’t a reason not to do it, but it is important to be prepared for some push back.

If setting boundaries is likely to put you at risk, you might practice ‘small rebellions’. Create pockets in your life – safely, privately – where you are completely in charge. Practice making decisions yourself, trusting yourself, do the things that you are not ‘allowed’ to do safely out of sight of your abusive relationship.

Always, always prioritise your physical safety. You might find that you want to practice your boundary setting skills outside your abusive relationship.

TIPS FOR SETTING BOUNDARIES

Play around with boundaries in your imagination for a little while, think about what you might like to say, how you might say it and how that might feel.
Plan what you may need to increase your skill at setting boundaries: read books about boundaries, look for people who deal skillfully with other and see what they do. Try on their way of relating, see how it fits.
When you’re ready, start with the easy relationships, the ones that feel safest. Work on this, and increase your levels of difficulty slowly. Even if you need to start by saying ‘no’ in the supermarket, every boundary is a win.
Or, start with what hurts most. Sometimes we need to start at the point of most pain in order to feel our way back to the subtler pains. You’ll know best where you need to start.
When it doesn’t work out how you wanted it to, evaluate what went wrong, learn what you need to learn and move on.
Celebrate your achievements! It takes enormous courage to change old patterns, particularly ones developed in such difficult situations. You are doing amazingly just to engage in the process.

Setting boundaries with people who do not listen can be infuriating, saddening and crazy-making, so it is fine to find this challenging and also to reach out for support if you need it.

Remember that people who use abusive tactics will tend to respond defensively, so don’t judge your boundary by their reaction. They will try every trick they have to dismiss you and your feelings, and are unlikely to concede the point (and will probably punish you afterwards anyway) but what matters is how you feel about yourself.

Again, your safety is paramount, and so please, please keep yourself safe as you first priority. It is completely valid not to speak up if speaking up puts you in danger, or you or your children will be punished for it. Complying is a completely valid response, and an important one to have in your toolbox.

HOW THERAPY CAN HELP

You don’t need to be overwhelmed to seek therapy; it is completely okay to seek support just because you want support. That said, if you are finding that trauma is resurfacing in a way that doesn’t feel manageable, or that you’re finding your feelings big and overwhelming, don’t hesitate to get in touch with a specialist.

Sometimes it helps just to have another set of eyes on the task. It can be hard to change patterns, particularly those that are trauma related (they can have a lot of emotional ‘charge’ to them). A therapist will: be in your corner, know (hopefully) some of the right questions to ask, be non-judgemental as you grapple with your inner experience, help you sort through what it actually is you feel, and help you develop yourself to meet the particular challenges that you face.

REMEMBER

Getting ever closer to our authentic selves is a lifelong journey for most of us. Even situations that don’t go the way that you wanted them to will teach you a lot, about yourself and the other.

There will be missteps, and ‘mistakes’, but there will be life in all it’s messy gloriousness too. You can be in your own corner. Your own best friend. Decide for yourself what you think, and feel.

You’re recovering the most valuable thing; your relationship with yourself.

Good luck, and take care.

RESOURCES

If you’d like to speak to someone, call the 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline for free on 0808 2000 247 and they will be able to direct you to resources in your local area.

Giving up alcohol: dealing with a craving

Wherever you are on the scale, it can be hard to resist the desire to drink, so here is a list of useful tips and suggestions (although it is by no means comprehensive), that may help if you are trying hard not to drink, but are finding that you want to.

Make a plan

It can help to have a plan for when a craving hits: make a list of things that might help, and carry it with you or put it somewhere easily accessible to you for when you want to drink. For example, if you usually drink at home alone, you could leave it in a drawer, or if you’re a pub drinker, you might want to have it on you so you can look at it when the thought or feeling hits.

Know your danger zones, when do you usually want to drink. Include this in your plan.

For example, we are creatures of habit; if you always have a drink when you sit in your favourite chair in front of the telly after a long day at work, when you do sit down at the end of the day in that chair, you’ll probably want a drink. Shake it up; sit somewhere else, call someone instead of watching television, read a book, do out to dinner with a friend, ask someone over. Just changing the pattern can help disrupt the desire to drink.

In the moment:

Get busy! Clean something (even if it’s only your shoes), go for a run, a brisk walk, do something creative, do your accounts. Anything, as long as it gets you out of yourself.
Call someone safe – choose someone who is supportive of your desire to not drink, and who doesn’t trigger difficult feelings in you.
Eat something sweet. There’s a lot of sugar in alcohol so sometimes this can help.
Think of the craving as a wave. And just like a wave, when it is at it’s strongest is usually when it’s just about to break.
Remember: The feeling will pass, whether you drink or not.
Just don’t drink today. If you can’t do that, just don’t drink this hour, this ten minutes, this minute, this second.
If you can’t just not drink, can you put it off? Can you promise yourself that if you still want to drink this intensely in an hour, later that day, or tomorrow, that you will have one? Usually the feelings will have passed by then, and you’ll have another day under your belt.

Longer term:

Have a physical reminder of why you are not drinking to help you ride the wave: a photograph, a diary entry, write yourself a list of consequences/costs/things you want to achieve by not drinking. Anything will do, as long as you can take it out when you’re feeling the desire to drink.
Connect/re-connect with the things that drinking prevented you from doing. Build something in alcohol’s absence that is worth hanging on to.
Notice how much money you’re saving by not drinking. If you can afford it, treat yourself to something nice.
Build a network of supportive people around you, even if ‘just’ online. You will have moments of weakness, that’s normal and to be expected, so you need your network.
Don’t beat yourself up if you do slip; analyse what went wrong, and what you might do differently next time.

Look for patterns

You can look for emotional patterns: trace back to what happened in the moment you started to want to drink, look for thoughts and feelings that seemed to trigger or coincide with the desire to drink. These can be uncomfortable, like anger, fear or sadness, or happier feelings; excitement, connection and joy. You may want to hide from a feeling, or make it stronger or stay longer.

It might be that you need to take action: to set a boundary, make an apology / amend your behaviour, do something that you’ve been putting off. Or it may be that you need to sit with yourself while you feel that uncomfortable thing that you’ve been avoiding.

Longer term work

Is there anything longer term that you need to tackle? Some people really struggle in social situations without alcohol, for example, or lack confidence or self-esteem. Some people find intimacy difficult, or are in an unhappy situation that they are drinking to avoid facing. If so, this might be where therapy could be useful, to help you find your way forward and to give you support as you do.

And finally

If you are really struggling, either drinking again and again when you don’t want to, or finding yourself really adrift once you’ve stopped, it may be that you need other help. If you’ve experienced trauma, for example, you might find this resurfacing when you stop drinking or using, which can be really hard to deal with alone.

There are plenty of low cost charities across the country that provide support to those struggling with alcohol and substance misuse. Your GP can be a useful resource too, as can the anonymous fellowships, such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Therapy can also be a useful source of support.

Note: if you are physically addicted to alcohol, it can be dangerous to go through physical withdrawal and you should seek medical advice and supervision for this. If you’re not sure whether you’re physically addicted but suspect that you might be, please do go and see your GP.

Signs of a healthy relationship

We know the importance of healthy relationships intuitively. When we feel connected in our communities and with our friends, we feel happier, experience less depression and anxiety and find greater joy in living, even when we are on our own. We have lower blood pressure, are less likely to develop stress related illnesses and recover better from grief and trauma.

One study, for example, found that lack of close relationships in later life increased the risk of premature death by 50%, a rate comparable with smoking.

Our closest relationships have the biggest effect on our happiness. So how do we know that we are falling in love with someone that is good for us? Or whether our friendships are nourishing and strong?

Here are some signs that you are in a healthy relationship:

You like yourself

Someone very wise once asked me; “But do you like you when you’re with them?” It is easy to focus on what we like about the other person, but how do they make us feel about ourselves?

You feel good (mostly) after you connect with them

Watch how you feel after seeing them; do you feel happy, energised, sad, peaceful, ashamed, depleted?

You have your own space

There is room for you to pursue your own life, interests and relationships outside of the the main relationship. And even more than that, it is actively encouraged; both of you understand that your lives ‘outside’ draw nourishment into the relationship and keep it, and you, healthy.

You both prioritise the relationship

Togetherness is important to you both. You like spending time together and take care of each other’s feelings.

You can say ‘No’

Your partner respects your boundaries. You can say ‘No’ without being coerced, threatened, shamed or manipulated.

You can talk about the difficult stuff

It is ordinary to need to have conversations that are tricky; in a relationship, you are navigating two people’s different experiences, wants and needs. Life can be complicated, with children and parents and finances and work, and all the other various complexities that we experience as we go along. You need to be able to have the difficult conversations in a way that is constructive.

There is room for both of you in the relationship

You both, reasonably speaking, should ‘count’. Although of course there will be times of stress where one partner needs more, there should ordinarily be room for each of you to draw on the supportive presence of the other.

You can argue

This follows on from the last two points; you should be able to argue, or at least disagree, knowing that this will not break your relationship. And you do this (mostly) in a way that is not destructive. And if you do err, there is space for you both to apologise and move on.

You feel/are safe

This is a big one. There is no room for physical, psychological or sexual abuse in a loving relationship. If you are, or you fear you might be experiencing any of these, seek more information and specialist support if necessary. A good relationship is one where you feel safe. Where you feel kindness, rather than contempt, both for and from your partner.

(This is said with the caveat that sometimes, when we have experienced abuse in a previous relationship, we can experience current relationships as more threatening then they are. We become wired for protection rather than connection. It might be appropriate to seek specialist support if you feel that this is the case so you can unpick what is past and what is present.)

To conclude

The above is not to suggest that we should be perfectly happy and perfectly balanced at all times in our relationships. Life can be hard and wearing, and inevitably, these times have an impact on our closest relationships.

But despite that we should know that when the chips are down, those closest to us have our backs.

Why is it so hard to change? The hidden costs of behaviour change

Take a look at why it might be so hard to change that behaviour, and some tips that might help

Sometimes, we might have a behaviour that we want to change, but never quite manage to actually do it. It could be that you have never taken actual action, have tried repeatedly but keep ‘relapsing’ or that you manage to change for a while but it doesn’t stick.

You might have a habit of people-pleasing, or struggle to give yourself a rest from working too hard. Maybe you find that you don’t reply to your correspondence in a timely fashion, or repeatedly don’t do a particular task Or it may be something bigger; smoking, over or under eating, or drinking too much.

If so, read on.

The Good

It can be easy to focus simply on how good it will feel when we do finally get around to doing that thing, how free we will feel, how light. How competent. How clean. How much time or money we might have. How we will feel better.

Now, I’m not saying that all of those things will not be true. If you smoke and you want to give up, for example, there will likely be a myriad of benefits when you finally do; you’ll feel healthier, your lungs will start to recover, you’ll reduce your chance of getting a number of cancers, your clothes won’t smell, you won’t have to plan your day around smoking, you’ll be able to go out for dinner without sneaking off to have a sneaky fag (or wanting to). And so on.

In fact, it is important to know these things. Being able to imagine them gives you a powerful incentive to change.

List these. Hang onto them. REMEMBER them.

The Costs of Change

However, chances are, there will also be a hidden cost to giving up that you might not have spent so much time considering. If this is the case, it might help to look at the following too:

What might I lose if I give this up / do this thing / don’t do this thing?
What will I need to face if I do change?

Make a list: it might be that all your friends smoke, and you’ll miss their company. Or that you’ll miss the break and the silence in the noise of socialising, the opportunity to dip out for a moment and collect yourself. It might be that you smoke to curb your appetite, and you’ll need to face your hunger, or you’re frightened you’ll put on weight.

List them all. Every one.

Make a plan

So now you know what you’re frightened of, avoiding, or worrying about. You can make a plan, or sit with the grief of whatever it is you’re losing.

You might find that you don’t smoke with your friends, but that you find other ways of connecting with them, over coffee or dinner. You might find you need to factor in time out into your socialising, if you’re an introvert, or that you need to find another way to de-stress. You might need to enlist specialist support around your fear of putting on weight.

Some questions to ask yourself in this stage are:

What skills might I need to learn in order to get where I want to be?
What support might I need to enlist?
Are there other changes that I can make that will make it easier to achieve my goal?
Can I break it down into ‘mini’ goals?

It’s fine to fail

This might seem a funny thing to say, but I mean it. Sometimes, we can’t quite know what we are avoiding until we actually stop the thing we want to stop.

So you don’t need to give up, or beat yourself up for not doing it this time. You can use it to learn more about what you’re struggling with, and adjust accordingly. It can take repeated attempts to change, particularly if it’s something really big or difficult.

When to get professional help

You don’t have to be at rock bottom to seek help. It is valid to reach out for support if you’re finding something tricky, or you’d like a professional opinion. Or indeed, it is fine to go the self-help route if that’s what appeals.

However, if you find whatever you’re struggling with is causing you serious unhappiness, distress or worry or is escalating badly, it is worth considering getting some more specialised help. Particularly if it is beginning to get in the way of you living your life; going to work, having close relationships with families and friends, etc.

There are lots of brilliant resources out there; therapists and the like, groups, charities, internet forums… seek out what meets your needs practically, emotionally and financially. It’s fine for this to change as your needs do too.

Take care, and good luck.

Making friends with your inner critic: 6 tips to be gentler on yourself

My most recent article for the the Counselling Directory. So many of us really struggle with our inner critic, click here for some tips to help you soften yours.

Learning to trust yourself after an emotionally abusive relationship

One of the hardest things about emotional abuse, I think, is that the campaign of blame, undermining, criticism and gaslighting causes you lose trust in your own self.

This is true even if you are aware of what is happening. I have met many people who were aware of the tactics their other was using, but because of the drip, drip effect of emotional and psychological abuse (and the isolation that often co-exists with an experience of abuse) it affected their relationship with themselves in deep and profound ways.

In this article, I am going to unpick how the power dynamic of an abusive relationship damages our relationship with ourselves. (Of course, it also damages our relationships with others, but that’s a post for another day). I will also look at some ways you can learn to trust yourself again.

Abusers dominate. They control. Often emotional abuse is supported by other kinds of abuse, like physical, or sexual, but it does not need to be to have a profound and disturbing effect on us. Where other kinds of abuse are present, emotional abuse always, always is.

In many ways, emotional abuse can be more complicated to heal from because you can’t see the bruises. I frequently hear people saying; ‘but it seems so petty’. But they are not hurting because their loved one said or did something awful once (which would be enough), emotional abuse is a sustained and relentless campaign of awful things, over and over again, until you can no longer believe that this is not normal. It is a pattern. Not an event.

The pattern of abuse does something profound to us; it alienates us from ourselves; we are social creatures who are excellent at adjusting ourselves in order to relate with lots of different people, in lots of different ways, all of whom will be different in their personality, background, and culture. We need to be good at this to move about in the world with any kind of ease.

In an abusive relationship, we do what we do well; we adjust, but then we adjust again, and again, and again… until we entirely lose ourselves.

You might see this manifest in a few key ways:

You lose trust in your feelings and perceptions, because they have been so frequently invalidated or dismissed. Equally, it may actually have been dangerous (emotionally or physically) to express certain feelings, such as anger.
You feel overly guilty / responsible. This is because you have been blamed so often for things that you couldn’t reasonably be held accountable for.
You internalise the idea that you are ‘less than’ other people, and automatically take the ‘one down’ position in relationships.

Regaining trust in yourself

We move through the world using information from those around us, as well as our own inner sensing. When we’ve been dominated, controlled, belittled and dismissed, this balance can become disrupted, leaving us either overly reliant on others (either other’s perception of us, or we think they know best), or reliant only on ourselves (because it seems that nobody else will ever reliably be there). Or we may switch between the two, stuck between a shame filled rock and a lonely hard place.

In my experience, healing happens in two stages: We learn to hear our inner wisdom, and then we learn to trust it. Below I explore some things that might help. As you go through, I invite you to listen to your body wisdom; which ones speak to you?

Get creative

A private, creative space – however that looks for you – can be the perfect way of learning to trust that wise, inner voice. Draw, write, collage, sew, sing. It doesn’t matter how it looks, what matters is the leap into the unknown. You can’t fail at this.

Get to know what it’s like to be in your body

Feelings are in our bodies, so reconnecting with our bodies can help strengthen and stabilise us. If you’ve learned to disconnect / dissociate this can be enormously challenging.* Therefore, go slowly, ease yourself in.

Start with kindness, good sensations. A hot shower or bath, exercise (however that looks for you), a soft jumper, a good pair of socks, running your hands through your hair, ice cream, the wind on your face, an ice cube on your tongue on a hot day… whatever feels good for you in your body will help you reconnect. And when we reconnect through one avenue, we deepen our whole connection with ourselves.

Experiment! Be playful, and creative.

* A note about trauma; if you find yourself becoming flooded or overwhelmed, or if you begin to dissociate, stop, regroup, and steady yourself as a priority.

Trust yourself in the ‘small things’

Start by making what feel like small decisions, but really listen for what you want. It might be just asking yourself what you would like for dinner, or whether you would like to read a book or watch TV in this next moment. Then, when you think you have an answer, try it out.

Watch your process. Do you feel scared to commit yourself to the decision in case it is ‘wrong’, or that judgement will rain down on you for it? Or does it feel unbearably vulnerable, or do you feel guilty, ashamed, or do you second guess yourself. Practice breathing through the feelings, letting them wash over you. Sometimes it can help to speak reassuringly to yourself as you would a small child; ‘it’s okay sweetheart’, ‘it’s fine to do x or choose y’, ‘whatever you choose will be right’ or ‘you can’t do this wrong’.

Let yourself experiment. It’s about getting to know yourself as a decision maker, how you like to make decisions, and what it brings up for you. And it gets easier with practice, I promise.

Cultivate non-abusive relationships

Wherever you can find them, cultivate relationships with people that listen to you and want to know what you feel and what you like. People who treat you as an equal. We ‘take in’ how we are treated, so if we surround ourselves with people that treat us as an equal, who don’t judge, criticize, undermine or gaslight us, then we internalise – on a deep, implicit level – that we are worth listening to. We heal by osmosis.

This can be where therapy is particularly useful, as it gives us a chance to practice in a safe relationship. One where we are (hopefully) in charge, listened to, where it matters what we think and feel. And we can work through all the feelings, the grief and the anger and the everything, that this brings up, as we go, in the safety of the therapeutic relationship. (For guidance on how to choose a counsellor when dealing with issues of abuse, please see my post here.)

If you can’t afford therapy, there are often low cost services that will be able to help.

Finally

It is important to note that if you are in a dangerous situation or relationship, please act in the way that best ensures your safety. There are places that can offer you specialist support to deal with what you’re experiencing, or help you to find a way out if you want that: please call the National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247.

Dare to be average: on dealing with perfectionism in social anxiety

Ellen Hendriksen writes in her book on Social Anxiety, ‘How to Be Yourself’, that part of what drives social anxiety is a kind of social perfectionism.

Perfectionism. Well, it’s all about being perfect; impossibly high standards that one rarely manages to quite meet, leaving you in a cycle of unsteady highs followed by shame, self-criticism and depression, all against the backdrop of ever-increasing anxiety.

Hendriksen contends that Social Anxiety is insecurity in social situations in part because you experience particular social situations as a sort of test, or a performance. This, combined with the expectation that you will ‘perform’ perfectly; be witty, charming, perfectly attuned, graceful, and never, ever make a social faux pas, or be boring or boorish, creates an impossible double bind.

The pain of this is twofold, how we feel about ourselves (shame, self-hatred etc), and how incredibly, heartbreakingly lonely it can be to feel disconnected from our fellow humans.

How we (unwittingly) keep ourselves stuck

We make our anxiety worse for ourselves in a number of ways; we over-prepare, rehearsing late into the night to the point of insomnia, and imagine catastrophic outcomes (thinking, of course, that all of these things will help us).

Actually, research shows that for social anxiety, instead of helping us prepare, thinking about all the ways that things can go wrong actually causes more anxiety. Which in turn, causes us to be even less okay in social situations, causing more shame and self-criticism and then again, more attempts to prepare and cover up our awkwardness, leading to more anxiety, and so on..

Some tips; release the pressure

Social anxiety is something that can be healed. It is not a life sentence. That doesn’t mean that you will reach a point that you will never feel anxiety (I believe that is called a ‘psychopath’!) but that you can reach a point where you are not ruled by your fear. Where you can tolerate, manage it, and where it also reduces to a manageable level.

You could start by Daring to be Average (thanks again Ellen Hendriksen!). I appreciate this might sound odd, but where perfectionism is keeping you stuck, you could begin to experiment with letting yourself off the hook a little. Reducing your expectations by half, maybe. Allow spaces to happen in the conversation, allow yourself to be boring, self-absorbed, quiet, imperfect; whatever it is you’re scared of. You could even try to be boring!

The most skilled socialisers don’t socialise flawlessly, they are just not thrown when they make a ‘mistake’, if they say the wrong word or can’t find what they mean, if their story meanders, or their joke doesn’t land as they thought it would. They can smile, maybe joke about it; “that was longer than I thought; phew!” or “haha, it was definitely funnier in my head!”. They dare to ‘fail’, and usually, people like them for it.

What you will probably find, by daring to be average, is that you are more natual, and that people will like you more, not less.

Another tip is; Stay Out of their Heads. Whatever you think other people are thinking, it’s probably not true. And it’s likely to be a lot more positive than you think it is.

For example, when you think about the last time you met someone who was visibly anxious, what was your response? I would imagine it’s somewhere on the empathy spectrum; you might feel sympathy for them, knowing how hard it is when you’re anxious, or you might feel a desire to put them at ease or help, you might be rooting for them to come through it. You are unlikely to be thinking they are an idiot, or weird, or disgusting, or whatever it is that you think that people are thinking of you.

Fourthly; Don’t go down the Rabbit Hole. (Whatever your particular rabbit hole is.) Whether it’s an unrelenting post-mortem of all the things that you said or did ‘wrong’, the conviction that you have nobody, that everyone thinks you’re strange, that you have no friends; whatever it is, try not to go there. Anxiety drives anxiety. The more you worry, the more anxious you’ll get, and the more you will therefore feel you need to worry. It starts with the first thought.

Or before you do something difficult try and remember a time (or more than one) where you were authentic, strong, spoke from your values. Research shows us that much more than affirmations, remembering a time when were stood up for something we believed in (even if it’s entirely unrelated) helps us to be more ourselves in social situations.

And lastly, increase your feelings of general security and connectedness and think of three relationships, be they people (fictional, imaginary or real), or animals that exemplify nurture to you, warmth and joy and love, and think about those. Think on each in turn. Allow yourself to luxuriate in the feeling of love and connection, allow yourself to feel what it would feel like to be accepted, treasured, you could create an imaginary person who would be your perfect support. If it brings up sadness or loss that is overwhelming, try a different attachment figure. Do this repeatedly, and not necessarily when you’re already shaky. It’s likely to be easier to settle your system when your feelings are heightened if you practice first when you’re in a calm place.

If you find yourself stuck, it can be worth enlisting support on your journey; a therapist, a therapy group, a support group, an internet forum. Whatever it looks like for you. Good luck. Go well.

Self-blame and emotional abuse

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An almost universal response to being abused is to turn the blame inwards.

Sometimes we internalise the abuser’s words, or the names that we are called. Or instead we believe the negative qualities that are attributed to us. Or because we are told ‘it’ is our fault, over and over again, we begin to feel responsible for whatever ‘it’ is.

The results of this play out in two ways; we develop ways of relating with the world and ourselves that cause us problems in our lives, and/or we can develop pockets of trauma or shame. I’ll look at both of these separately, and also look at how you can help your own healing from self-blame if you have been in, or still are in, an abusive relationship.

Relational dynamics

The abuser blames the other; “it’s your fault, you made me do this”. We may hear this either said explicitly or it may be subtler; implied instead of spoken. The look, the sigh, the eye roll. In my experience, even if you can see this happening, it still has an effect on you (although not as big an effect as if you are not aware of it).

The abuser takes our healthy, pro-social process of taking responsibility for ourselves, and turns it into a way of gaining and maintaining control over us.

We then start to believe that we are responsible for the feelings and actions of others; we actually start to relate to other people in the way that we relate to the abuser.

You may not even be conscious of blaming yourself; this is the tricky bit, you may feel that you are actually at fault. It may even feel wrong to not hold yourself responsible in this way.

Healing can be scary, because to do this we probably have to face why we adjusted our behaviour in the first place. It involves beginning to trust people again, to believe that the rules that we learned in our abusive relationship are not, actually, transferable to the ‘real’ world, and that we will need to learn or relearn how to be *vulnerable again in a way that is healthy.

(*Vulnerable means different things to different people, I think. For some, vulnerable means just that, learning to be soft where it is appropriate to be, but for others, to be vulnerable means to be assertive. You’ll know best what you habitually find hard.)

Triggered into shame

Another way that we continue to be hurt by an abusive relationship is when we are ‘triggered’ back into the trauma. Someone says or does something that reminds us of what our original abuser did to us (we may or may not be conscious of being triggered), and we find ourselves flipped right back into those unbearable trauma-feelings of shame, self-hatred and guilt.

If you find yourself triggered in this way, take a look at the list below. Some of this might help. Different things will help at different times, so experiment and see what works for you:

What was the trigger? See if you can separate the past from the present, sometimes this is enough to allow you to respond appropriately in the moment. Saying to yourself ‘it’s a memory’ in a gentle, reassuring tone can help.
Take a moment, breathe deeply, steady yourself if you can, or excuse yourself if you need to. Give yourself some choices about how you respond.
Let yourself be scared/hurt/ashamed. It may not feel appropriate to the present situation, but it’s real that you feel it, and it likely makes sense in the light of your past. When you’ve allowed it, it might help to put your hand on your heart, gently, and say to yourself – either aloud or in your mind – whatever it is you need to hear; ‘it’s not your fault’, ‘you’re safe now, even if you don’t feel it’, ‘I love you’. (Try and come from a gentle, loving place, or imagine a dependable other – real or imagined – saying it to you with great, real compassion.)
Let yourself off the hook if you weren’t able to respond in the moment as you would have wished; being triggered can make it really hard. Your body kicks into a trauma/survival response that is beyond your conscious control (fight / flight / freeze), plus the shame you’re feeling probably was part of the original trauma anyway.
*Write about it / talk it through with a safe friend or therapist. If you’re writing about it, see if you can call to mind a compassionate other and let yourself open to their compassion and understanding. (Even if you feel nothing, or feel sad, or angry, that’s fine; breathe, sit with it, allow it to flow through you. What’s important is that you are allowing yourself to be held in your hurt.)
Imagine how you might successfully respond to being triggered, then let it go. Just imagining yourself navigating it well can begin to strengthen different neural pathways, as the brain doesn’t really differentiate between internal and external experiences. This will give you a better chance at dealing with it differently next time.

*A word about safety; with trauma, sometimes it is far more appropriate to distract and comfort rather than engage with the trauma head on. So if you find yourself getting too dysregulated or overwhelmed when trying to unpick it, drop it and find a way to soothe yourself. Call a (safe) friend, watch or read something comforting, imagine yourself held in a gentle, healing light or by a gentle, healing other – imagined or real. Investigate and experiment with what makes you feel comforted, and under what circumstances.

If you find yourself consistently being triggered and aren’t able to navigate it yourself, therapy can be a useful tool.

Other ways to help yourself heal

Knowledge is power

Read about emotional abuse, how it happens, what it looks like. If you know what is happening, you can at least begin to unpick it. There are lots of amazing resources out there; books, articles, podcasts, internet forums.

When we are in an abusive relationship, their perspective tends to dominate; it is a process similar to that seen in cults, for example. You usually have access to limited information, so as well as researching abuse, you could start talking to safe friends, or a therapist, or a helpline, or an internet support group about what is happening in your relationship. Try and allow yourself to consider these other perspectives, and see if you can figure out what you think too (if you don’t already know).

Give the responsibility for the abuse back

You can give the abuser back the responsibilty for their actions, and you can understand your reactions (at least in part) as a response to living in a confusing, frightening and sometimes dangerous situation.

Humans are wired to respond in certain ways to certain stimuli; there’s nothing wrong with you for responding however you did; whether that was to fight back, to argue, to use emotionally abusive tactics yourself, to dissociate, or however else you protected yourself (physically or emotionally).

Try and access some self-compassion

Watch how you talk to yourself; would you talk to a friend like that? How can you understand your feelings and actions in a gentle, non-blaming, non-shaming way?

Sharing with a safe other can really help. If you are feeling particularly ashamed or churned up, therapy can be really useful as a way of gaining insight into yourself, your responses and your actions. The increased understanding of yourself often aids self-acceptance, if you can allow yourself to take it in.

Set boundaries / take appropriate responsibility for yourself

People who have been bullied, shamed or coerced in abusive relationships often really struggle to stand up for themselves; they either go into fight or people please mode. So you might want to work on becoming more assertive and less passive, aggressive, or passive aggressive. (These are all responses to not being able to state your wishes, feelings, thoughts and needs openly and having to hide or fight for these things.)

If you are still in your abusive relationship, do be thoughtful about setting boundaries in this relationship. Often abusers will escalate their abusive behaviour in order to regain control. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t make changes if you want to, more that you might want to make sure you are prepared for a difficult road if you do, and get enough internal and external resources to support you.

Note: If your relationship is physically abusive – or you fear it might become so – please do seek specialist advice. It can be very dangerous to challenge a violent or potentially violent abuser.

Self-care

I put this at the end, not because it is the least important, but because it is the most important part of your journey. Treat yourself as valuable, use your time wisely or watch terrible TV if that’s what you need. Move your body in a way that makes you feel good, invest in relationships that make you feel good, take care of yourself in relationships that don’t. Follow your dreams, pay your bills, take care of your responsibilities or let go of the responsibilities that you have picked up unnecessarily. Say yes more or say no more, be more present for your loved ones or be more present for yourself. Grieve. Laugh. Take up a hobby, let one drop. Let yourself off the hook, or hold yourself accountable (kindly).

Sometimes simply to survive is all we can do, at others we will feel we can reach the moon. Only you will know what self-care looks like in any given moment for you, and what looks like self-care for one person can be the opposite for another. Find your own way, according to the needs of the moment.

And last but not least: Build yourself a network

Everyone needs a network. As social creatures, I think that we all need to feel rooted in some way, so deepen (or find) your tribe, in person, online, a support group, and connect with them in a way that suits you. It will help you not only feel grounded, but also gives you more opportunity to ‘take in the good’ of other people’s kindness, to allow yourself to feel loved and valued and safe in relationships, and safe and held in the world.

Good luck, and take care. You’ve got this.

Supporting a friend or loved one who is experiencing intimate partner abuse

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It can be so hard to watch someone that you love being treated badly by their partner, and harder still to understand why they stay. You may find yourself frustrated, sad, angry, depressed, irritated and feeling powerless.

The truth is, they also may not understand why they stay. Or, they may be torn, caught between loving their partner, but also hating the way that they are sometimes (or frequently) treated. They may be financially dependent, or had their self-esteem chipped away little by little so they have no strength to leave, or they may truly struggle to believe that they can make it on their own.

So, my first principle is: Meet them where they are at

By this, I mean: let them be where they are. If they want to leave, support that. If they want to make it work, accept that too. You don’t have to like it, but if you can, try to support them in their decisions as best as you are able.

Abuse is essentially a relational power-grab; their partner is likely to be undermining and controlling, and so, although it may seem counterintuitive to support them in their decision to stay, you need to behave differently to the abuser.

Trust them. Allow them space to make their own decisions. Be supportive. But be careful not to step into the role of rescuer. It’s a fine line, but an important one.

My second is: Be genuine

This may seem to contradict the above point, but I mean; you don’t need to lie about your concern for them.

In fact, it may be really important for you to express your genuine misgivings about the way that they are being treated. In this way, you can help provide a barometer of what is normal and healthy behaviour in a relationship.

Do be careful not to be too vocal in your condemnation of their partner though; a good rule of thumb is to comment on their behaviour, not them as a person.

Understand that they will likely have positive feelings for their partner

It is likely that they experience both positive and negative feelings for their partner. This can be really hard to tolerate, but if you shut out their positive feelings they may find it harder to talk to you.

Be a positive, loving force

Don’t feel that you need to talk about ‘the problem’ all the time. You can be a space for them to breathe, to laugh, to be free. It might be really important for you to provide some much needed relief from what they are dealing with at home.

The relationship is about you too, allow yourself to be as free and authentically you as you can be with them.

Keep yourself safe

Depending how dangerous their partner is, you may need to think about your own safety. If you witness an act of violence, absolutely call the police.

It is also important for you to look after your emotional needs too; you are not responsible for your loved one*, so it is fine for you to engage as much or as little as you are comfortable with and if it becomes too much, it really is fine for you to back away.

Your presence may itself threaten the abuser’s control

One tactic abusers use frequently is isolating their victims from sources of support in order to better keep control. Therefore, be aware that your presence in your loved one’s life may undermine the control over the abuser, which may in turn cause them to try to undermine your relationship. This may make it tricky for your loved one to see you.

They may never leave

As much as you would like them to, sometimes people never leave their abusive relationships; or they may leave, only to return again. This can be sad and painful, and difficult to see, but it doesn’t make your presence any less important in their life. In fact, your very presence holds a door to the outside world open, and may even make it more likely that they end the relationship in time.

If they are thinking about leaving

Encourage your loved one to seek specialist advice; leaving, and the months immediately afterwards is known to be the most dangerous time in an abusive relationship. Seeking expert advice will help them to plan for a safer exit.

Look after yourself

Keep a focus on your life, the activities and people that bring you joy and that give your existence meaning and vitality. Tend to your affairs. You need to be steady before you can be someone else’s rock.

If you find yourself struggling to deal with your anxiety for your friend or loved one, there’s no shame in seeking support for yourself. There are plenty of professionals out there who will be able to support you, which may in turn make it easier for you to support your loved one.

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* Unless they are a child or a ‘vulnerable’ adult due to learning difficulties or severe mental health problems, in which case I would recommend seeking specialist advice around safeguarding.

Why abuse isn’t an ‘anger’ issue

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The terms victim and abuser are very imperfect, and I acknowledge that. You may also note that I tend to define the abuser as male and the victim as female. I use these terms for readability, but please do substitute your own language if this doesn’t fit with your preference or experience.

It is a common misunderstanding that abuse is an issue with anger, and if an abuser could gain control of their anger, they would no longer be abusive. However, this explanation misses something crucial;

Abusers have abusive expectations, and then they get angry when these expectations are not met. Abusers are coercively controlling, using anger as a means to gain and maintain power and control in their relationship.

Anger, acted out in an abusive relationship, can therefore be more usefully understood as a problem of entitlement and a need to be in control rather than a problem of anger.

Anger in this context can be displayed in two ways: passive aggressively, or aggressively. It is often easier to spot the more obvious displays of anger; violence, threats, destroying possessions and yelling, to name a few. Harder to spot are the subtler displays of anger; the criticism ‘for your own good’, the sulking, the mess left ‘accidentally on purpose’, and the kids who have not been put to bed yet, even though it’s well past their bedtime.

Aggressive or violent displays of anger

If my partner punches me because I have not done the washing up to his standards, it might seem that he lacks control of his anger (indeed, he may actively encourage me to think this), however:

His anger arises from the ‘abusive expectation’ that he should be the one who decides how the washing up needs to be done.
His belief (conscious or not) that he is entitled to use force / violence / coercive tactics to get me to do what he wants.
A wider relational dynamic where he believes he is entitled to be in charge, or that I need to be controlled.
That it is my responsibility to prioritise his feelings (in this instance, his wish to have a clean kitchen) at the expense of my needs and rights within the relationship (in this instance, my personal autonomy, and my human right to live a life free from violence and fear).

Passive aggressive / emotionally abusive displays of anger

They may display their anger in a variety of ways: sulking, manipulation (drawing on your empathy, making you feel sorry for them), pressure, love-bombing, stalking, harrassment, or punishing you in a variety of other ways.

If we take the example of a man who doesn’t want his partner to go out (jealousy is common in abusive relationships); he might tell her he’s fine with it, but his behaviour will demonstrate otherwise: he might tell you he doesn’t like your friends, they’re not good enough for you, come back in drunk the next night to punish you because he knows you don’t like it, ‘have’ to work late on the day when you share a car so you can’t go without him being home, text you incessantly when you finally get out, and then sulk for days afterwards but deny that he is sulking.

What makes it a problem of entitlement and control is the following:

His ‘abusive expectation’ that he should be the one to decide where you go, who you see, and what you do
The idea that he is entitled to use underhand & coercive tactics to achieve his aims
A wider relational dynamic where he feels entitled to be in charge, and;
That it is your responsibility to look after his feelings (in this instance, jealousy) at the expense of your needs and rights within the relationship (in this instance, personal freedom)

I use the example of an intimate partner relationship, but obviously abuse can take place in all sorts of other relationships too. For example, issue of entitlement can be complicated in the case of parent-to-child abuse where the parent’s ordinary responsibility for taking care of, ensuring the safety of, and disciplining their child can sometimes be hard to separate from coercive control and abusive expectations. However, at the heart of all abusive relationships is the issue of power and control; abusers try to dominate their victims using a variety of methods, including manipulation, violence, aggression, blackmail, criticism, gaslighting and (faux-)kindness. In contrast, to use a Winnicottian phrase, ‘Good enough’ parents try to take into account their children’s desires, needs and feelings and do their best to act from a place of empathy when they have to set boundaries, rather than use blame and criticism (although they certainly don’t always get it right).

Therefore, displays of anger can be both understood in the context of the wider use of abusive tactics, and also as arising out of inappropriate expectations of the other.

Some abusers really do have hair trigger tempers, and could usefully engage with anger management techniques, but this would need to be within the context of a specialist Domestic Violence Perpetrator Programme and not an anger management course. (Anger Management course can actually escalate abusers’ behaviour because of their emphasis on shared responsibility for conflict.)

Controlling, but not taking responsibility for their feelings

Interestingly, where abusers so often take control within relationships, they usually also don’t take responsibility for their abuse or their anger. A common justification that an abuser will use is ‘I just saw red’ or ‘I couldn’t help it, my jealously was so strong’. Or they will blame their victim ‘you shouldn’t have gone out / talked to that man / looked up from the floor’.

This reallocates the responsibility towards the victim for managing the abuser’s feelings, while keeping the locus of control firmly in the abuser’s hands. So, they have the control but none of the responsibility, and the victim is left looking to the abuser for how she should think, act, feel and behave.

In contrast, for an abuser to have a meaningful recovery from being abusive, there must be a consistent, repeated attempt to take responsibility for one’s own actions while letting go of their control over their victim’s thoughts, feelings, actions and behaviour. Most abusers are very good at saying sorry; meaning it, and undertaking a consistent and sustained change in their behaviour is usually another matter entirely.

If you are in an abusive relationship, as ever, focus on your safety first. The National Domestic Abuse Helpline can be contacted on 0808 2000 247, they should be able to point you in the direction of some suitable help if you are in an abusive relationship or struggling with the after effects.

Good luck, and take good care of yourself.

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Please do note that violence does not need to be a part of an abusive relationship. Emotionally and psychologically abusive relationships can be extremely damaging in and of themselves. Seek appropriate help if you are struggling, therapy can be a useful resource, the internet can be a good source of information and enable you to find online and offline support networks.