General Cycle Of Abuse

[Nicolette]

It seems common for Supporters to struggle with the difference between what is abusive and what is symptomatic of PTSD.

Basically anything you would deem abusive from a normal healthy person are the same boundaries you would place on abuse from someone with PTSD - PTSD is no excuse for abusive behavior.

Awhile ago I asked Anthony to include the diagram below in an Article but they have now been converted to Wiki pages and I can't for the life of me find this so here it is again.

Worth evaluating!

(diagram source: Wikipedia)

 

[Sqweak]

This sounds a lot like my last relationship, Thanks for posting this I'll probably view this often. I'm also glad that you mentioned:

Basically anything you would deem abusive from a normal healthy person are the same boundaries you would place on abuse from someone with PTSD - PTSD is no excuse for abusive behavior.

I was a little confused if abuse from an abuser who has been abused themselves should be treated differently.

 

[Tinyflame]

Not your response to it, Sqweak.

 

[Nicolette]

I was a little confused if abuse from an abuser who has been abused themselves should be treated differently.

Squeak, these people you mention are the ones most likely to continue the abuse cycle, sometimes without even understanding it due to their own abuse. They grow up thinking abuse is normal and sometimes face a tough time undoing the bad programming - if & when they realise it.

 

[Sqweak]

@ Nicolette
I've been pretty good at eliminating these people from my life. How do you approach someone like this? If they aren't aware of what they're doing. If they are hurting you how do you tell them without make it worse for you or them?

 

[Nicolette]

Squeak - there are two types of people who fall into the Cycle of Abuse - the 'Abuser' and the 'Victim'. I grew up learning how to be the 'Victim' as I took the abuse, thought I was a good person forgiving and then it would happen again. Funny thing is each time the circle went around in an adult relationship the abuse would get just that little bit worse.

For people in my situation, it is not hard to hear what is wrong nor does it make it any worse; it is just damn hard changing the way you viewed and lived circumstances. You have to want to get out and have to stay strong which sometimes even meant being on your own and then feeling like a failure due to the relationship not working. For a time there I felt I had a sticker on my forehead which said "easy prey" and I would end up with replicas of my abusers.

Being a 'Victim' throughout most of your childhood doesn't do much for your self esteem which doesn't help matters either.

It was interesting reading a book called Children of Alcoholics as that was the book which helped it all sink in for me.... the tip toeing around, the feeling guilty, the struggle with what your gut was telling you versus what the other person was programming into your head and how, like with the 'Alcoholic', your life ending up evolving around the 'Abuser's' moods.

As for the other side - that being the Abuser: I cannot speak from experience as to if telling them will make it worse. What I do know from the other side of the fence, is that if you tell them, they take note and make efforts to change (and do so over time) well, they are the good ones. There are others out there who are plain cruel and others ignorant to what they are doing as their lives are surrounded by violence and they don't see anything wrong with it.

 

[Abrasky]

I was always thinking that people who abuse, emotionally and physically and otherwise had been abused themselves. Is it possible for someone to not abuse to do these things too?

I don't fully know what it is like to be a violent person. I had a close thing I could get I suppose scating on the edge of violence, I had a "volcano personality" since I was 19, which started during an attack from my step dad where he turned into a volcano. WHen the volcano thing came up when I was upset, I would literally feel like a different person. The volcano personality was suppressed for 12 years so I was always calm and just me, before some councelling by my therapist brought it out. It came out like a volcano. It involved me being triggered by being upset, and almost reenacting the time I was attacked, except I was the person who was attacking me. I would throw things, hit my head on the wall, scream and swear and yelled at people around me a few times. I would go into my room when I felt this rage thing come up. I didn't scare anyone only myself by hitting myself ect.

I've lived through two violent families, My dad was physically and emotionally violent and my stepdad was emotionally violent. I know this cycle so well. It is sad that I do. I hated violence for so long, then I got a sneak peak into this other world of what it is like to have a mindset of violence.

I'm glad though after 12 years of therapy I can break it for the next generation. I resolved the memory causing this volcano personality with my therapist a month ago.

If anyone who was violent told me that they could stop it the next day, I would not believe them as violence is a make up of personality, requires a lot of therapy to undo.

 

[Nicolette]

I was always thinking that people who abuse, emotionally and physically and otherwise had been abused themselves. Is it possible for someone to not abuse to do these things too?

I am sure there are - people who get mixed up with the wrong people, are desperate, get into drugs etc.

 

[freakofnurture]

--Diagram--

Awww, a picture of my childhood! How cute. Daddy looks just like I remember him.
Thanks for posting that *drags another piece of validation to her cave*

 

[jenkins123]

Very interesting thread. I think I have been guilty of enabling emotionally abusive behaviour from my ex the sufferer by "tolerating" it through the veil of ptsd, and having been emotionaly abused himself. As sqweak said "If they aren't aware of what they're doing. If they are hurting you how do you tell them without make it worse for you or them?"
While the relationship is now over I am still contemplating a carefully worded note highlighting his behaviour and what I should not have tolerated.
Will it hold a mirror up or will he just see it as a bitchy response? I have no idea as he seems unaware to date that he has behaved at all inappropriately (partly my fault for stepping on eggshells), but perhaps one day he might think again or even take it to his counselling, and it might stop the next woman from bearing it. It would be interesting to hear from sufferers how they feel/felt about having inappropriate/abusive behaviour hghlighted when they were totally unaware of it.

 

[Nicolette]

Will it hold a mirror up or will he just see it as a bitchy response?

Jenkins123, it will all depend on where he is at and what he is open to. I would be tempted to suggest printing out the cycle diagram and writing on it - "this is what we went through", sending it to him and leaving it at that. I don't know him - you do but I think it may be digested better rather than something personally written with emotion as it will probably just overload him?? :tdown:

 

[Sqweak]

It would be interesting to hear from sufferers how they feel/felt about having inappropriate/abusive behavior hghlighted when they were totally unaware of it.

I've been guilty of being the suffer and hurting people without realizing it. I don't know how it feels for others but I went straight in to denial mode where everything was fine and nothing hurt. I always say to myself I wouldn't wish my experiences on my worst enemy but deep down, that's not how I feel; I just know it's the right thing to say.