Types of Abusive Relationships

If you happened to start a search on the topic of abusive relationships maybe you wanna stay around, because this probably is an article for you.

 One unmistakable sign of being in an abusive relationship is that you start to feel that something is off,

 
By the time you go online to find some answers you probably are pretty convinced already of two things:

 a) something strange is happening between you and that person that is making you feel very unconfortable and/or sad 

 b) you need help dealing with it. As much as it pains you not always what was supposed to be a caring relationship is an healthy and nurturing thing.

The first thing i want to clarify about this topic is that abuse comes in all forms and shapes.


          Some of this forms are really clear and identifiable; some are so subtle that you’ll be going through hell doubting and blaming yourself thinking that the problem must be in you. 

Abusers also come in all shapes and sizes: they can be your boyfriend/girlfriend, parent, neighbor, boss, friend … and the list goes on. They can be rude or absolutelly charming.

           One thing that you have to keep in mind for the sake of your mental health and physical integrity is that the persons we keep in our lives are supposed to be there for a reason: to make our lives more fulfilling and rich. If you are keeping someone close to you that only (or mainly) provokes negative feelings on you, I am sorry to tell you but you are being abused.

You’re going to tell me now: yes, that person does this or that to me, but at the same time all people have faults and do wrong sometimes… Yes! That’s totally true. What defines abuse is not somebody hurting you punctually. That will always happen in any relationship, because relationships include conflict and actually need conflict to exist and evolve. We all have different needs to be met. But abuse is something different and is defined by three little concepts: repetition; selfishness and denial.


                                                                    PATERNS

The first one that we are going to look at is repetition, and to break it down for you simply, you know that an abusive behavior is being repited when you start feeling conditioned by it. What i mean by conditioned is when you change your way of being, needs and preferences in order to please the abuser or to avoid being abused. This is pretty clear when for instance you stop going out so much with your friends because the person you’re in a relationship with gets grumpy, suspicious or texts like mad when you do; or you start to hide things from your family because every time you tell them your plans they always put you down and smash you with negative comments and so on.

The second thing you wanna look at is selfishness in the behavior. Typically you will find that people who tend to have abusive behaviors exhibit a pattern of selfish motives, even when this motives come disguised as altruist. To be more clear, if you dig down a little bit more, people who aren’t being abusive will ultimately give you a reason for their hurtful behaviour that will be valid. As for abusers, if you  question them you will soon find out that they were just trying to meet their needs somehow (as crazy as this needs are, and trust me, sometimes they are unbelievably crazy).  They can be doing this for several different reasons like fears, insecurities, distortion of reality, pure evilness, but nevertheless you will always get to the conclusion that whatever they did was never with a constructive intention, it was never a simple misunderstood. More often than not you will start to shed some light on their really distorted interpretations of reality.

The third point is denial. I won’t say that abusers never recognize when they do wrong. Some of them are actually experts in recognizing all their faults just to keep you entangled and perpetuate the abuse, but if you look closer they will never assume that they are manipulating you, they´re mistreating you continuously or they’re taking advantage of you. They may assume they did something wrong in a particular situation to get away with it but they will never admit to their true colors or commit to change or get help.

Now that you know the main thing to look for i also want to make a point about the intention of abuse. One thing that you need to keep in mind is that not all abusers are the same and so their intentions are also not the same. Some people abuse others because they have low levels of empathy and thrive on exploitation (like people who suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder), some because they’re unconscious and irreflective,  others because they have deeps fears of abandonment (as you will find in people who suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder). 

      Some of the abusers will be really convinced they like you or love you, and will even give you signs of that once or more. What you have to understand is that for some people the concepts of love, friendship and relationships that they learnt while they where still very young are very distorted. For this individuals, what they are living is their concept of a normal relationship between two human beings because they simply don’t have any other. What you believe is right and normal is very much culturally and socially conditioned, so if a person learned something wrong in the childhood, it is extremely hard to recondition the most basic concepts through which they see and think the world.

        You will thus find that emotional and psycological abuse is very highly correlated to personality disorders and similar disturbances. Some of the ones that are more associated with these type of behaviours are Narcissism, Borderline Personality Disorder and Co-dependency. These are very common in population. For a professional insight into these type of disorders you can look at the works of Dr. Sam Vaknin and Dr. Ross Rosenberg in the links bellow. You can go through a long list of articles and videos of these authors who are deeply experienced in the study of these patients.

       

    Understanding the difference between one type and the other is extremely hard and sometimes can only be done with the help of a professional. The diagnosis of these disorders is in many cases extremelly subtle and hard to do without a deep study of these and many hours of analysis. 

      As for you, you have to know that if you choose to keep an abuser in your life because you believe in his recovery you are in for a bumpy ride, and you’ll have to make big sacrifices and learn techniques to deal with this type of people.

       Don´t stay close to these people if you feel the violence you are suffering is incapacitating you in any way or endangering you. If you choose to stay you will have to have a deep emotional stability and learn about these disorders in order to cope effectivelly with them. These people thrive on your own fragilities, so if you have many, the smart choice is to let go.

       Another thing I want you to consider is that abuse if often misunderstood as physical violence. Of course physical violence is abuse, and can be pretty damaging. We all know that, we all see the news.

     But abuse is much more that that: it is a range of subtle behaviors that may have a strong psychological effect, to the point of getting you physically ill because you can’t put up any more with the stress and anxiety the abuser is causing on you. In some cases some abusive behaviours can make you literally fall apart with emotional distress and develop several physical and psychological problems like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

        Here’s a non-comprehensive list of more subtle behaviours you may wanna check your relationship for things like:

1. Feeling scared of talking to a person or expressing your feelings and opinions (because she will be enraged)
2. Having your property, accounts, schedules or even word checked-on constantly in a controlling way;
3.  Being exposed to a distortion of facts (to the point of you starting to doubt yourself);
4. Being demanded something that will be in some way prejudicial or sacrificial for you;
5. Being shoved down an alley of negative remarks and comments about yourself or exposed to extreme nagging about life in general in a regular basis;
6. Being forced to listen to someone or do something for someone when you don’t feel like doing it because you know the person won’t take a no;
7. Being told lies regulary;
8. Being lured by empty promises that never come true;
9. Being bothered at improper times or hour by someone;
10. Being asked for lots of small things and favours all the time in a exploitative way;
11. Someone disappearing or shutting you down once you complain instead of seeing things through with you, just to make you step back on your needs or claims;
12. Being put on a guilt trip everytime you do something that it’s totally in your right to do (like not share something is yours or is private; asserting your opinion and needs or not doing something against your values..)
13. Being put in a situation where someone always forces you to solve their problems for them;
14. Being told you are no good in a regular basis;
15. Being made fun off in a way that makes you feel diminished;
16. Being constantly invalidated by someone on your choices or opinions;
17. Being subject to the “authority” of someone who considers herself to know better what’s best for you;

Well.. I could go on and on with the list, but you have to keep in mind that each and every behavior that causes you to feel anxious, frightened, stressed and depressed coming from a person you are in a relationship with is probably  abuse. 

If you need to put it to a test, I advise you to go to the person and expose your feelings calmly and assertively, because many people feel bad in relationships just because they never had the courage to assert their needs. This is a very important step in any mature and healthy relationship for it to be functional.

          If however you hit a hard wall or all you get is more abuse, we have a winner! And if you get to the conclusion that you may be in an abusive relationship, then you have to do some deep thinking. Do actually take time off just to think about yourself. 

         Try to see it clearly situation by situation, what were the motives for the other persons behavior, if you could have cause them somehow; what are the reasons the person has to that, and if she deserves you to continue investing in this tie. Be honest with yourself and don't overthink it! 

       Whatever choice you take, never forget to do an interior analysis on yourself, and ask yourself, what where the reasons that led you to relate to this person in the first place?; Is it possible that there is something wrong in yourself that makes you engage in this relationships?; what is making you stay?; do you need to stay in this relationship?; are you taking something good out of it?; what would happen if you broke the relationship?; what are your other options?; what are you missing out because of this person?; who much are you willing to sacrifice to help the person if you think you can help? (remember that not all the abusers are suitable of help!). 

          Write these down if you need to. Many times people who expose themselves to violence in the first place have something to sort out in themselves too. You may find some good clues for what to do next. In any case remember that you can always find immense help on the communities online, articles, videos, local associations and professionals, that can make your job easier!

Ultimately remember that you are the biggest responsible for the way your feel!

Take Care!