I'm big on dream interpretation. It's within our dreams that our subconscious comes into play and that part that is connected to the divine can be brought forth in the pictures that play out through our mind scape.
I was greatly bothered by a dream this weekend of Michael. We were riding in a car and his legs were covered up. He lifted the cover and told me he had to get this fixed. I looked and when I did his veins were practically protruding from just beneath his skin. It wasn't just one or two, but literally more veins than I could have imagined would ever be in a leg. To some it may be just a weird dream, but to me it told me more about what his life was like.
Legs always have to do with our life path and the fact that his veins were protruding told me his path was much harder than I could have even imagined. He covered his legs and condition in the dream, which also told me this was a part of his life that he kept hidden.
All too often we do this same thing ourselves. We deny we are having difficulty, we hide the hurtful patterns present in our lives and when we get on the other side, we still have healing to do, just like Michael. So today I wanted to take another look at the effects of what abuse is and the fact that most of us, even though we have been abused, also deny it.
Many survivors of abuse can describe the symptoms of their abuse but never acknowledge the fact that they were abused. Sometimes it's a coping mechanism. For children it is easier to deny it or blame themselves as being "bad" than it is to accept that their caregiver, the one that is supposed to love and care for them seemingly does not. Others continue to engage in patterns of behavior just like the abusive parents they had when they get older. Even bullying children grow up to be bullying adults. Most often, the bullies themselves don't even realize what they are doing. How could they, when they themselves were bullied or abused and therefore know no different?
So the cycle continues until someone gets so unhappy or suffers the symptoms of abuse so often, they seek help.
So what are the symptoms of abuse?
1. Anxiety
2. Depression
3. Isolation and/or disassociation
4. Internalizing problems
5. Unhealthy eating (stuffing feelings instead of expressing them)
6. Difficulty with intimacy
7. Difficulty expressing feelings
Abuse (the "A" word no one wants to use): Emotional abuse and Neglect
Of all forms, emotional abuse and neglect are rampant in many areas of our world. This cycle continues because no one wants to call it abuse, no one wants to say it's detrimental to our well being because why? Because it's so common most people say it's just a part of life. Murder is too, but how is it that those murders get so desensitized to others? If we think about it, maybe it's abuse.
So even though we don't see the physical scars, things like name calling when we are young, to repeated patterns of behavior that dictate to you that you are worthless, unloved, unwanted or only needed if you can serve the other in some way are symptoms of abuse.
Since their home environments are for the most part uncontrollable, children living with abusive caregivers come to internalize abusive treatment as deserved. Attributing abuse as stemming from one’s own
inherent badness inhibits the scarier prospect that a caregiver cannot be trusted, and may help create an illusion of control. The very nature of abuse strengthens this attributional process. Empirical studies reveal
victims’ attributions do indeed affect abuse awareness. For instance, psychologists found that even when participants reported similar punitive experiences for themselves and their siblings, they
were more than twice as likely to identify their siblings’ experiences as abusive than they were to identify their own. The also reported that participants were more likely to interpret parental behavior towards
themselves, but not that directed towards their siblings, as deserved, and therefore not abusive.
Another betrayal trauma theory, explains how children may isolate abuse experiences from memory and consciousness in order to maintain a necessary relationship with a caregiver. By selectively ignoring evidence of betrayal, people can survive and even engender caregiving in environments that would otherwise be hopeless. Since individuals employ these mechanisms to escape consciousness of their realities, they are
conceptualized as implicit, and may later prove difficult to observe and change.
The quality of emotional abuse itself may directly impact the development of emotional awareness. In maltreating environments, children can learn that it is unacceptable, threatening, or dangerous to express
emotions, especially negative ones. Since abuse and neglect produces negative emotions, children may adapt to abuse with general deficits in emotional awareness. One pathway to deficits in emotional awareness as a parenting style that requires the denial of certain emotions, such as environments where parents instruct their
children not to cry or express negative emotions. Children learn that they must distance themselves from their own needs and feelings to obtain love and care.
When we grow older, we may experience the same time of abuses and believe we deserve them or that they are normal, while at the same time feeling the effects of it, yet not realizing where it has stemmed from. Perhaps we ourselves have grown into abusers. We have to ask ourselves that question in order to change:
1. Do you criticize others or try to isolate them?
2. Do you tell others they are useless or make them feel unloved or worthless?
3. Do you withhold love and affection if you don't get "your way"?
4. Do you repeat patterns of behavior to disturb others privacy or rights?
5. Do you repeatedly harass others verbally, triggering emotional responses?
6. Do you get angry or lose your temper and blame someone else for it?
We all might have a little abuser hiding within ourselves, but the little abuser most often comes with a little abused person as well. So to find the little abused one ask yourself these questions:
1. Do I feel like I have to "do" something for people in order to be loved?
2. Do I feel like people won't like me unless I'm like them?
3. Do I often close myself off to others because it's easier that way and I won't get hurt?
4. Do I feel anxious all the time?
5. Am I sad because I feel no one loves me?
6. Do I eat and "stuff" my feelings when I'm depressed?
The next step is in becoming conscious of the little abuser and try not to abuse others again. You must also become conscious of your little abused one and give that one some love and nurturing. Many times the following steps may help in helping the little abused one:
1. Try to be conscious of your feelings when they come and ask questions about why, where and what you are feeling. Try to name it.
2. Tell yourself it's ok to feel or express any emotion that comes up. Punch a pillow, yell into one, what ever it is that releases the emotion.
3. If you feel no one cares, it may be attributed to your childhood. Start slowly in knowing you are loved for who you are by God, Allah or a higher power that you believe in. Look to nature and the love that is there and to animals and the gift of love they continually give. Know that you will find good healthy people that will care about you for who you are.
4. When you feel the urge to eat, ask yourself what you are trying not to feel? Go for a walk, meditate or contemplate at this time what may be going on inside. Find it, name it, express it.
5. When you catch yourself volunteering to do something just so someone likes you, stop yourself and ask: Am I doing this because I want to or am I doing this because I feel I have to?
We all have a little abuser and a little abused one within us. The key is in discerning them and healing them both. Our emotional patterns of abuse are not only from society and family patterns, but from lifetimes before that struggle to make themselves known so that we can heal them. When we do, we are truly one step closer to becoming our true selves and closer to our twin flames as well.,
I was greatly bothered by a dream this weekend of Michael. We were riding in a car and his legs were covered up. He lifted the cover and told me he had to get this fixed. I looked and when I did his veins were practically protruding from just beneath his skin. It wasn't just one or two, but literally more veins than I could have imagined would ever be in a leg. To some it may be just a weird dream, but to me it told me more about what his life was like.
Legs always have to do with our life path and the fact that his veins were protruding told me his path was much harder than I could have even imagined. He covered his legs and condition in the dream, which also told me this was a part of his life that he kept hidden.
All too often we do this same thing ourselves. We deny we are having difficulty, we hide the hurtful patterns present in our lives and when we get on the other side, we still have healing to do, just like Michael. So today I wanted to take another look at the effects of what abuse is and the fact that most of us, even though we have been abused, also deny it.
Many survivors of abuse can describe the symptoms of their abuse but never acknowledge the fact that they were abused. Sometimes it's a coping mechanism. For children it is easier to deny it or blame themselves as being "bad" than it is to accept that their caregiver, the one that is supposed to love and care for them seemingly does not. Others continue to engage in patterns of behavior just like the abusive parents they had when they get older. Even bullying children grow up to be bullying adults. Most often, the bullies themselves don't even realize what they are doing. How could they, when they themselves were bullied or abused and therefore know no different?
So the cycle continues until someone gets so unhappy or suffers the symptoms of abuse so often, they seek help.
So what are the symptoms of abuse?
1. Anxiety
2. Depression
3. Isolation and/or disassociation
4. Internalizing problems
5. Unhealthy eating (stuffing feelings instead of expressing them)
6. Difficulty with intimacy
7. Difficulty expressing feelings
Abuse (the "A" word no one wants to use): Emotional abuse and Neglect
Of all forms, emotional abuse and neglect are rampant in many areas of our world. This cycle continues because no one wants to call it abuse, no one wants to say it's detrimental to our well being because why? Because it's so common most people say it's just a part of life. Murder is too, but how is it that those murders get so desensitized to others? If we think about it, maybe it's abuse.
So even though we don't see the physical scars, things like name calling when we are young, to repeated patterns of behavior that dictate to you that you are worthless, unloved, unwanted or only needed if you can serve the other in some way are symptoms of abuse.
Since their home environments are for the most part uncontrollable, children living with abusive caregivers come to internalize abusive treatment as deserved. Attributing abuse as stemming from one’s own
inherent badness inhibits the scarier prospect that a caregiver cannot be trusted, and may help create an illusion of control. The very nature of abuse strengthens this attributional process. Empirical studies reveal
victims’ attributions do indeed affect abuse awareness. For instance, psychologists found that even when participants reported similar punitive experiences for themselves and their siblings, they
were more than twice as likely to identify their siblings’ experiences as abusive than they were to identify their own. The also reported that participants were more likely to interpret parental behavior towards
themselves, but not that directed towards their siblings, as deserved, and therefore not abusive.
Another betrayal trauma theory, explains how children may isolate abuse experiences from memory and consciousness in order to maintain a necessary relationship with a caregiver. By selectively ignoring evidence of betrayal, people can survive and even engender caregiving in environments that would otherwise be hopeless. Since individuals employ these mechanisms to escape consciousness of their realities, they are
conceptualized as implicit, and may later prove difficult to observe and change.
The quality of emotional abuse itself may directly impact the development of emotional awareness. In maltreating environments, children can learn that it is unacceptable, threatening, or dangerous to express
emotions, especially negative ones. Since abuse and neglect produces negative emotions, children may adapt to abuse with general deficits in emotional awareness. One pathway to deficits in emotional awareness as a parenting style that requires the denial of certain emotions, such as environments where parents instruct their
children not to cry or express negative emotions. Children learn that they must distance themselves from their own needs and feelings to obtain love and care.
When we grow older, we may experience the same time of abuses and believe we deserve them or that they are normal, while at the same time feeling the effects of it, yet not realizing where it has stemmed from. Perhaps we ourselves have grown into abusers. We have to ask ourselves that question in order to change:
1. Do you criticize others or try to isolate them?
2. Do you tell others they are useless or make them feel unloved or worthless?
3. Do you withhold love and affection if you don't get "your way"?
4. Do you repeat patterns of behavior to disturb others privacy or rights?
5. Do you repeatedly harass others verbally, triggering emotional responses?
6. Do you get angry or lose your temper and blame someone else for it?
We all might have a little abuser hiding within ourselves, but the little abuser most often comes with a little abused person as well. So to find the little abused one ask yourself these questions:
1. Do I feel like I have to "do" something for people in order to be loved?
2. Do I feel like people won't like me unless I'm like them?
3. Do I often close myself off to others because it's easier that way and I won't get hurt?
4. Do I feel anxious all the time?
5. Am I sad because I feel no one loves me?
6. Do I eat and "stuff" my feelings when I'm depressed?
The next step is in becoming conscious of the little abuser and try not to abuse others again. You must also become conscious of your little abused one and give that one some love and nurturing. Many times the following steps may help in helping the little abused one:
1. Try to be conscious of your feelings when they come and ask questions about why, where and what you are feeling. Try to name it.
2. Tell yourself it's ok to feel or express any emotion that comes up. Punch a pillow, yell into one, what ever it is that releases the emotion.
3. If you feel no one cares, it may be attributed to your childhood. Start slowly in knowing you are loved for who you are by God, Allah or a higher power that you believe in. Look to nature and the love that is there and to animals and the gift of love they continually give. Know that you will find good healthy people that will care about you for who you are.
4. When you feel the urge to eat, ask yourself what you are trying not to feel? Go for a walk, meditate or contemplate at this time what may be going on inside. Find it, name it, express it.
5. When you catch yourself volunteering to do something just so someone likes you, stop yourself and ask: Am I doing this because I want to or am I doing this because I feel I have to?
We all have a little abuser and a little abused one within us. The key is in discerning them and healing them both. Our emotional patterns of abuse are not only from society and family patterns, but from lifetimes before that struggle to make themselves known so that we can heal them. When we do, we are truly one step closer to becoming our true selves and closer to our twin flames as well.,
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