WHAT DO YOU MEAN – NAG? I’m just trying to be heard!

PREVIOUS : Victimizing OTHERS (#1)

SITE: Great source of info & interviews

See ACRONYM Page for abbrev.

TOWARDS OTHERS  – From us (cont)
1. Abandoning
2. Jumping

3. Dumping (being an emotional vampire)
♟ The compulsion to endlessly complain about our life in general, or about the same problem over & over:
• to anyone who will listen, indiscriminately
• using someone as a captive audience, even when they indicate they’ve had enough & we’ve overstayed our welcome (hint, hint)
OR
♟ Starting a ‘discussion’ about a person issues, or a particular gripe – with someone:
• at inappropriate times, when the other person is on the way out the door to work, dealing with their own pain, before going to sleep….
• not letting it go, going on & on about it, having to be right….

♟ AND without any sense of our own involvement / responsibility for those complaints, & therefore an inability / unwillingness to work on out-growing our issues by doing deep FoO Recovery

4. Gossiping (a form of triangulating) – when we :
• share personal info someone tells us about themselves, even if it is not obviously given in confidence
• pass on info about someone that a third person was gossiping about
• make up stories or say something unflattering or mean:
— to make ourselves look better, more important, more knowledgeable
— to harm them personally or professionally (revenge, jealousy)
ALSO: To take ‘credit’ for a statement or action done by someone else (stealing)

5. Leaning (being needy, overly dependent)
When we demand (as if we’re a victim) that other people take care of us emotionally – we are using them – it’s still abusive, even though we feel weak, needy & vulnerable.
Consciously or not, we’re expecting them to take on the role of the Good Parents we never had. This is an inappropriate burden to put on others.
Some EXP:
• always want people to tell us we’re acceptable / not too much
• constantly apologize – for having needs, expressing our Es, asking for help…. or for just being alive
• let others speak for us, rather than saying what we want or don’t want
• want others to give us permission to do things that are our responsibility to decide:
“Is it OK if I …?  I’m sorry I‘m early. Is it OK to be here? Can I bring that to you next week? Is it OK that I called?….”
✶ ➼ instead of making declarative statements:
“I don’t have that with me now but I can email it later / bring it to you next time. I need to change our appointment / pay you on Tuesday…..”

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P.M.E.S. SYMPTOM – results for ACoA who are survivors of domestic, religious, psychological & sexual abuse.
Abuse & abandonment (A/A) are not only physical – we may or may not have been beaten, molested or lost a parent to divorce or death.

Even so, anyone growing up in an unhealthy family will have experienced A/A in all 4 categories (PMES), most often mental & emotional – each in varying degrees of intensity.

✳️ ACoAs rarely think we actually have an impact on anyone, but we do!  It can be POSITIVE, because of our good qualities & skills, but can also be NEGATIVE, when we act out our toxic family heritage on others.

What effect do you have on the people in your world?

NEXT: Relationship Stages