This is the third in a series on recognizing and changing abusive behavior. (See Why some child abuse victims repeat what was done to them and Coarse Pattern Recognition: A Guide to Modification).
Since it can be very difficult to realize that you are being abusive, I have listed and described some of the characteristics that may predispose a person to be abusive, especially with their partners. These features include:
A strong desire to maintain control
Children who are emotionally, physically or sexually abused have no control over what happens to them. They are ordered around, put down, criticized and shamed. They have emotional and physical characteristics boundaries is constantly broken. It is common for survivors of any type of abuse to compensate for the loss of control by being overly controlling and domineering. Some consciously think things like, “I’ll never be bossed around again,” but usually the decision unconscious one. Most people deliberately choose partners they can control; others are unaware that they are attracted to those who allow them to control the relationship.
Tendency to blame others for your problems
Many who were abused as children, especially men, struggle with their own abuse. rejection called “identification with the aggressor”. If a young child refuses to recognize that he is a victim, but instead justifies or minimizes the bully’s behavior, he often behaves in a similar way to the bully, very much like the bully.
Once someone has been abused, they become more invested in denying the truth. If they acknowledge their behavior and the impact it has on others, they open the door to remembering and acknowledging their own sacrifices—which many find painful. Therefore, they blame the victim for their own victimization, thereby avoiding any responsibility and acknowledgment of their abusive behavior.
Tendency to see oneself as a victim
When a person has a victim mentality, his perception is wrong. No matter how much they hurt someone else, they can admit how much they hurt themselves. Because of their experiences of abuse or neglect, they are forever stuck in the role of victim – only able to see the harm done to them by other people, completely oblivious to any harm they themselves cause to others. Another reason abusers tend to blame others for their behavior is psychological. defense mechanism known as projection. The way it works is that in order to avoid experiencing a quality we don’t like, we transfer that quality onto someone else.
Difficulty with or inability to empathize with others
In part because they are stuck in the role of victim and their perceptions are distorted, those who have been neglected or abused as children are often unable to empathize with others or put themselves in another person’s shoes. In particular, those who have been neglected in childhood are often aggressive and cruel towards others, lacking the ability to emotionally “understand” the effect of their behavior on others. They don’t understand or feel what it means to others when they do or say something hurtful. In fact, adults who have been neglected as children often feel compelled to lash out at and hurt others—usually whom they believe have less power than they do. One of the most disturbing elements of this aggression This is often accompanied by a detached, cold lack of empathy. They may feel remorse (intellectual response) but not remorse (emotional response) when confronted with their aggressive or cruel behavior.
Jealous and possessive tendencies
This tendency stems from feelings of insecurity and inferiority self-esteem because of childhood neglect, abandonment, or abuse. Children need nurturing, acceptance and stability in order to feel safe in themselves and around them. When they don’t get it, they try to get security from others, especially their partners. When real or imagined situations threaten this security, they try to keep their partners tight.
A tendency to be emotionally needy
This trait also causes feelings of insecurity and low self-esteem. When a child’s emotional needs aren’t met, they starve for the nurturing, acceptance, and positive feedback they don’t get from their parents. When the child grows up and enters into an adult relationship, all these unsatisfied things are restored. We want our partner to give us the things we didn’t get as children, and when they can’t or won’t, we get angry, resentful, and demanding. Although it is unreasonable to expect our partner to compensate us for what we did not receive as children, we still expect it, and this expectation can lead to serious conflicts in the relationship. Partners feel pressured and pressured to meet our needs, and even those who move slowly become increasingly resentful, realizing that our needs are never-ending. Over time, until our expectations are abused, we become angrier and more demanding.
Unfortunately, nothing our partner does is ever enough. No amount of trust or sacrifice on the part of our partner will fill the empty spaces within us. We must begin to fill the void ourselves. We need to start meeting our unmet needs.
Disgust or aversion to weakness
This tendency is related to identification with the aggressor and is a form of denial. It’s especially hard to admit that men are victims, because men have always been raised to be tough and strong in the first place. When a man is victimized, especially if he is physically or sexually abused, he feels a lot. shame because he believes he should have been able to defend himself and prevent violence. As a way to deal with these feelings of shame, he may refuse to admit to being a victim or blame himself for being a victim. When he sees another person who looks weak, he may feel a kind of anger inside him because that person (unconsciously) reminds him of himself.
If you realize that you have many of these characteristics, instead of condemning and blaming and feeling ashamed, start recognizing them as symptoms of your problem – symptoms that you can do something about. In my next blog, we will focus on some actions that can help reduce these tendencies.
