OH NO, I’M AGREEING – with my Bad Voice (again)
PREVIOUS: Abuse of children
OLD PAIN vs. NEW PAIN
Old Pain (Abandonment) is made up of the daily misery we lived thru as kids, with no way to process or get help dealing with it.
It accumulated in our body & in our spirit, much of which eventually went underground, into our Shadow (the unconscious).
New Pain (Self-Hate) is the suffering we now do to ourselves & allow** others do to us – acting-out our family’s training. This layer gets added to the old abandon
ment & the accumulation wears us into the ground.
**Re. “allow” : Denial makes it hard for us to recognize abuse as it’s happening, so we do not consciously choose to let others hurt us, but unconsciously gravitate to the familiar – & then stay!
• So it’s important to stay awake for what’s happening to us & around us. Having been exposed to rage, fear, neglect, disrespect, torture …. as kids, ACoAs are both drawn to AND are more deeply affected (badly) by negative people, places & things.
It’s like having an open wound that keeps getting bumped – it’s injured more & more, so it hurt worse, AND never has time to heal. We’re hyper-sensitive to uplifting and deflating energies, & need to stay away from harsh environments even more than ‘normals’ with less damage do.
EMOTIONAL ABUSE (E.A.) to Ourselves
Keeping PMES in mind, most people think of abuse only in Physical terms (beating), but the damage we originally sustained was first & foremost Emotional. From earliest childhood ACoAs were trained to tolerate abuse in both subtle & blatant forms, which then became our default position.
In order to stop being tortured unnecessarily, observe how you Victimize yourself now, in ways that keep wounding your feelings
1. Self-Hate
As adults the most violent source of E.A. is our own inner Pig Parent voice, which generates relentless negative beliefs & demands we put on ourselves. Many of our troubles come from the WIC obeying this Introjected part, not wanting to let go of old ways which represent loyalty to our family system.
Monster : “Self-Hate”, expressed in T.E.A. forms
E.As : Terror, hopelessness, self-pity, FoA, loneliness, desperation
2. Addictions
Again, most of the focus is on the Physical damage & results we experienced, & not enough stress is put on the Emotional devastation . OUR addictions (food, sex, spending, work, relationships, exercise….) are specifically designed to repress / suppress painful Es & memories – to silence the PP voice which tortures the WIC!
E.As: Shame, S-H, guilt, hopelessness & abandonment fear – from Toxic beliefs, AND from the immature / harmful / crazy things addictions ‘make’ us do.
3. Going to the wrong people….
…. to share personal issues, secrets or deep pain with – as well as marry! Their worthless or harmful reactions make us feel worse – betrayed, alone, enraged, hopeless, suicidal.
The key point here is that we often go to people we already know from experience are not safe, but refuse to acknowledge it!
We’ve been disrespected, blown off, controlled, told what to do – before– by these people, 
instead of just listening to us & being sympathetic, YET we keep going back!
☀︎ Our denial of past & present reality has turned into self-abuse!
At best those unsafe people are out-to-lunch, at worst they’re assaultive. ACoAs say: “But they’ve been there for me in the past, so I owe them gratitude & loyalty”.
Maybe they were OR or maybe we just thought they were because of our own level of ignorance & denial. But the clues to their real & potential abandonment were always there. Being mentally & emotionally unawares (not our fault) made it easy for us to not recognize other people’s limitations or cruelty.
To quote Toni Morrison (& Oprah) – “When you know better, you do better”
As adults we are responsible for putting ourselves in the positions to be Emotionally Abused by certain people. In essence we’re doing it to ourselves by letting our PP or the WIC keep drawing us back to empty or poisonous ‘wells’ for comfort, guidance & support! Not going to happen!
E.As: Confused, abandoned, angry, longing, demeaned, depleted
NEXT: Victimizing Ourselves (Part 2)
HEAL & GROW for ACoAs 
You do such a wonderful job of dragging the problem out into the daylight and dissecting it.
Staying away from “harsh environ” – I relate, it has always been critical for me. I wonder if there are other “securities” that resonate among Alcoa’s….I am taking the plunge to work on some old yuck (with help:). I wonder if there are other common ways to stabilize the boat in preparation for the voyage. Perhaps you have another writing along these lines?
Cheers & Thanks as always…clearly I was near the water today, LOL
LikeLike
Kira,it’s true that bringing things to light can be painful – but oh so relieving – in the long run!
Lot of posts cover ‘stabilizing the boat’, including those on S & I, Dealing with Abusers, Book-ending, Control, Receiving, ‘Healthy opposites’, our rights, Emotions, healthy rules…..
LikeLike
Thank you for this. I also just re-read “healthy boundaries”.
If we victimize ourselves by getting involved with an unsafe person even though we know what we saw but didn’t know why we’re doing it, and the result was a horrible character assassination and we hid in shame and ran away – a reaction which made it bigger and invited in abuse and disrespect from everyone else around us until we’re completely depleted – do we go back and set a boundary after we’ve done the work around it to diminish the trauma?
i.e., “I understand your viewpoint but in not your problem and I won’t tolerate this abuse anymore.”
Or
Do we let it go and perhaps go back to a meeting in that community and talk about the truth and our progress – in a place we can have a voice in a different way?
LikeLike
Outfromunder – from what you say, if “everyone else” was also abusive – then they all need to be avoided. When anyone is determined to make you the scapegoat we need to stay away & not try to explain or turn the other cheek. Your job is to protect your Inner Child in all the ways we didn’t get growing up.
LikeLike