Take Your Life Back Read online

  Everyone experiences—and internalizes—some degree of mental abuse simply by being born into the human race. That fact alone explains why so many people seek fulfillment by taking care of other people. But for many of us, the cycles of abuse expanded.

  Emotional Abuse

  As with mental abuse, emotional abuse is often called the invisible wound because there are no physical scars or bruises to substantiate it. For that reason alone, it can cause devastating harm to the soul, destroying a child’s sense of self and natural self-confidence. Think of the confusion a child feels when being emotionally abused. The natural response is to trust what the parents do and believe what the parents say, even though it is incongruent with the child’s experience.

  At first, the child feels an inner tension—Do I trust and believe my parents or listen to my real self?—but eventually the parents win the battle, and the child begins to dismiss his or her own questions and doubts.

  Typically, emotional abuse accompanies physical or sexual abuse, but each of the three destroys the child’s developing sense of self. The longer the abuse continues, the emptier the child’s sense of self will become.

  Emotional abuse can be subtle—as in sarcasm, verbal put-downs, or ridicule—or it can be openly violent, as in yelling, humiliation, and open cruelty. It is often explained away as being done out of love, but there is nothing loving about emotional abuse or any other kind of abuse.

  Emotional abuse can also take the form of neglect, or lack of interest by the parent. Whether this indifference is expressed openly and aggressively toward the child—“Get out of here and leave me alone” or “I don’t have time for you”—or passively through absence or lack of attention, it pervasively and systematically undermines and attacks the child’s sense of identity and self-worth.

  Children don’t come into the world with a ready-made sense of self. Identity is formed through meaningful attachments and relationships. At first, an infant is simply an extension of the mothering parent. By the time they are two, children have begun to explore what it means to be a separate self. This developmental stage is sometimes called “the terrible twos,” but it could just as easily be called “the wonder-full twos,” as the child’s unique personality emerges through curiosity and exploration.

  Once the groundwork of identity has been established in early childhood, our felt need to find out who we are subsides until the teenage years. Then the search begins anew—often with a vengeance. Who am I? How do I make sense of how I think and feel compared to what I see and hear? Both the terrible twos and the teenage years are sensitive times developmentally, and emotional abuse can be especially damaging during these years.

  Both of these stages are important in our search for a healthy sense of self. Abuse during these pivotal years can stunt our emotional development and hinder our ability to express ourselves in healthy ways. Sadly, we may become the negative persons that our abusers have accused us of being.

  Here are some ways in which emotional abuse sometimes occurs:

  We were consistently made to feel worthless.

  Our point of view was consistently ignored.

  We were subjected to guilt or shame to make us comply.

  Our feelings were ignored.

  We were often given the silent treatment.

  We lived with a raging parent, whose rage was often directed at us.

  We were also physically or sexually abused.

  We often experienced sarcasm and ridicule.

  We were often criticized for what we did or didn’t do.

  This list is not exhaustive, but it highlights common examples of emotional abuse.

  Physical Abuse

  If you’ve ever seen pictures of a battered woman or an abused child, you may have wondered how anyone could be so cruel to another human being, let alone to a child. But we know it happens all too frequently. In The Great Santini, author Pat Conroy uses a fictional story to describe how abusive his father—the real-life Great Santini—had been to his family. But his father went to his grave insisting he had never been abusive.

  In a more recent nonfiction book, The Death of Santini, Conroy spells out the extent of the abuse and how he first told his wife “the whole story of my father’s long, debilitating war against his family.”[14]

  I had never revealed to another soul that he had been beating my mother since I was conscious of being alive, and that I remember hating him when I was in a high chair, my face burning with shame and humiliation that I could do nothing to protect my mother. My father could sense my hatred of him, and he began to beat me with some regularity when I was still in diapers.[15]

  Conroy describes a scene from his childhood when his father choked him and banged his head against the wall. When, as an adult, he reminded his father of that incident, his father laughed and denied it ever happened, even though Pat told him that he could show him the damaged wall.

  It’s hard to believe his father’s denial system was so strong that he could laugh it all off and deny everything, and children raised in a home like that might begin to question their own sanity. Indeed, Pat Conroy refers to his sister Carol Ann’s psychotic break and how she “spent her days tormented by voices and visions and hallucinations.”[16] Or they may have come to see the physical abuse as somehow normal. That was my (David’s) experience as I grew up. My father had a violent Irish temper, and trips to the basement with him were often very unpredictable. But his explanation for the abuse was that it was “standard discipline.”

  I had an ulcer at the age of ten, which the doctor blamed on my diet. I believed that until I was in my forties. But if you had come to talk to me at the clinic about an ulcer, I never would have blamed it on your diet. I would have begun to explore the stress levels in your life. Still, for years I was unable to apply the same professional judgment and analysis to my own situation. It honestly never occurred to me that the stress of living with my dad’s temper could have had anything to do with my ulcer. That’s how normalization and rationalization work. Not only do the parents deny the abuse, but even the abused child is subject to denial.

  If you wonder whether something that you experienced was abusive, ask yourself whether you would do the same thing to one of your own children or condone other people doing the same thing to their children. Today, in an effort to avoid even a hint of physical abuse, many parents will not even spank their children.

  Sexual Abuse

  It wasn’t very many years ago that sexual abuse was largely overlooked in our culture. Fortunately, that has changed, but it is still a crippling secret in far too many families. When it happens, it destroys the child’s self-confidence, sense of worth as a person, and any sense of the safety of personal boundaries. When these children become adults, they often have no sexual boundaries, or they build walls that keep them from having healthy relationships.

  Some people have a vague, distant sense that something bad happened but have no clear memory of an actual event. Others can remember the uncomfortable feeling of one of their parents (usually of the opposite sex) beginning to treat them as a surrogate spouse. Even when no sexual activity occurred, the child still experienced it as incestuous. This pattern of emotional entanglement can sometimes continue into the child’s adulthood, and it represents an ongoing wound.

  Studies have shown that memories of sexual abuse can be falsely implanted without the person even being aware. Old memories can also be influenced by subsequent events that may not be directly related, and not everything we recall may have happened exactly the way we remember it. So we must be careful with what we remember, especially in the area of sexual abuse, but that in no way diminishes the need to find constructive ways to work through these memories and the pain associated with them.

  Both physical and sexual abuse destroy the natural boundaries of a child, and this can lead to boundary problems in adulthood. Wounded people tend to wound other people, and those whose personal boundaries were violated as children may tend to repeat t
he pattern, either openly or secretly. That’s why, if you have been wounded by physical or sexual abuse (or both), it is essential that you take your life back.

  Spiritual Abuse

  Another form of abuse that isn’t talked about very often is spiritual abuse. People who are recruited into cults are obviously spiritually abused. Jonestown in Guyana in 1978 and the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993 offer clear examples of spiritual abuse that also included emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. But what about something closer to home, such as churches where pastors misuse God’s Word to control their congregations? These are a little more difficult to identify. But spiritual abuse exists, as counselor and theologian Jack Felton and I (Steve) describe in our book Toxic Faith. Spiritual abuse is “a destructive and dangerous involvement in a religion that allows the religion, not a relationship with God, to control a person’s life. . . . It is a defective faith with an incomplete or tainted view of God. It is abusive and manipulative and can become addictive.”[17]

  Spiritual abuse is a counterfeit of true faith, based on distortions of God’s Word. When we are in an abusive environment, we come to believe the distortions about God and ourselves, as well.

  When Jesus “became flesh and made his dwelling among us,” he “came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”[18] Healthy spirituality will always maintain a healthy balance between grace and truth. Grace is quite simply an expression of God’s unfailing love—the kind of love described by the apostle Paul:

  Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.[19]

  We don’t deserve that kind of love, but God loves us anyway. That’s grace in action.

  This unfailing love is balanced by genuine truth. But truth is never put forward at the expense of grace, nor is grace ever given at the expense of the truth. They are always in exquisite balance. When they get out of balance, that’s when spiritual abuse can occur.

  Mental, emotional, physical, sexual, and spiritual abuse often occur in combination with each other because they all take advantage of our vulnerability and our need for connection. And they are at the root of classical codependency. When we have been abused in any or all of these ways, we lose a sense of our real self, and that’s when we go looking for substitutes. Taking your life back begins with understanding the source of your woundedness. As the old Living Bible says, “You can’t heal a wound by saying it’s not there!”[20] Healing begins when we identify and understand our wounds.

  The Roots of Secondary Dependency

  What if, in looking back, you can honestly say there was no serious abuse when you were growing up? You may have been wounded in various ways, through trauma or difficult relationships, but there were no pervasive patterns and no one really to blame. Maybe you were profoundly misunderstood during your most formative years; or lost an important loved one at a critical juncture; or were dragged along on a traumatic, long-distance move at a time of increased vulnerability, such as the early teenage years; or participated in some way in a shaming or guilt-inducing incident that struck to the core of your identity and rattled your self-image. Your wounds may come from a more recent issue that you are dealing with; and though these wounds may be less persistent or pervasive, you believe they damaged or undermined your sense of self, and you still feel as if you need to take your life back.

  When the source of our wounds is trauma, there is often a feeling of vulnerability that threatens our sense of identity, leading us to act in ways that might seem to promote healing and wholeness but that actually increase our sense of emptiness or fear. For example, if someone I loved suddenly left me or was taken from me, I would try to cover up my fear of further abandonment. But that wouldn’t keep me from experiencing further abandonment. We’ll look more closely at the effects of trauma in chapter 8.

  The Wounding Edge of Narcissism

  Another common situation is being in a committed relationship with someone who displays a lot of narcissistic tendencies.

  The concept of narcissism is based on the Greek myth of Narcissus and Echo. Echo was a mountain nymph who loved to talk. But when she offended one of the gods, her punishment was that she could no longer speak except to repeat what others said. She is like the dependent in that she has no voice of her own, focusing only on what others say.

  Echo fell in love with a young hunter named Narcissus and longed to tell him how she felt about him, but all she could do was echo what he said. Narcissus had also run afoul of one of the gods, and his punishment was to fall in love with the image of himself that he saw reflected in a pool of water as he leaned over to take a drink. Once he became captivated, he had no eyes for Echo and could focus only on himself. It wasn’t so much that he fell in love with himself, as some versions of the story suggest (in fact, narcissists really don’t like themselves), but that he fell in love with his image—what others would see.

  Because Echo had lost her sense of self and was unable to express her own thoughts, she developed an unhealthy dependence on taking care of Narcissus, with the hope that he would somehow see how much she cared for him.

  To properly understand narcissism, we should place it on a continuum, ranging from healthy to unhealthy. We all have some degree of narcissism in us, some more than others. A healthy self-regard—which we all need—can be characterized by a wholesome self-love and self-concern, in which our needs and wants are in balance with the needs and wants of others. We have healthy boundaries that allow us to care for ourselves while also caring for other people.

  The unhealthy narcissist is someone who doesn’t care how his or her behavior affects other people. In fact, these narcissists have little or no insight into how they come across. This may manifest as simple arrogance, grandiosity, or a sense of entitlement. As a result, they use other people for their own purposes and expect to be cared for by others. Those at the unhealthy extreme of the spectrum have what is called a narcissistic personality disorder.

  To stay in a relationship with someone who has a lot of narcissistic tendencies, you will either develop a case of classic dependency or you will become a secondary dependent. This dependent behavior is required by the unspoken rules of relating to a narcissist—all of which are always attuned to the needs of the narcissist. To take your life back, you will need a lot of emotional and behavioral support from trusted people on your healing journey.

  The Vortex of a Borderline Personality

  Borderline personality disorder is another dysfunctional state that can cause us to become extremely preoccupied with the problems of another person. Nothing is ever comfortable in a relationship with this type of person. Sometimes he or she will be very needy and demanding, and then at other times he or she will push you away. We have to learn how to live with these extremes. With a person who has borderline personality disorder, the dependent is always having to repair some damage to the relationship caused by misreading the smoke signals. Sometimes the cues are contradictory: “Love me . . . don’t love me . . . don’t you dare not love me!” all at once.

  People with borderline tendencies often have an exciting side to their personality. When they’re up, they make “upness” contagious. They’re fun to be with! But when they’re down, it’s easy to get sucked into the vortex of down or to wear ourselves out trying to help them get back up.

  Borderline types are typically impulsive, and that can be part of the fun. But the more extreme they are, the more likely they are to blame others for everything bad that is happening in their lives. It is easy to see how the demands of living with someone like this would leave us with little time to care for our own needs. When we don’t know what’s coming next, we’re always on edge, always on alert, always on call. In the end, we either lose ourselves in the r
elationship or we somehow get away.

  Sorting the Puzzle Pieces

  We don’t bury our real selves on purpose or even by accident. We do it as a reaction to the pain of our woundedness or to the perpetual demands of someone close to us—whether it’s a child, spouse, or parent. Taking your life back begins with identifying why you avoid your own self-care. Your woundedness and your dysfunctional relationships are pieces of that puzzle. Let’s look now at a puzzle piece that determines how we react to the environment that led to our wounds and to the absence of our real self.

  4

  REACTING TO PAIN

  WHENEVER I (STEVE) SPEAK at churches or other gatherings, I like to draw upon my life experience and find something either humorous or profound in it. In everything that happens in life, I figure there has to be a lesson, some laughter, and some evidence of the Lord’s presence right in the middle of it.

  I remember a trip to Babies “R” Us when my wife, Misty, was more than eight months pregnant with our first child. We were shopping for a chest of drawers for the nursery. When we found what we wanted, it was a little too heavy for me to handle on my own, so I asked for some assistance to load it into my truck. I never quite caught the name of the young man who came out from the back of the store to help me, but judging by his perfectly toned body and bulging muscles, it was probably something like Thor.

  Thor was quite friendly and helpful, and everything went great—until the very last second, when Thor, not realizing that my hand was still under the corner of the carton, dropped the chest onto the second finger of my right hand, which is only slightly less vulnerable and sensitive than the pinkie.