I DON’T KNOW WHY
they give me such a hard time!

PREVIOUS:
Victimizing Ourselves (#2)

SITE:  re. Emotions

See ACRONYM Page for abbrev.

EMOTIONAL ABUSE (E.A.) to Ourselves (cont.)
4. Confusion
5. Staying Ignorant
6. Letting others USE us

7. Lack of Self-Care
♟ We were originally subjected to many different kinds of PMES “care” – some parents were too rigid, some too lax.
a. In some families too much was expected of us (little adults) – to fend for ourselves &/or take care of others – way too early. We did what we could, but even if it was OK, we never believe it’s right or good enough (More….)

b. In others, the hero/martyr parent did too much, without teaching us how to do things – making us naive, ignorant or stupid – & dependent on others
c.  In yet others, they did way too little daily care & maintenance for us, so again we had to fake it – but trying, never learning to do things easily, correctly, efficiently, or at all.  (See Part 1 & 2)

♟  Now we don’t know adult self-care (balance a check book, make a resume, fill out forms…), or we do them sometimes but inconsistently, or simply refuse to do what we really do know how (brush teeth, go to the bathroom before bursting, get enough sleep, eat right, put laundry away …. )

ALSO, ACoAs keep putting off doing certain things we’d actually like to have (a clean house, mended clothes, a better education, shed weight…). We obsess about them, but ‘refuse’ to act – even though procrastinating makes us feel bad about ourselves. We can’t win for losing!
E.A.: disgust, frustration, guilt, shame, S-H

8. Repressing
It may seem strange at first, but shutting off emotions or trying to sit on them is definitely a form of E.A.! 
Unfortunately for the deluded part of us (PP & WIC) we can’t actually change or control Emotions by repressing, ignoring or denying them. We can only freeze them – but they’re still underneath, causing anxiety or painful numbness!

The more we try to control our Es, the stronger the unconscious counter-reaction, making us more & more frightened of ‘loosing control’. This leads to a vicious cycle of :
🥁 Having intense Es —> pushing them down (repression) —> then maybe acting them out – badly —> then having a negative internal reaction —> then shutting down again….. adding a mountain of stress to our already overflowing emotional pressure-cooker

EXP: Some of us can go day after day functioning normally on the outside, seemingly even-tempered & pleasant.  Then all of a sudden we over-react to something relatively trivial or harmless – as if out of nowhere. We can’t figure out what happened & everyone around us is shocked.
It’s one sign that we’re been stock-piling Es (old &new), instead of dealing with them as they come up.

Eventually suppressed Es fill our energy capacity to the brim (emotions = energy to act) & we explode in rage, in a panic attack &/or physical illness OR implode into depression, mental confusion & immobility (T.E.A.)

• Unfortunately for our Inner Life, Western society was founded on Puritan stoicism, which included hiding emotions, being ashamed & afraid of them. This has been translated into political correctness – especially about showing Es in public, which are judged as ‘loosing it’ & a great sign of personal weakness.

People feel uncomfortable with anyone who expresses pain overtly!  Yet we are all born with Emotions, for good reasons, & need to accept & deal with them – appropriately
E.As: cut off – from amusement / humor, joy, love, sympathy….

9. Hurting others  (“How ACoAs Abandon Others” posts)
Here we’re talking about how we victimize ourselves by beating ourselves up  (S-H) for hours, days or years – for having been controlling, hostile, negligent, unfaithful, selfish …. to someone.
This is not the same as taking responsibility for our actions. While our behavior may have directly or adversely affected another person (or not), the internal backlash we suffer afterward is not worth the short-term satisfaction we got from acting out on them in the moment.

NEXT: Victimizing Others