I am curious. Looking at my history overall it consists of sexual abuse as a child (ages 6-8) at the hands of a neighbor "babysitter", the turmoil of physical/emnotional abuse in an alcoholic home until age 16, my high school prom date turned stalker at age 17/18 and then the sexual harrassment from my boss when I was in my early twenties. To top it off, my first love turned out to be gay. Is it any wonder I have never been able to commit to a relationship? Look at the messages I got about men/sex my whole life....Has anyone else noticed this kind of pattern in their life?
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Constant Victims?
- Post starter kimba
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Lucycat
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I see a pattern in my life too.
However I believe that because I was a victim from the age 7 I expected it to be like that. I allowed myself to be vulnerable because I thought I was behaving normally. I am no longer blaming myself for that, but think I was 'programmed' to be a victim in earlier years.
I am much stronger now, with much more understanding of my behaviour. If you like I have finally taken 'ownership' of being me. I will never be a victim again.
However I believe that because I was a victim from the age 7 I expected it to be like that. I allowed myself to be vulnerable because I thought I was behaving normally. I am no longer blaming myself for that, but think I was 'programmed' to be a victim in earlier years.
I am much stronger now, with much more understanding of my behaviour. If you like I have finally taken 'ownership' of being me. I will never be a victim again.
Definite pattern and I really relate to your post kimba. It's felt like I've had a sign on my head saying, "Abuse welcome here".
I totally agree with Brucielucy's post too.
"I am much stronger now, with much more understanding of my behaviour. If you like I have finally taken 'ownership' of being me. I will never be a victim again."
Me too. It feels good. :)
I totally agree with Brucielucy's post too.
"I am much stronger now, with much more understanding of my behaviour. If you like I have finally taken 'ownership' of being me. I will never be a victim again."
Me too. It feels good. :)
I don't think I "expected" to be a victim but I sure did leave myself open to situations or was drawn towards unhealthy people and things in ways that I could not explain at the time. I was a type of angry wtf type of preteen/teen/adult, though I was victimized over and over. I saw these as, oddly situations I needed to learn from once I managed to get out of them. By that I mean I needed to protect myself better, spot these type of people better.
I had long since split apart within, the logical part knew this was so wrong but the victim part said choose me! I am putting myself together. Several years ago I managed to put the two together long enough to see what was going on and 'get it'. I made some solid decisions of "NO MORE!!" in most areas.
Great post!
Rain
I had long since split apart within, the logical part knew this was so wrong but the victim part said choose me! I am putting myself together. Several years ago I managed to put the two together long enough to see what was going on and 'get it'. I made some solid decisions of "NO MORE!!" in most areas.
Great post!
Rain
Deaf Global Nomad
Platinum Member
I can totally relate to being a regular victim... I quite literally feel like I have a sign on my forehead that says "VICTIM." In sign language you can express that perfectly. You fingerspell the word directly on your forehead. The earlier we experience victimization and the more often abuse takes place in which our boundaries are crossed, the more strongly this message is etched into our identities and personalities. By experiencing this etching it gives us the message and teaches us how to be victims. By etching this into our identities and personalities I absolutely do NOT mean that we cannot change this. As several of you have stated, you have either succeeded in freeing yourselves from this identity and personality trait or are in the process of doing so. My applause goes out to you! :applause:
I just recently had a realization or learning experience in real life that makes me totally aware how important it is to work on those boundaries. My most recent PCA has taken advantage of and then threatened me when I tried to speak up. Luckily I have a number of service providers who are supportive, helpful, and trustworthy professionals (e.g. my therapist, an ILS worker, and a casemanager). I now need to really ask them to help me address my vulnerabilities and current weakness at setting up my own boundaries. Ironically, I can see and respect others' boundaries. Just setting up my own is really complex.
My question to all of you who have succeeded in setting up these boundaries or are in the process of working on this journey is: "How do I begin this journey?" I am willing to work hard and do anything necessary to acquire these skills. Any suggestions?
I just recently had a realization or learning experience in real life that makes me totally aware how important it is to work on those boundaries. My most recent PCA has taken advantage of and then threatened me when I tried to speak up. Luckily I have a number of service providers who are supportive, helpful, and trustworthy professionals (e.g. my therapist, an ILS worker, and a casemanager). I now need to really ask them to help me address my vulnerabilities and current weakness at setting up my own boundaries. Ironically, I can see and respect others' boundaries. Just setting up my own is really complex.
My question to all of you who have succeeded in setting up these boundaries or are in the process of working on this journey is: "How do I begin this journey?" I am willing to work hard and do anything necessary to acquire these skills. Any suggestions?
I totally agree!! I felt so self-conscious/ashamed of the number of times I've been abused and the number of abusers that I have 'to my name', as if it's my black mark. My therapist explained to me that to be abused from such an early age, from such a dysfunctional family, it would actually be surprising if I had escaped through life with just the one.
To be honest I view my first 20 years as including at least one form of abuse at any given time - and oftentimes it was more than one form of abuse by more than one abuser. The way I understand it now is that my childhood, first abuse, and dysfunctional family brought me up in a world whereby boundaries barely existed at all. This left me vulnerable. And it's vulnerability that abusers look for, therefore every potential abuser I came into contact with successfully abused my vulnerability and me in the process. I had no idea I was even being abused a lot of the time because I knew no different. When I did know something wrong was going on, I got the clear messages that the only thing wrong was me. So I tried harder to be 'better', not knowing or seeing my own vulnerability and that the responsibility did not all come down to me as a child, and in the case of abuse, it is not the child's fault they are vulnerable in the first place, or that they (and anyone) was then left more vulnerable after the abuse, because of the psychological effects it leaves.
The frightening and sad reality is if there were no abusers in the world, then vulnerability wouldn't leave anyone open to having that vulnerability abused and none of us would be here trying to put ourselves back together. Because of abusers, I have to learn how to know when I am vulnerable, what my 'achilles heel' vulnerability is, and how to protect myslf when I feel arrows being fired in that direction -- whilst at the same time not overgeneralising so that so my ability to trust is not closed down. I'm angry that I have to do this at all, because it shouldn't be necessary. But it is and I've lost my innocence and naivity in having to realise that.
I can't say I've succeeded, but I am in the process. From what I've learned so far, the first thing is to know when you need to put your needs first, and then finding a way of doing that. Whenever a situation arises that makes you feel conflicted inside, listen to that and think about what it is that's bothering you. Is a boundary that you have within you emotionally about to be overstepped? Are you comfortable with this situation? How do YOU want this situation to be? Often, there's a boundary there which needs enforcing.
For instance, I have family wanting to come up and stay with me. For the first time in 6 years one of my brothers wants to come and visit. Whilst I am not strictly opposed to this... my situation is complicated at the moment and I'm actually feeling a need to have some distance in order to focus on myself, rather than get closer and have all my family visiting me! Any more visitors at the moment will throw my focus off, and I find my family so stressful to be around as it is. I feel extremely stressed at the thought. But when he asked me, he was being so nice I couldn't say no...
...I just sacrificed my need for someone else's want by not putting up a boundary and saying "It's not really the right time at the moment".
Now I have to think through what I'm going to do. If I allow them to come up, on what terms do I want that to be on? Do I want them to stay with me or stay in hotels? Or is it just too much right now and am I going to have to let them down? Normally I'd just give up at this point, roll over, feel bad about myself, dread and hate the situation that I'm being dragged through - without taking any control of the situation whatsoever. I haven't handled this situation perfectly, and ideally I should have just said no. But... what is done is done and now I'm focusing on either managing it how I want to, or cancelling it altogether. To me, this is boundary work.
Obviously that's quite a trite example, and there are more important boundaries necessary which involve how to tell whether you are in a relationship which is turning abusive, how to handle abusive people and situations and knowing what the nature of positive and negative relationships are. I think a lot of it comes down to trusting your feelings.
To be honest I view my first 20 years as including at least one form of abuse at any given time - and oftentimes it was more than one form of abuse by more than one abuser. The way I understand it now is that my childhood, first abuse, and dysfunctional family brought me up in a world whereby boundaries barely existed at all. This left me vulnerable. And it's vulnerability that abusers look for, therefore every potential abuser I came into contact with successfully abused my vulnerability and me in the process. I had no idea I was even being abused a lot of the time because I knew no different. When I did know something wrong was going on, I got the clear messages that the only thing wrong was me. So I tried harder to be 'better', not knowing or seeing my own vulnerability and that the responsibility did not all come down to me as a child, and in the case of abuse, it is not the child's fault they are vulnerable in the first place, or that they (and anyone) was then left more vulnerable after the abuse, because of the psychological effects it leaves.
The frightening and sad reality is if there were no abusers in the world, then vulnerability wouldn't leave anyone open to having that vulnerability abused and none of us would be here trying to put ourselves back together. Because of abusers, I have to learn how to know when I am vulnerable, what my 'achilles heel' vulnerability is, and how to protect myslf when I feel arrows being fired in that direction -- whilst at the same time not overgeneralising so that so my ability to trust is not closed down. I'm angry that I have to do this at all, because it shouldn't be necessary. But it is and I've lost my innocence and naivity in having to realise that.
I can't say I've succeeded, but I am in the process. From what I've learned so far, the first thing is to know when you need to put your needs first, and then finding a way of doing that. Whenever a situation arises that makes you feel conflicted inside, listen to that and think about what it is that's bothering you. Is a boundary that you have within you emotionally about to be overstepped? Are you comfortable with this situation? How do YOU want this situation to be? Often, there's a boundary there which needs enforcing.
For instance, I have family wanting to come up and stay with me. For the first time in 6 years one of my brothers wants to come and visit. Whilst I am not strictly opposed to this... my situation is complicated at the moment and I'm actually feeling a need to have some distance in order to focus on myself, rather than get closer and have all my family visiting me! Any more visitors at the moment will throw my focus off, and I find my family so stressful to be around as it is. I feel extremely stressed at the thought. But when he asked me, he was being so nice I couldn't say no...
...I just sacrificed my need for someone else's want by not putting up a boundary and saying "It's not really the right time at the moment".
Now I have to think through what I'm going to do. If I allow them to come up, on what terms do I want that to be on? Do I want them to stay with me or stay in hotels? Or is it just too much right now and am I going to have to let them down? Normally I'd just give up at this point, roll over, feel bad about myself, dread and hate the situation that I'm being dragged through - without taking any control of the situation whatsoever. I haven't handled this situation perfectly, and ideally I should have just said no. But... what is done is done and now I'm focusing on either managing it how I want to, or cancelling it altogether. To me, this is boundary work.
Obviously that's quite a trite example, and there are more important boundaries necessary which involve how to tell whether you are in a relationship which is turning abusive, how to handle abusive people and situations and knowing what the nature of positive and negative relationships are. I think a lot of it comes down to trusting your feelings.
Deaf Global Nomad
Platinum Member
DippyDory said:
This is awesome! I will try this over the next few days and work on this. I suspect it just not work that quickly. As with most things it probably takes some significant practice. Now that I have learned in therapy about how to feel, I think this sounds doable... I will definitely update on any news....
I am in the process of learning how to say no and freeing myself of the feeling of helplesness. These are my first steps. And I think everyone's first steps differ greatly, as we differ from one another. I don't think there's a "recipe" to being a victim, I think it's learnign some bad behaviors that make us that.
Do you do therapy? Have you brought this up with your therapist?
Do you do therapy? Have you brought this up with your therapist?
Deaf Global Nomad
Platinum Member
Nyx said:
Yes, I am in therapy twice a week with a wonderful therapist. I bring it up almost every session because something either sparks it (e.g. realizing that I found myself in trouble because I missed key clues) or I am simply not patient enough. I am just trying to do as much as I can because I love to learn and am curious...
Deaf Global Nomad
Platinum Member
My therapist and I have an entire long-term and short-term set up to work through. A huge chunk of the process is developing a gut sense for what is right and wrong (i.e. which people are safe, when people begin overstepping my boundaries). It has to be a gentle balance between learning how to stand up for myself but at the same time not beating myself up for having difficulty with these kinds of things. I am very quick to criticize myself, which then usually snowballs into a downward spiral. Mostly my therapist says these skills will come with time during therapy where I am learning to actually recognize my body sensations and then feelings. Once I learn to better recognize the sensations and feelings I can learn to act upon them to defend myself.
I'm not sure if I am able to explain everything that clearly, but during our sessions we work on many different things either simultaneously or subsequently (e.g. processing memories, feeling what sensations come up and where in my body, how to relax enough so that my frontal lobe does not shut down). It's kind of like a see-saw effect where I need to be activated enough to make it realistic for the real world, but without going into overdrive and then shut down. For me I feel like I'm sliding on ice through the experience, but have some barriers set up by the therapist. Bit by bit I recognize more of those situations.
The only problem is that practicing in theory in the therapist's office where I feel safe is much easier than in the real world. So I realize I have quite a while to practice.
I'm not sure if I am able to explain everything that clearly, but during our sessions we work on many different things either simultaneously or subsequently (e.g. processing memories, feeling what sensations come up and where in my body, how to relax enough so that my frontal lobe does not shut down). It's kind of like a see-saw effect where I need to be activated enough to make it realistic for the real world, but without going into overdrive and then shut down. For me I feel like I'm sliding on ice through the experience, but have some barriers set up by the therapist. Bit by bit I recognize more of those situations.
The only problem is that practicing in theory in the therapist's office where I feel safe is much easier than in the real world. So I realize I have quite a while to practice.
This has been a pretty constant pattern in my life. I've always had a good radar to be able to identify "good people" and "bad people". It's actually so good that for a long time I was convinced I was psychic. When I was younger I used to only seek out bad people because that was all I knew. I would actually purposefully avoid good people and walk straight into a bad person's apartment without any awareness that it wasn't normal.
Then I grew up started shutting people down. I identified a bad person and shut them down. I had my son and I would literally turn in the street and walk away from someone I picked up on if my son was with me. At one point he began internalizing the kinds of things I must unconsciously see, because he would begin to point people out to me and they would actually be dangerous people. when he got older i think that went away some but that was very interesting to me, that he noticed and he could recognize whatever it is i must recognize.
I have issues with boundaries because I dont know whats acceptable or not. I either have zero or everything. as a kid it was always everything. There was no concept of privacy. nothing was mine. so nothing was "out of bounds". i have no idea what "personal information" is. that made me get into a lot of toxic relationships because people loved the fact that I was so easy to manipulate. also because I purposefuly sought out people who would hurt me both because i assumed that was normal and because I would get things in return which were useful to me.
I either shut people down entirely or i let them in entirely, I dont know how to set boundaries except to tell people "f*ck off." i sometimes treat people like they are children. If I have someone in my house and thy are an idiot i will kick them out. they can come back when they "learn to behave". I know htat is condescending but I guess that is how I grew up to learn to deal with people, to basically herd them into following your boundaries or else cut them off. because otherwise they will just trample all over you. which is not particularly healthy. and why I dont have many friends. cause when I ahve friends if I try to set boundaries I basically yell at them and get upset if something bothers me, that is me trying to have "conflict resolution"..i throw a fit... :rolleyes:
Remember recently someone told me to read their book and I basically said "i cant, because it will trigger me." and then brace myself for to defend myself against the onslaught of attack..they said "oh, sorry," and changed the subject..:faint:.it is very bizarre to me to say no and it just be accepted, without question. I always prepare to fight. maybe that is why people ahve such a pattern of repeating abuse..because they were trained growing up that they had no limits to their selves, and can't impose limits, and trained that way so it is easier for their abusers to abuse them. And then later in life, all growing up you were bascally taught to be the perfect abuse victim, you are basicaly a canvas for other abusers to just paint their sadistic little pictures all over anad you wont do a thing to stop them.:trapped:
..I"m going on! sorry :oops: completely derailed the thread there.
Then I grew up started shutting people down. I identified a bad person and shut them down. I had my son and I would literally turn in the street and walk away from someone I picked up on if my son was with me. At one point he began internalizing the kinds of things I must unconsciously see, because he would begin to point people out to me and they would actually be dangerous people. when he got older i think that went away some but that was very interesting to me, that he noticed and he could recognize whatever it is i must recognize.
I have issues with boundaries because I dont know whats acceptable or not. I either have zero or everything. as a kid it was always everything. There was no concept of privacy. nothing was mine. so nothing was "out of bounds". i have no idea what "personal information" is. that made me get into a lot of toxic relationships because people loved the fact that I was so easy to manipulate. also because I purposefuly sought out people who would hurt me both because i assumed that was normal and because I would get things in return which were useful to me.
I either shut people down entirely or i let them in entirely, I dont know how to set boundaries except to tell people "f*ck off." i sometimes treat people like they are children. If I have someone in my house and thy are an idiot i will kick them out. they can come back when they "learn to behave". I know htat is condescending but I guess that is how I grew up to learn to deal with people, to basically herd them into following your boundaries or else cut them off. because otherwise they will just trample all over you. which is not particularly healthy. and why I dont have many friends. cause when I ahve friends if I try to set boundaries I basically yell at them and get upset if something bothers me, that is me trying to have "conflict resolution"..i throw a fit... :rolleyes:
Remember recently someone told me to read their book and I basically said "i cant, because it will trigger me." and then brace myself for to defend myself against the onslaught of attack..they said "oh, sorry," and changed the subject..:faint:.it is very bizarre to me to say no and it just be accepted, without question. I always prepare to fight. maybe that is why people ahve such a pattern of repeating abuse..because they were trained growing up that they had no limits to their selves, and can't impose limits, and trained that way so it is easier for their abusers to abuse them. And then later in life, all growing up you were bascally taught to be the perfect abuse victim, you are basicaly a canvas for other abusers to just paint their sadistic little pictures all over anad you wont do a thing to stop them.:trapped:
..I"m going on! sorry :oops: completely derailed the thread there.
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