ACON's and Serial Abusive Relationships

Before I get too far, I must say that because I have been in many abusive relationships, I was told by professional and layman alike that I was setting myself up that way because I liked being a victim, or that I liked being abused.  Even though I said I didn't like it, they said I did and just didn't want to admit it.  No one ever sat down to discuss it with me.  No one cared.  I was a masochist?  Really?  I just liked to complain for nothing?

I would like to give a heap of non-appreciation for their laziness and/or self-absorbed existences. Lazy cause they didn't want to explore something that I needed and self-absorbed because they got some kind of sick pleasure for being so sure of themselves at my expense!  They took advantage of a traumatized woman who couldn't help herself and traumatized her further.  It validated their existences I guess. Would it have killed them to actually help me with this?  I guess so.

And no, I'm not being too harsh with them.  I can read a textbook.  Getting information is one thing, taking time to process it is another.  I was hurting, and no one could see that?  I could have died from abusive men, would they have said it was my fault then?  It occurs to me that many people read, but not learn.  Besides, if they didn't know anything, would the sensible thing to do would be to keep their big mouths shut?  Why did they use this as an opportunity to stick the knife in further?

What I wanted to write about today is that I think I found the answer.  It was always there, just no one to help me with it.  I hope this gives hope for women who get into abusive relationships over and over, with no one around to sit down with you over it.  We don't get into abusive relationships to try to find way to cope with life.  I am telling you its because its all we know.  It is kind of tied to Stockholm's Syndrome.  You can google that if you want, but many know what that is.  Sympathy for my abuser?  lol  In the case for serial abusive relationships there is this compelling need to stay alive, even believing non-truths.  Afterall what good is truth if it doesn't keep you alive or even safe?  I just wanted to talk this to the bone, and I never found anyone to do that with.

Ok, so we follow into patterns of old.  ??????  Self-Esteem??????   Self-Confidence??????

A few years ago someone sat down with me over it, so to speak.  I found something that saved my life.  I applied the knowledge but found it hard to do as an ACON (which I didn't know about at the time).  I used the stuff I had read and it ripped me to the core.  I ended up having to try the stuff for an hour at a time, and over and over again, that is how hard it is.  I now know it would have been next to impossible for me to be in a normal relationship, with my upbringing.  I was wired to do and say what was necessary to stay alive.  Not only that, being made that way from my formative years, it was impossible to know anything.  Ok, I can know things, but it still doesn't make any sense to me, I'll still continue to behave in old patterns taught to me in childhood.  I really found acting normal was impossible.  The parasite took a lot of what was necessary to live without her and I couldn't do it.  The parasite takes away yourself.  It wanted me to be a mirror.  I'm very happy to know some ACON's have somehow escaped the abusive relationships trap, and that is wonderful.

There is some stuff you can say is great about my mother, as I went into my awakening believing I had the best mom.  Sometimes she did make sense and gave me some sense of humanity.  But this was the most deadly part of the parasite.  If all she did was bad to me, I probably wouldn't be so carved out.

Now to the rest of the world, I appear crazy.  No one wants me to work for them for long as they tend to misunderstand me and that always gets me into trouble.  I'm not in line with the rest of the world.  But I know that I'm very smart and can sit down at a computer and make sense of something that has been such a huge part of my recovery process.  And I know my intent is good (most times).  I know one thing I like about myself, and that is I like to think for myself.  Mosttimes.  That is, when I'm not second guessing myself or putting up barriers for protection, it is always there, I think for myself.  I think it is this one part of me that caused me the most suffering growing up, the parasite tried to remove it.  So I suffered great pains to even have it, might as well use it.

I like to take the things I read and try to gain a perspective from it.  I always have.  Now, there is no lessons on relationship abuse.  Nothing I can find anyway for someone like me.  Yes, you could have told me that I was in abusive relationships because I didn't know better and tell me why.  Still no knowledge to that. I would have still been behaving the same way.  So call me stupid or unwilling to take advice but someone like me would need more.  For a lot of people this is a pain in the butt, and I get that, that they don't get what a carved out husk is about.  But, please try to realize it is sometimes hard to reach me.  This will require some work.

Take for instance this friend I used to have.  And while I'm at it, I would like to give a big kudos to the mental health department in my area for weeding out this social worker who is a malignant narcissist.  But anyway, while she was in university, I can see it all now.  She seemed to love to throw out these "opinions" she had learned in the books.  I know university is not intended that the student just parrots out knowledge like that.  These are to be pondered and use your own mind.

It's crazy.  We discussed one time how when an abused woman hits back.  She said it was wrong and the police will arrest both the men and the woman in these situations.  Parrot.  I said, "Hold on, I remember in the 90's, when I was getting hit by my ex I was supposed to hit back, that was a conversation I held with my brother back then and everyone seemed to feel like I was a wimp for not fighting back."

My friend parroted something she read out of textbook and said, "Well, you will get arrested then, when you hit back."   Oh my gosh, it was like she didn't even hear me.  And now I know that textbooks make people stupid sometimes.  I didn't say I wanted to hit back, I just wanted to discuss this, it was my favorite topic.  I felt so emotional then and she just up and left because she said I arguing this very valid point with her. I was just trying to open up a discussion, and she had to go on a tirade. Now I know, never argue with a narcissist, there is no point really.

She is afterall at the emotional level of a 3-year-old.  She started to talk about something and I was actually wanting to talk about it further, this topic always interested me.  But she couldn't.  She can't. She has no sense of reason, only that she was having a narcissistic rage episode.  She retreated because she "felt" I was arguing with her about some knowledge she "felt" was her own.

Many years and lots of pain later, and we became grandmothers.  She has this lovely granddaughter who she paid a visit to and got to babysit for a weekend.  About a week after that the little girl seemed to be experience some distress that her parents had to take her in to the doctor.  Then she had to undergo some tests.  My MN friend was indeed upset about these findings, however, it went beyond that into the very weird.  It seemed to be beyond her capabilities to understand that this was not about her.  I can understand her being upset.  I have an autistic granddaughter and this was upsetting, but the realization that we would have to learn and cope came first.  And it wasn't like there was something wrong with her granddaughter, nothing had been proven yet.  Tests were still to be done.

What I can say is that my MN friend was looking for compassion for herself, not about the little girl. I don't know if I am explaining that well.  But somewhere inside this hollow shell that I am felt she was not acting normal, although I lived a lifetime of that stuff being normal.

I don't know if she had done something to her granddaughter that made her distressed during that weekend of babysitting, I don't know.  She might have done something that hurt the little girl and that is why she is upset, the doctor might figure that out.  I know my friend loved children (so she said), almost in a crazy way.  Even to the point of having her schizophrenic daughter bring her children that the daughter was babysitting.

It was a few years ago (before my awakening) I decided to do some research about love and relationships.  I have been in so many abusive relationships, with everyone telling me, "Oh you must like it that way", that it was pissing me right off.  Seriously?  How am I supposed to like it?  I liked to be bashed in the face?  Ok, not to condemn people who do like it, but that wasn't me.  It hurt like hell. And even though I was a carved out husk, I still knew that pain wasn't for me.  So I decided to learn everything I could about it.

But what I knew about human behavior was next to zilch.  I was raised by an engulfing mother, I could never even leave her side, so I never got to learn and grow in life.  Top that off that mother was giving me a convoluted version of what love was.  I had no idea what I was doing in the world.

So I went all over, the internet and counselling sessions.  I was bound and determined to learn about serial abusive relationships, to crack the thing open.  Lots of crap I had to go through.  Just because it said it in a textbook didn't mean I was going to take it to heart.  That I was determined not to do.  But even that was a challenge.  But I always did like to think for myself.  Then I found a website that had so much power to me because the woman who wrote it never went with the norm.  She was trying to do what was best.  I could actually see her good intent in all this.  I read her website, bought the program, and just really started to learn.  Now I know everything about relationships, just ask (just kidding).  But really, I have been able to navigate myself really well through my relationship and my children's relationships and their friends relationships and so on.

She never really wrote about abusive relationships, she talked about it here and there, but that is not her mission.  I had to read her teachings and apply some knowledge and understanding for myself. She goes into anthropology and psychology, she gathers knowledge.  She puts it all together and it all makes sense.  Basically, we as human beings do things for our own reasons and our own well being, never for nothing, there is always a personal reason.  Maybe that's why no one would help me with my problem, they didn't care it didn't apply to them.  Then they take what I say and used it against me to hurt me, because it benefits them.  And all the ACON's like me were too carved out by a parasite and its way too hard.  Now I get this, it's written in our genetics to behave that way. Even myself, by writing this I want to produce something of value, because I lived far too long this way and I need to tell the world for my reasons.  For my own validation.  Mostly, we do things to benefit ourselves to help others and this in turn helps us out too.  Only a narc does otherwise.

I am now distressed to know how I could have handled my life a lot better.  But I didn't know it at the time.  Her programs actually caused me to awaken to the truth about my MN mother.  All I was doing was trying to understand men better and why I was always getting beaten up, but I learned about myself.

Her program is based on authenticity.  Basically, what she teaches is to get out of his head.  Stop trying to please him.  Now, I can't make her whole program and teachings into a single blog posting of mine.  I will only talk about what it did for me and what I had taken from it.

The point is to stop looking for things from him.  Know that I am enough.  What does that mean?  I was never enough, surely MN mother didn't see me as a person, there was nothing to me.  Like I said, I could only take this an hour at a time, it was hard, and it all came with baby steps.  Know that I'm enough.  These are not hard words to understand.  I did have fleeting moments throughout my life when I did fell so good about myself that I could at least try this out.  And when I didn't feel so well, I could remember what feeling well meant. Know that I'm enough. These are not hard words  like self-esteem or self-confidence.

Here is Where I Started

I go lay down on the couch.  If he was in the room, I would come up with excuses about why I had to lie on the couch.  I used to say "I'm laying on the couch, I have a headache, my back hurts.  I had to tell him why I was doing it in order to feel safe.

Now with what I've learned:  I say nothing, I just go lay down on the couch.  If he asks why I'm laying down?  I say I just want to.  Truth is, I may not know why I am laying down on the couch, maybe I do have a headache but I don't just say it for an excuse I would be lying and seeking approval.  Am I looking for his approval to lay on the couch?  Or am I just making that statement to get him off my back?

You see, he might be worried I am sick and want to ask me why I'm lying down, so I just say, "Thanks for your concern, I just need to lay down for awhile."  I might tell him why I'm laying down but that is a whole other realm.  A different motive.  I hope this makes sense.

Now I'm not saying this old behaviour of mine caused the abusive men but I'll tell you one thing. Lately, I've been on a learning curve about ACON's that I have retreated back into some old behaviours.  I have been using excuses for things lately and it's caused a lot of grief in my relationship.  For instance, "I didn't do the dishes, my head hurt."  Ok whatever.  He didn't even ask me about the dishes and I chimed in with why this and why that.  He was just walking into the door and was faced with this annoying crap.  He started to get irritated with me and no way was he the same and I couldn't figure out what was going on.  I was chasing him around trying to explain myself to him.  He would start to walk out the door saying, "You are pissing me off!"

This kind of behaviour might make him mad.  Only because he might feel blamed or he doensn't know how to respond to such behaviour.  It is like co-dependence.  That statement I never understood yet I read a ton about it in the 90's.  Nothing was cluing in for me until I found this wonderful site that blew me away.  Men want freedom and I was taking that away.  Like I said earlier, People do things for their own reasons.

I didn't know what was happening, but what I needed to do was get back into my emotions and work from there.  I knew then that I was looking for approval again.  Stop it.

So I got back to myself.  It doens't matter what I do or say, don't matter at all.  I'll just be enough and just be.  Just understand that he wants me for me, feel that down to my emotions.  One hour at a time. It wasn't any easier when he wasn't around for I had to practice this mindset and just be enough.

This caused my awakening to my engulfing mother.  Because being just me was hard to do.  I wasn't even supposed to exist, or have any kind of identity, mother wanted to root out anything that was me. Feeling for the first time, I realized I was a hollowed out shell.  Can I be enough?  It hurt, I felt it physically in my body.

MN mother loved to see me miserable.  This was one of her last statements to me.  This came to me like a ton of bricks.

And I'll tell you this, if you aren't yourself and realize that you aren't enough and go around looking for approval everywhere. you will attract the most selfish evil men to you.  Simple as that.  How do I know that?   Well, the programs teach you that none of this stuff that you do to improve your relationship works with a psychopath.  A psycho will knock you off the couch and tell you to do the dishes.  Not because he wants the dishes done, but because he wants to control you. The second you are feeling you are enough, you will know that man is narcissistic or evil.  And if you are you you will get your butt the hell out of there.

I knew a woman once who put up with the most deplorable men.  That woman was me.  She would get hurt and she would retreat, disappear, thinking that she was improving the situation for herself, but what she was doing was bringing more of the bad men to her.

I couldn't even argue well.  My arguments were needy and graspy and no good man would stand for that. Normal men has a mission to accomplish, he needs someone who can be herself.  It's not that he doesn't care if I had a headache, he feels blamed for it.  I had to look for excuses for everything and he had to listen to it.  All he wants is to feel safe.  Safe to do all the things he needs to do in life. Because he is a good man, he don't want to pound her into the ground.  A good man wants to be certain that she isn't about playing games.

Now I know this sounds simple and harder to do.  I've made mistakes over and over.  The program teaches you that mistakes are good, mistakes are learning, mistakes need to be made fast.  Perfection is one of the many masks we wear for fear.  Never pleasing, I watch what I say.  Are my words oblivious to what I am feeling inside?  Do I need approval?  Find out why.

This also relates to a lot of other stuff.  It really is authenticity and are my words oblivious to what I'm feeling inside.  Do I feel I want to give excuses for every little thing I do?  Of course not!  But this really was a survival technique I learned in childhood.  Those emotions that are real will take you back to a place to who you are despite what happened during your formative years.

Of course this thing I do to attract the hellish men will repel the good men.  We want to repel these bad guys, let them go.  Just like my behaviour kept MN mother happy.  There were no boundaries so she would inspect and cause me to have fear.

I have heard that self-confidence is essential in relationships.  Just no one ever got into the heart of the issue and I didn't even understand what self-confidence was.  I thought I did all the right things and was confident.  I knew this stuff, and I heard of this stuff before, but she takes things much more intrinsically so that I and everyone else can get it.  But this woman (my angel), decided to write about it and the rest is history.

So, that is what is working for me.  I feel that with me being enough corrects my old patterns.  Why didn't anyone tell me that before?  I can actually take my old patterns and change them into things I would do when I'm enough.  How to feel like you are enough?  This is baby steps and that simple statement works for me.  It clicks in with where I am, for I did have those moments when I did feel enough, but it didn't last.  So I just remember those times.  There are those fleeting moments that come naturally, the trick is to extract from those.  Then its actually remembering those times, then I am enough.

This is the first step.  You can discover ways you have been hiding in not being enough and extract those.  I showed you where I started.  But it is a journey, one that will take awhile.  I hope I explained this well.