I have been mistreated. I don’t think anyone would deny that. As a child, I was treated poorly because I didn’t have a choice. I was trapped. I could not escape. As a young adult, I was mistreated because I had been taught I was worthless, so I didn’t know how to kick nasty people out of my life. I kept trying to make them happy like I did in childhood. Now I know better. I don’t allow mistreatment any longer. Even my 9-year-old children know I have boundaries and sort of respect them most of the time.
But there is another side to this story. As a survivor of complex trauma, it is easy to focus on all the ways I have been victimized. It is easy to feel like an innocent player in this game of dysfunction. But the reality is different. It is true that as a child, I had no part in it. But as an adult, I was a survivor. And survivor means survival. It means my main goal as a child was to stay alive. And as an adult, the main goal didn’t change.
I put all of my energy in to my survival. Granted, it was mainly my inner parts. And with my recent discovery of my dissociative identity disorder, I am aware I didn’t always have control over what they did. That being said, my actions were motivated by one goal … to stay alive. So what did that look like?
I didn’t have time for friendship. Don’t get me wrong. I had friends. But I would never contact them. If they didn’t reach out to me, the friendship would just fade away. My closest friends were people I interacted with for business or other obligations because in those cases, I felt like I was doing something productive. Having a conversation about life, children or personal stuff never made the priority list until recently. And to be fair, this is a work in progress.
I was mean. It wasn’t just about time. It was about my defenses. In a way, I didn’t want people around because I never knew when I would explode. If my inner defender was triggered in some way, that poor person was going down. If my defender was triggered, the situation was life or death, and others’ feelings were not considered.
I said what I believed the other person wanted to hear. This has always been my strategy. Learn the person as quickly as possible. What do they like? What do they want from me? What makes them mad? And do everything I can to keep them happy. This leads to all sorts of inconsistency and to be honest, lying. I was accused of being fake on multiple occasions, but safety came first.
I did not prioritize fun activities in my life. I found no joy is hanging out with others. Of course, since I was always trying to meet their needs, that makes sense. There is no fun in that. I was always looking to do the next productive thing, the next thing that would take me to the next destination I needed to be. The phrase “Life is a Journey” was a joke to me. I didn’t have time for any journey. I had to get stuff done. I had to stay safe. I had to check things off the list to make sure there was no more mistreatment. If it didn’t meet those needs, it wasn’t on my list.
My priorities in life made sense considering my past, but unfortunately, they were messed up. And it led to very little positive interaction with others. The only people who responded well to my excessive people-pleasing were people who wanted to take advantage of it. And that is how life went for me until I started building awareness and shifting priorities.
Doing what it takes to survive doesn’t have to be a way of living. It has been possible to make changes in the way I view life. But it has required a brave honesty about how I have interacted with others. I have to balance my own history of childhood victimization with how that history has affected my part in adult relationships. I have to balance my undeserved self-blame with taking responsibility for my life. I have to accept that in my adult life, people treated me in accordance with what I allowed at the time. And I have to accept that inner and outer change is possible.
Actually, it is empowering to know that I can make change happen. Otherwise, it feels completely hopeless.
So I keep moving through my own recovery. I keep allowing more and more truth to shine through. Some truth is about how I was mistreated. Some truth is about how I was mistreating others. But I have to become who I was meant to be . I have to let go of those old patterns and the shame that comes with them. It is not these interactions that showed my true character. It is this path of recovery and my willingness to change that shows my true self. And there is no shame in that.
Good post. Thank you.
Sometimes I think we may be the same person <3 Thank you for being so transparent and somehow figuring out how to put this into words. I relate to people in a very similar way. Learning that I can be honest has been a slow, humbling (if not humiliating) process. I swear I lived in a cave for the first 30 years of my life. I may not have to hide anymore, but it can be SO awkward interacting with people who've spent their entire lives developing these skills. I'm taking it one conversation at a time 🙂
Yes! It is awkward. It can lead us down that road of labeling ourselves as an outcast or different. But in reality, we all have our insecurities. It runs on a continuum. It helps me to remember that nobody has this stuff all figured out. And it is so good to take it in baby steps. We are really good at criticizing ourselves when it isn’t perfect.
So very true 🙂
Hi. I could really relate to your post. I was very uncomfortable making friends primarily in high school and college, and as an adult i still have a hard time enjoying others socially and making time for “unproductive” time. It’s been hard to integrate my self-image as a loner and different, which gets in the way of currently feeling comfortable socially. Does anyone else struggle with integrating a poor self-image from the past? Thank you.
This is so helpful to me. I have spent most relationships I have had with men trying to please them and feel wanted at all costs. It’s a work in progress and Im learning to take care of me! It is not easy to do the as it triggers me and I am learning to self soothe instead of looking for the man who has hurt me to make me feel better. Thank you for this post, good to know I’m not alone. Thank you
You are definitely not alone. I can relate to every word of what you said.
I completely relate to you comments Catherine. Keep up the good work. X
I have had some friendships that didn’t work in the long run because I was trying to help them and make them happy. Seems like I would become friends with others who where bossy the way my mom had been. I would try to meet whatever need they seemed to have. That doesn’t work because in a friendship people have to be somewhat equal. I think I learned a wrong pattern for friendships because that what people call codependent.
Yes. I know I have been very codependent in my relationships too. Thank you so much for your comment.
I’m reading “Reclaim your Brain” by Joseph Annibali at the moment and he has a useful metaphor for relationships post trauma. He uses barbells as the metaphor, saying the weights on each end are each party to the relationship, and the bar between them the relationship itself. He says that a healthy adult relationship is a horizontal one, where each weight is evenly balanced: where each party supports the other and is willing to be vulnerable with each other. He says that many trauma survivors get stuck in vertical relationships instead, where one party is less empowered than the other. It was sobering for me to read as I realised that almost all my adult relationships are vertical, where I put myself as either helper or helpee. The author says that we do that unconsciously because we were at the bottom end of vertical relationship when being abused, so now we either repeat that or put ourselves in the more powerful position to avoid feeling vulnerable; and that if we can see ourselves doing that we can eventually change our story and relationship patterns. I thought it was interesting food for thought and seemed applicable to your post on this today.
I love that. It is so true. I often refer to them as power differentials. We must be more or less powerful than the other in the relationship. I like the metaphor.
I really appreciate your insights and the work you’ve done to unmask your behaviors. Although my masking looks different, via shading, coloring, or even texture, the process for changing the behaviors is the selfsame and I pull great comfort from you knowing that I am not alone in this. Thank you for the courage and fortitude to engage blog space.
Thank you for your comment and your strength to unmask your own behaviors.
Elisabeth, I look forward to your posts each week. You help me not feel so alone and give me understanding for myself and the extremely confusing internal conflicts I have to manage every day. Thank you for sharing so openly. This process is hard. I relate to your words so much. I have a very competent, social, outgoing part that knows how to interact with people, but I’ve always just tried to read people and make them happy with me as well. I never made time to just hang out because of feeling like I don’t really belong and if people really saw me, they wouldn’t like me and I would be found out for the fake I really am. So I hustled for my worth and performed for acceptance. Now, I realize that I’ve missed love and connection with myself and others living this way, and in order to heal, I have to open my heart to others – so scary! My defender definitely tries to sabatoge my relationships with fear and shame and so much distrust, but I want to live and love so bad that I’m willing to move forward despite the sirens inside and physical pain it causes. Thank you for sharing your journey. I’m walking this road alongside you.
Thank you Paula. I love the phrase, “Hustled for my worth and performed for acceptance.” That is brilliant. I can relate to that. I am so glad you are here.
Snap!
…trying to be useful, ready to share pain, to like others’ stuff.Then, when fun came the friendship dropped down.Feeling a victim, used,lonely.Today I watch at this pattern as responsible too.As a survival it was a mechanism to feel accepted.I was lying,I was modelling myself to their needs and they were using what I was offering them.I was not allowing myself to enjoy fun,something to work on.
That is such a common pattern for us. Love and healing to you.
Dear God, I love you. You wrote my life. As a writer myself, I have written things almost exactly like this on my FB…but it takes me pages and pages of writing, pulling from movies and tv series imagery, song lyrics, and even books to describe what I am feeling on the inside. You wrote it with precision. Thank you.
Thank you so much Mia. Keep writing. It is the best way to keep working out how we feel.
This is like an echo of my own voice and experience. I am hopeful and have taken recent steps toward more authentic interactions…it’s like taking a few steps forward and then I retreat but I feel like there are a few people now who genuinely like me no matter what. That’s a treasure, a true blessing
It really does seem to be like that with the journey toward authenticity. We take a few steps forward and then retreat a bit. I am so glad you are pursuing authenticity and have support in that journey.
I can really relate to this excerpt of yours,”My priorities in life made sense considering my past, but unfortunately, they were messed up. And it led to very little positive interaction with others. The only people who responded well to my excessive people-pleasing were people who wanted to take advantage of it. And that is how life went for me until I started building awareness and shifting priorities”
I have recognized that most of my friendships have been with people who have their own agenda, want fix me or want to use me. so I am realizing that I need to work on my why…heal myself…love myself so that I can have healthier, balance relationships.
That awareness will help you so much with your future relationships. Your journey is leading you to some wonderful places Dawn.
Your posts bring me so much hope and inspiration. Wow. Sometimes I feel like I am reading about myself. Thank you for being brave.
Thank you!
I have so many habits of not trusting people. They are there for a good reason. They kept me… not safe, but help me minimize the damage I experienced as a child. I needed that super duper trust indicator. I don’t need it anymore in the same way, but I hold onto it. I test certain relationships to see if the person can be trusted and I would rather walk away than risk getting hurt by someone leaving me. I am lucky to have a lot of friends that I have had for a very long time. It is the friends I have made since working on my trauma that I am too suspect with. I am trying to tone down my trust monitor and use people’s actions for what they are… human interactions that aren’t perfect. But it isn’t easy. So hard to trust and there are days I can’t remember why I am even trying. But I am and I eventually remember that healing takes place in relationships.
I talk about that so often. It is easy to write someone off the minute they do something wrong. We think they aren’t trustworthy when they are just human. It is the old traumatic black and white thinking. And honestly, it can mirror our demands on ourselves. If we have to be perfect, so does everyone else. This is such a struggle. I am glad you are bringing awareness to this in your life. I am working on it too.
I don’t know how I got here this evening, but I can relate to every word shared. I’ve been struggling to write my own journey of self awareness but lack the confidence in myself to believe that what I have to say is important and yet I know in the very depth of myself that it is important because what I have learned about myself has changed how I process the world and everyday life.
I just want to thank Elisabeth and everyone else who has posted a comment for sharing transparently your experiences.
Thank you Heather. I know you will find your voice in this journey. Start with something small that doesn’t overwhelm you and build from there. Sending love and light to you.
Thank you Elisabeth. I am forced to live with(for a few months)my abusive mother once again at age 47. As I am so kind-hearted, she takes advantage of me on a daily basis to do the most ridiculously menial chores. I was diagnosed with borderline and bipolar 2 about 9 years ago. How do I break the toxic pattern and get her to understand that I have boundaries in a nice way? My depression is really bad, but as she is always the victim, she really is not capable of having empathy or even understanding.
You do need to start setting boundaries with her, and honestly, you may not be able to be nice about it all the time. Your inner parts who feel guilt (which were probably born of your relationship with your mother as a child) will come up and try to tell you not to be selfish. But it isn’t selfish to set boundaries and stop abuse from others. I encourage my clients to write from that guilt to help release it. Sending love and light to you.
i have always felt less than and dont make close friends i actually at 70 had very good friends for the first time in my life and i was astonished for the stuff we did for each other id never had that couldnt imagine that they actually cared and i didnt know how to be .we have since moved away from each other but still keep in touch. mostly i dont get to close to anyone and if someone lies to me im instantly done. as a kid i never had any people to my house my fathers drinking and abuse i wouldnt let anyone i knew be subject to him but we were not encouraged to have friends my siblings have all chosen to remain silent on his abuse and call me crazy or a liar so i walked away from them in the last few years for myself and my truth the things you write i see myself in and sometimes it hard to look