Why Do We Allow It?

[simplekindofgirl]

I was following another thread, and it brought up some issues for me. It also made me ask some questions of myself.

Why, when we know that a relationship is toxic, do we choose to continue with the relationship?

I knew that I was in a toxic relationship. In my case, I had a friendship for more than 9 years in which I was emotionally blackmailed, emotionally abused, and just plain out blackmailed. Literally. And I was very quick to tell other people not to tolerate that type of abuse. It is easy to tell someone else what to do, or how to handle things. It is much more difficult to do that with our own circumstances.

I still do not understand why it is so difficult for us to do this, to evaluate toxic relationships, and to choose what to do based on our own needs. We know a person is abusive in our lives, and we hang on because we are afraid, or are isolated, or we are emotionally blackmailed, or I don't know what.

But it took many, many years before I was able to take control back of my life from this friend. He was my best friend and my worst enemy depending on which way the wind blew at any given moment. I had asked him to leave me alone, several times. He didn't and I always opened myself up to him and his abuse again. After 9 years of him interfering with every aspect of my life, I obtained a protection order against him. It was issued 4 years and 1 day ago. I renew it annually.

And even now, I feel this pity, this sadness, and I start to think- there were so many good qualities about this friend, maybe I should call him. Maybe I should forget protection orders. Maybe I should.... Why? Why do I do this? Why can I not look at the lengths in which I had to go to in order to get him and his terrible behavior towards me out of my life so that I could have my life back and just say- I do not need that. I never needed that. I do not want that. but that little voice of doubt that believes he is still good (somewhere inside of him at least) always comes sneaking in and starts up again.

Why do we allow ourselves to do this?

 

[Queen Boudica]

I don't know Simple. All I can say is I feel exactly the same about my ex H.

Is it that inbuilt brainwashing I have had being bought up in abusive childhood, where my mother was always right, therefore I must be wrong, I must be mistaken, it wasn't that bad?

Is it that the abusers are so good at reeling us in and being so charming when they need to draw us in, and we want to be loved so much that we lap up every little bit of niceness towards us and put that above the terrible treatment?

Is it that we are so used to being treated so badly we just accept it as the norm? Something to brush off, as long as there was some nice things there too?

Is it we are so afraid of being alone and think we can never be loved that we are just willing to take anything in it's place?

Is it that we are so used to shutting out how bad it was that it just does not stick in our head, even though we know it at times, other times our brain does not want to accept it?

I feel like there are always 2 me's 'I do and I don't', confliction always, always self doubt.

 

[Meadowsweet]

This is a subject I'm finding difficult. I've isolated myself from everybody I got to know at the time of my last traumatic experience. Now I'm alone and learning about ptsd, and I'm sort of sifting through the people and looking at different aspects of those relationships.

I think in normal healthy relationships, people are tuned into each others subtle hints and signals.

Where the mind has been trained by abuse, the language of hints and signals is understood differently. So its difficult to recognise what others are signalling. But also, I think we can give the wrong signals ourselves.

And then, with or without prolonged abuse, the symptoms of PTSD alter how we percieve signals from others and that also effects the signals we give off.

For me, an abusive relationship is where an act that is clearly defined as criminal has taken place. I've stayed in those relationships because of a tendency to empathise with the hurt of the abuser, guilt for having emotions myself. Aswell as conditioning to please by facing fear rather than running away.

But for my own healing, I am trying to make a distinction between abusive relationships and toxic relationships or relationships that are unhealthy to me.

Because I think sometimes, a relationship can be harmful to me, because of the other persons inability to understand my sensitivities. Or because my issues clash with their own issues. And my inability to respond appropriately to their sensitivities.

For example, if a person is fearful of loss or rejection I might hurt them, because I'm fearful of posessive people and I'll react to them getting too close by refusing hugs and pushing them away. In response, they might get upset and shout at me. So then I see them as aggressive and fear further abuse. So I push them further away. So they are toxic to my health, and I am toxic to theirs.

In those situations, its more damaging to look at that person as toxic or as an abuser. Because then I end up carrying more fear and more hurt into the next relationship. So I'm then more sensitive and much more likely to see the next person as an abuser. It can become a vicious cycle. And this is something I am trying to break down by looking at it from different perspectives.

 

[Helliepig]

I guess if you're brought up with love and consitency you would not choose this kind of relationship ever. I guess it's because we are used to toxicity and we are familiar with all the nuances, and we know the rules and how we fit in. We are used to irrational behaviours and contractictions. We are used to love and conncection hurting and confusing.

Until we heal, healthy people are not only not attractive to use, they are also alien territories that do things too differently and with whom we have no idea how to interact.

I also read somewhere about how choosing difficult people can keep you dissociated - ie you need your familiar old coping mechanisms. Whereas someone who wants to see and love the real you risks allows you to drop your defences -- and risks seeing all the way into the damaged parts of you you desperately want to hide.

It is so hard to walk away from familiar toxic relationships because it is like asking a child to walk away from mummy and daddy.

 

[simplekindofgirl]

"Choosing difficult people can keep you dissociated." That is an interesting thought. I need to spend some time thinking over that, because this strikes a chord in me when I read it, recognizing it, but not understanding in a "realizing it" kind of way.

This is what I mean. There are the obvious things, like attachment. Love. Or even the old financial woes of abandoning an relationship. But there is something bigger that keeps us there. But it goes beyond that, it is that thing that has us believing that we truly do not deserve better, or I don't know. It is that thing, you know, that little thing that makes us go back because we love them. That thing, that undefinable thing. We know they are toxic, we know, I mean the rational mind knows it. But that isn't enough to keep us from feeling as though we are failing something by leaving it. When it is not a failure at all to leave any type of abusive relationship.

I need to think about this a little bit.

I am just trying to figure it out. In another thread I talked about what it means to be a victim. I dated men that were very abusive, my husband was very abusive, my SO is not abusive but has done some things (all in the past- nothing recent or current) that are along the lines of emotional abuse and I always went back. Until I just couldn't take anymore of it. But how much of myself could I have saved and been better for it if I had left sooner rather than later?

Some of the times it was fear that kept me there. But I did choose it knowing that I could make another choice. It has to get over the top bad for me to walk away. But why? My rational mind knew, knows. But still, even now, even knowing what it is like with PTSD and trauma and, and, and- even still I know that if I did not have my SO I would wind up with some idiot who would initially turn on the charm and blind me, only to wind up being more of the same. This applies to my friendships as well.

I need to figure out how to separate the sheep from the wolves in sheeps clothing.

 

[Loloma]

I have been thinking of a good method to separate the sheep from the wolves in sheeps clothing. You need to screen and filter them, well that's what I'm intending to do if I every decide to try another relationship. The other is setting boundaries from the beginning. If they are not willing to compromise or be reasonable from the start, give them the boot. We all need one of those robots from the old TV series "Lost in Space", that when danger was present said; "Warning Will Robinson, warning".

You know simplekindofgirl, a lot of us do exactly the same as you. We stay even though we know we should go for a variety of reasons. It comes from our own feelings of worthlessness. So you stay while everything in your body is screaming for you to go, but you can't and if you do you come back. Then your mad at yourself for being so gullible and weak.

It's true you stay till you can't take it any more. Then you think (like I do), about how much of your life you gave up, and how much of yourself you lost. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I am such a loser when it comes to the staying and going saga. I should be given a medal for stupidity. Stayed 28 years with the first, and 15 years with the second. That's forty three years of my life.

It probably was the fear that kept you there. That comes in many shapes and forms. Fear of failure, fear of being alone, fear of how am I going to manage financially like you said. Understand the one about the idiot that turns on the charm, that was my second H.

It is never to late to learn new copying skills, it just takes courage and time. I wish I had of walked away a lot earlier when I was still young. Take care and be strong. ;)