Hey Dana Jane

Tag: emotional abuse

  • Unveiling the Mask: Breaking Free from the Chains of Abuse and Dysfunction

    In the intricate tapestry of human relationships, the bonds we share with family are meant to be sources of solace, love, and support. Yet, for me, the reality is starkly different. The courageous act of sharing my journey of coping with emotional and spiritual abuse at the hands of family members is an act of breaking free from the suffocating confines of manipulation and control. The goal of this post is to delve into the profound complexities of dealing with such abuse and the transformative power of shedding light on these dark corners.

    Facing the intricate interplay of emotional and spiritual abuse from within the family can be a harrowing experience. The very people who should have nurtured my growth and well-being became agents of pain and suffering, masked behind a façade of sanctimony. The first step towards healing lies in recognizing and acknowledging the trauma inflicted, a process that demands immense courage. By sharing my story, I not only reclaimed my voice but also offered solace to others who may be enduring similar experiences.

    Abusers often thrive in an atmosphere of secrecy and shame. By shedding light on their actions, I broke the chains of silence that had bound me for far too long. This act of truth-telling is an act of empowerment that challenges the illusion of their moral superiority. It serves as a testament to my resilience and strength, reminding the world that I am more than the sum of their manipulations.

    Abusers with a sanctimonious veneer often excel in instilling guilt and self-doubt. My decision to share my journey disrupts their carefully constructed narrative. The guilt that may arise from exposing their actions is not mine to bear; it is a testament to their own shortcomings. My story serves as a beacon of hope for others grappling with similar guilt, showing them that they are not alone in their struggles.

    My family members have expressed anger at my decision to share what I went through. I understand that my honesty about the past has caused some discomfort, and I’m sorry if my words have upset them. My intention was never to hurt or embarrass anyone in the family; my decision to share certain experiences was not made lightly. It was driven by a desire to heal, grow, and move forward.

    The pain I experienced was unimaginable. Acknowledging that pain, and the past, even its less favorable aspects, allowed me to work toward a healthier and more positive environment for myself, my husband, and my children. I hope that sharing what I endured encourages reflection and growth for both me and my family. If my words have struck a chord, perhaps it’s a reminder that treating each other with kindness and respect is essential in maintaining healthy relationships.

    I’m often asked how I deal with friends or family members who don’t believe me, or deny that I was emotionally abused and spiritually manipulated. The truth is, they don’t have to believe me. Unfortunately, I can’t control how others respond to my truth. While it’s painful, I try to understand that some family members might be in denial or defensive about the abuse. Their reactions may stem from fear, guilt, or shame. It doesn’t excuse their behavior, but understanding helped me cope. I also learned to accept that some family members may never come around. I need to accept this possibility and focus on creating a healthy and supportive environment for myself.

    I’d also like to address the denial and gaslighting. The idea that just because they (whoever they may be) didn’t witness my abuse, or they don’t believe it happened, doesn’t mean it’s not true. Abusers often live in their own world of denial, or they find justification for their poor behavior, often blaming the victims for their own mistreatment. I think it’s important for us to recognize the complexity of abuse and how it can manifest in ways that are not always immediately visible.

    Abuse isn’t always physical, and it’s not always easy to spot. Emotional and psychological abuse, for instance, can leave deep scars that aren’t as visible as bruises. It’s crucial to understand that not all forms of abuse leave obvious evidence. This can make it incredibly challenging for survivors to be heard and believed, especially if their experiences don’t fit into preconceived notions of what abuse looks like.

    It’s also important to remember that disbelief can stem from a lack of understanding or personal biases. People might struggle to accept that someone they know or care about could be capable of such behavior. But that doesn’t mean the survivor is lying or exaggerating. It’s a tough situation to navigate, and it can compound the pain and isolation that survivors already feel.

    For survivors, sharing their stories takes immense courage. It’s not easy to open up about painful experiences, and facing disbelief can be incredibly hurtful. To those who have faced this skepticism, know that your truth matters. Just because someone can’t comprehend your experience doesn’t invalidate what you went through.

    To those who are reading, let’s practice empathy and open-mindedness. Let’s be willing to learn about the different ways abuse can manifest and understand that everyone’s journey is unique. It’s not our place to judge or decide whose experiences are valid and whose aren’t.

    Believing survivors and offering them support can be a crucial step in their healing process. It’s about providing a safe space for them to share, without fear of being dismissed or judged. Let’s create an environment where survivors feel empowered to speak out and seek help without the added burden of having to prove their suffering.

    Remember, just because someone doesn’t believe you were abused doesn’t make it any less true. Your experiences are valid, and you deserve to be heard and supported.

    When I choose to share my story, I create a ripple effect of empowerment. My words have the potential to resonate with others who have endured similar experiences, giving them the strength to confront their own demons. By sharing my vulnerabilities, I lay the foundation for connection and community, proving that healing is possible even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

    I receive countless emails, texts, and messages on social media from people who are struggling. They are seeking peace but they feel hopeless. If I can help just one person see that they deserve compassion, respect, and acceptance, my purpose on this earth has been achieved.

    For me, confronting the abuse I endured was a transformative journey of self-discovery, healing, and empowerment. By bravely sharing my story, I not only liberated myself from the clutches of manipulation but also paved the way for others to find solace and strength. If you are suffering, remember, that your voice has the power to break the chains that once bound you, and in doing so, you create a beacon of light for those who are still navigating the darkness.

  • Leaving the Dysfunction

    What happens when you distance yourself from your dysfunctional or narcissistic family?

    You begin to heal. And it’s painful.

    You feel as though you had been asleep your whole life, and suddenly you’re awake.

    You begin to see things from another perspective. You see things for what they truly are. You notice behavior that you previously ignored in order to survive.

    It’s brutal.

    You come face to face with a reality that changes everything you thought you knew about yourself and your life.

    You face the truth. You realize you have little to no self-esteem, self-confidence or self-worth, and you were groomed to believe these false truths.

    My narcissistic family demanded that I be agreeable, compliant, and subservient. I was never taught how to love and accept myself. I was taught to hate myself for being a normal, imperfect human being. When you’re the child of a narcissist, you question every decision you make because you’ve been taught you can’t trust yourself or your instincts.

    When you’ve been abused this way for decades, it leaves a painful mark on your life. You’ve always felt lonely and unsupported. You soon realize the person you loved and trusted is actively trying to sabotage your life and your happiness.

    After going no contact with a narcissistic family, it soon becomes very clear that you were always alone, you just didn’t know it.

  • Moving From Self-Loathing to Self-Love

    When you begin therapy and start facing the thoughts, feelings and emotions you’ve avoided for so long, you start to realize that your entire existence has been affected by the abuse you endured.

    One of the things I have struggled with for most of my life is my weight. I can’t remember a time when I was thin. But what constitutes “thin?” Looking back at pictures of myself in my twenties, I wasn’t fat by society’s standards, but I wasn’t the accepted body size that society loves to idealize.

    At my lowest weight I was 140 pounds. I thought I was fat. At my highest weight, when pregnant, and after receiving a diagnosis of pre-eclampsia and elevated blood sugar, I weighed 274 pounds. Typing that makes me cringe.

    As I child I didn’t learn the proper way to eat. Food was forced. I don’t mean physically, but emotionally. I had an aversion to green vegetables so I was yelled at until I ate them. I remember sitting at the dinner table, gagging because I didn’t like the texture and taste of peas or green beans, and my dad would yell at me until I would eat them. Sometimes he’d threaten spankings or say that I was hurting my mom’s feelings by not eating what she made. (The fact that I grew to love these foods as an adult is quite funny to me.)

    There were times when I would refuse to eat something and my mom would fret over it. To her, not eating meant I was going to starve. She would make other meals to compensate and they weren’t always the healthiest. Mashed potatoes with a whole stick of butter added to the pot, Salisbury steak, lasagna, casseroles, and other high fat foods were in her rotation.

    When I moved out at 18 years old, I started trying to figure out what to eat and how to cook. I didn’t know a thing about macros or portion sizes. I would go through periods of starving myself so that I wouldn’t gain weight, then I would binge eat out of extreme hunger. I was obsessed with trying to trick my body into weight loss and it never worked. I believed that being thin like the models in magazines or the actresses in movies was how I was supposed to look. My perception of beauty was very skewed.

    My eating disorder caused my weight to fluctuate so much and so often that my body was in distress. I stopped getting my period. I had terrible stomach pains. I finally went to the doctor and he ran a gamut of tests. Then, at 19 years old, I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) which added additional challenges. My hormones, namely insulin, were affected by my cycle of starvation and binges, and I started gaining weight no matter what I ate or how often I exercised.

    A few months ago I was talking with a therapist about my weight struggle. In therapy I address the emotional and psychological abuse I experienced, and it has helped me to uncover the deep-seeded feelings of guilt and shame I felt. When it was mentioned that sometimes the body wears weight as armor, I started to cry.

    Some women aren’t overweight because they eat big portions (I don’t), or because they loathe the treadmill (I love it). It’s not because they have a thyroid problem (I’ve checked, dozens of times, despite having the symptoms). It’s not because they are lazy (I’m definitely not).

    For some women, excess weight is a shield. For me, having been brainwashed to believe I was never smart enough, good enough, strong enough, thin enough or pretty enough, my weight was a barrier to the outside. It was an excuse for me to hide. It was a way for me to avoid…anything and everything.

    For years I’ve wondered why I struggle to keep the weight off. I start with intention, I make progress and then I quit. Why do I do this? In a recent conversation with a fitness trainer, I discovered the answer:

    Trainer: “It seems that you’ve made progress before, what happened?”

    Me: “I don’t know. I guess I just quit.”

    Trainer: “Why? At what point do you quit? What are the triggers that make you decide to give up?”

    Me: “I don’t know. I guess I start noticing the things others say to me and it leads to self-doubt or I worry about what others think. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

    Trainer: “What do people say to you? And are these important people in your life? Sounds to me like you need to lose these people. They are extra weight.”

    That’s when I realized what is holding me back.

    Some people say things in a backhanded way:

    “Gosh, don’t you look skinnier.”

    “Wow, what’s finally working for you?”

    (Things said to me in a sarcastic tone.)

    Some people make comments behind my back:

    “She thinks she’s hot now.”

    “She’s not as fun now that she’s going to the gym.”

    “She’s never going to lose the weight, I don’t know why she tries.”

    (Things I overheard “friends” say in a bathroom stall.)

    Subconsciously, I began to believe that I didn’t deserve to be fit and healthy. Certain people have only known me as an overweight person, and for some screwed up reason my weight loss bothers them. Even more messed up is the fact that I let these people affect me.

    Why?

    Because this type of abuse is familiar to me.

    Emotional abuse. Psychological abuse. It’s all I knew. It was “normal.”

    For too long I was a people pleaser. I avoided conflict because I didn’t want people to be mad at me for standing up for myself. I didn’t want people to dislike me for sharing my honest thoughts and feelings. I cared more about others’ feelings than my own.

    After talking to the trainer I shared the lightbulb moment in therapy. I was reminded that I need to love myself more than others love me. I need to pull off the masks of shame, guilt and failure. I need to let go of the negative crap that manifests in my life and my body so that I can emerge with a new shape, new mind, new resilience and a new connection to my true, radiant self.

    It’s been a few weeks since I had this epiphany and a few pounds have already fallen off.

    Imagine that.

    I choose self-love, not self-loathing.

  • You Are Not At Fault

    We think during difficult times that we are at fault. Doing this makes sense because if we take the blame, maybe we can take control and do something about the situation.

    But could I really control the situations of my childhood? No.

    Did I really have the capacity to change things my parents did or did not do? No.

    It has taken me many months to finally accept that I can’t change my family members. I can’t make them see me. I can’t make them listen to me. I can’t make them love me. I can’t control what they do, say, think or feel.

    I can only change myself. I can decide what I will and will not tolerate.

    I am not responsible for the emotions and thoughts of others.

    I am not to blame when someone cannot accept or respect my boundaries.

    I am not at fault for abuse that I endured in my childhood. I was a child. The adults were supposed to protect me. They were supposed to meet my needs, not the other way around.

    If you’re going through difficult things with your dysfunctional family, please know that you are not at fault.

  • Enmeshed Families, Emotional Abuse and Cutting Off Contact

    To heal from emotional and spiritual abuse, I learned to set boundaries. Setting boundaries is important. It helps me set basic guidelines of how I want to be treated. It helps me establish guidelines as to how others can behave around me.  This helps ensure that relationships are mutually respectful, appropriate, and caring.

    Setting boundaries also helps eliminate opportunities for me to be abused. I have used two methods: no contact and limited contact.  No contact means I have no communication with the offender: no phone calls, text messages, emails, or visits.  Limited contact means I determine the frequency and duration of all communication. I like to call it “small doses.”

    It’s not easy to cut someone out of your life.  Even after enduring emotional abuse, I often struggle with self-doubt, especially when the holidays are approaching.  It seems to trigger questions as to whether I’m doing the right thing. I start to wonder if I’m the actual problem for the strained relationships with members of my family. When your family is enmeshed, it’s difficult to develop a sense of self, or trust your emotions, and not having any contact with each other is unfamiliar and foreign.

    My decision to have no communication with members of my family was one I needed to make to find peace. I was emotionally and mentally exhausted from fighting to be heard. I cried every day because my feelings were not validated.

    My parents treat me with disregard. Sometimes they are dismissive, sometimes they are verbally abusive, and when I attempt to address the issues or give examples of past bad behavior, they gaslight me, or use guilt and shame to silence me. 

    My parents feel entitled to treat me however they want, and they feel entitled to having a relationship with my children despite their bad behavior toward me.  My children have witnessed the way my parents dismiss me and disregard me. The terrible part is I tolerated their behavior.  I wasn’t strong enough to stand up for myself.  Because I accepted the way that my parents treated me, my children received a specific message about me: Mom’s feelings don’t matter.

    My kids saw their grandparents, and their aunts and uncles, treat me like I was not important. They saw that my feelings were invalid; that it was okay to treat people with disregard.  My kids got the message that it was acceptable to treat their mother this way, too.

    What I’m most ashamed of is that my kids witnessed me trying to please these people despite the way they treated me. I showed them it was okay to accept poor treatment. Why should I be surprised when my kids disrespect my authority? I allowed their grandparents to do the same thing. Why should I expect my children to be able to set boundaries, or respect my boundaries? I didn’t set any with my parents or my siblings.

    Why would I want my kids to be around people who treat me poorly? 

    I want to believe my parents would never hurt my children. But I find myself asking why I think they would be so wonderful to everyone else and that I, as their daughter, was the exception to the rule. When it comes to the truth about who my parents truly are and how they treat people, I find myself facing contradictions.

    I know exactly why I believe that my parents would never hurt my kids. 

    When I was a kid, I was convinced that I was the problem. I was brainwashed to believe that I was deficient, or somehow defective, and that if I wasn’t so “worthless” my life and my parents’ feelings towards me would have been different. I was convinced that if only I could have been the daughter they wanted, then I would have been loved.

    I believed that my parents would have loved me if I was good enough. If I had been the daughter they dreamed of; smarter, prettier, more loving, more compliant, less of a burden, then I would have been treasured, loved, accepted, and secure.

    I don’t see my children the way my parents regarded me, so I can’t imagine that my mom and dad would ever treat my kids the way that they treated me. I see my kids as wonderful treasures, so it’s unfathomable that my parents would ever judge my children in the same ways they judged me.  Of course I wouldn’t see the danger of my children having a relationship with their grandparents, even if I decide not to have contact with them. It was ingrained in me to think I was the problem; that I was always at fault.

    In enmeshed families there is a lack of boundaries.  When I began to set boundaries they weren’t respected.  My parents feel entitled to step around me to gain access to my children. Sometimes they contact my husband instead of me. Sometimes they enlist my siblings to have a talk with me to “set me straight.” 

    My siblings have said they fear that I am using my children to punish our parents, and them.  They tell me that Mom and Dad love their grandchildren and I don’t have the right to cut off contact. This infuriates me.  What is loving about treating a child’s mother with disregard and disrespect? Where is the example of love in that treatment?

    Some parents and grandparents are narcissists. Let’s be clear: a narcissist is a narcissist no matter who they are dealing with. They are only interested in themselves and their interests. In that regard, what is their interest in a relationship with your children? I’ve thought about this for quite a long time.  I believe that they want to be right so badly that they will try to discredit you when it comes to your children.  Their sole purpose is to prove that they are right about you (and that you are wrong); so right that your own children have turned against you.

    When making decisions about my children I cannot be blind to the truth. I am the parent. I have a choice, even though I had been brainwashed to believe that I didn’t. I have power even though I was convinced that I was powerless. I reject those lies. I’m taking control of my life. I’m taking back my power. I’m taking control over my choices.

    I’m not obligated to do anything just because the word family is involved. People who don’t care about me are not good role models for my children. People who treat me as though I am nothing and call me crazy don’t have a place in my life or the lives of my kids.  These people are going to communicate their judgments about me to my children, even if those judgments are non-verbal. I’ve experienced this before and sometimes these people are very convincing.

    We might be accused of seeking revenge when we decide to have no contact, but when it comes to me, my husband and my kids, we are a package deal. If you can’t deal with me, you can’t deal with my kids. Accusations are not truth. Whose fault is it, truly, when we decide that it is best for our children not to see our parents? What situation or behavior caused us to consider this decision in the first place?

    My decision wasn’t made to seek revenge. I sought peace. My motive for finally standing up for myself was to demand a relationship that is mutually respectful and kind, and to set an example for my kids as to how they deserve to be treated. The cycle of abuse stops with me.