The Power/Control Wheel – Stopping the Abuse

Recently this wheel was posted on a forum I was frequenting, and I found it really interesting. Click on the picture above to view larger (pdf).

There have been three abusive individuals in my life. The pastor I grew up with was spiritually and emotionally abusive, my mother was mentally and emotionally abusive, and my ex-husband was mentally, physically, and emotionally abusive. My ex-husband was the most recent abuser so I’ll discuss that experience.

Breaking the abuse cycle is not easy. In fact, it’s probably the single most difficult thing a person will face in their life. For me, it meant first acknowledging abuse was happening. There was a level of shame and embarrassment in acknowledgment, especially because it was my spouse. I chose this man to be my husband, and I was having to admit I’d made a HUGE mistake. It was harder to admit abuse was present than I would have expected, so for 5 years I lived with the abuse and tolerated it, probably because I felt I was partly to blame. I had gone into the marriage voluntarily, hadn’t I? I didn’t tell my family or friends what was happening in the privacy of my home because I felt it was a reflection of my character.

When the abuse started affecting my son, and I found myself protecting him from a violent rage and arguments, I was ready to face the reality of my situation.

Once I admitted the abuse was happening, I had to make the decision to speak out against it. Bring it out in the open to my abusive spouse, and then to my family and support network. Label it “abuse”. There was a lot of denial and indignation on the abuser’s part, but I needed my ex to know I was aware of what he was doing. Part of the abuse I experienced included “crazy making”. It was mental abuse where he would put me down, manipulate, lie, and belittle me. When I would try to call him on it, he would go to the extreme to prove it had never happened, that he was a loving husband, and I was just crazy.

Once I realized counseling was not going to work (he was manipulating and lying through the whole thing), I had to make the decision to leave. Where to start? I had invested 5 years of my life into this relationship. I had left my home town to move to his town. I had given birth to our child. I had no life in my home town any longer. Where do I go? Who can help me? HOW do I leave? What if he figured out I was leaving and took my son and held him ransom for my freedom? Was I prepared to stay for my son’s sake? The questions swirling around in my mind were overwhelming.

So I made a plan.

First I needed a place to go. I called my parents and explained the situation. They offered to buy me a one way ticket and let me stay in a camper van in their driveway till I figured out my financial situation.

Next I needed a valid excuse to leave. My brother was getting married that fall, so I decided I would use that as excuse for going home to “visit” my family. How to explain the one way ticket? Well, my ex was unemployed and we were facing eviction. I said I would stay with my family till he figured things out.

What do I take with me? I didn’t want to risk him finding out my plan, but I was going for a minimum of 3 months (or so he thought) so that justified the large amount of luggage. Four cardboard boxes at maximum allowed size and weight. I hid pictures and files of my personal information in amongst the clothes I was packing. I decided that material possessions, no matter how special or sentimental, were not as important as the safety of me and my child. They were sacrificed for freedom’s sake.

When I arrived in British Columbia, Canada a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I remember standing on the ferry crossing to Gabriola, where my parents live, and the sun felt brighter somehow. The sky was bluer. The air was fresher. An ecstatic joy filled my heart and being. I was free.

The next few months passed in a blur. I broke the news to my ex over the phone, and started looking into filing custody and divorce. The reality of my situation came crashing down, and I had to find a way to support me and my child. We needed a place to live. I needed a job. My son needed a daycare while I worked. The first year was one of the most difficult I’ve ever experienced, but the rewards were far above anything I’ve ever experienced either. I was free. A deep peace gently encompassed our home.

If you are reading this, and are currently in an abusive relationship, the first thing you need to do is acknowledge it. Stop denying the pain you are in. Talk to someone you can trust. Sure there are good moments in every abusive relationship, but the bad moments will overshadow any good and you need to seek help. Start with counseling. Take it one day at a time. The one thing that I always tell people seeking advice from me is that only YOU can make the decision to leave. Nobody else can make that decision for you.

Self Sabotage Due to Fear of Attention and/or Compliments

Lately I’ve been struggling with staying on course with my weight loss program. I have attained a small degree of success in the short time I’ve been dieting, and now I suddenly find myself unable to control the urge to self-sabotage. Once this happens, I start hating myself for not staying committed to weight loss and getting healthy. I have another 117 lbs to loose, yet I’m eating foods I don’t even like anymore, I’m not drinking enough water, I’m skipping meals, and basically doing everything I can to ensure I won’t lose any more weight.

I’m trying to get to the bottom of why I self sabotage as soon as I start seeing positive weight loss. I’ve stumbled upon a few clues that I’d like to share…

For as long as I’ve been alive I have hated drawing attention to myself. As a young child I was very shy and rarely spoke up. I remember the first boy that showed a real interest in me, I must have been around 11 or 12 years old at the time, and I still cringe at the memory of my almost unconscious uncontrollable need to spurn the attention he was giving me so people would stop watching us all the time. I treated him horribly so he would stop liking me because I hated the attention, not because I hated him. Deep down I actually liked him a lot and if he hadn’t been so overt in his attention, I might have found a way to return his affection. Unfortunately he was very public in showing his affection for me, and as a result I pushed him away in a rather cruel manner. I made a point of apologizing to him recently (Facebook is a wonderful thing for reconnecting with people you knew in childhood), but I still feel ashamed of my behaviour.

To this day I am very uncomfortable with compliments,  I dress rather plainly, avoid flamboyant accessories, and rarely wear jewelery or makeup for the same reasons. I want to blend in and be inconspicuous. To the great disappointment of my son and husband, who love to dress up in costume, I also never dress up with them because I loathe the attention it draws.

I have gotten to the stage in my weight loss journey where people are starting to notice the weight loss, my face looks thinner, my clothes are loose, and I feel more confident in myself. I enjoy the recognition, but not the attention. Talk about backwards!

Tonight I did a google search, “fear of drawing attention to oneself” and one of the items that came up on the first page had to do with female modesty. Something suddenly clicked. When I was 5 years old my parents joined a church that had a very strict policy of modesty, especially for girls and women. Dresses well below the knee, sleeves well below the elbow, neckline to the collar bone, uncut hair, no slits, no makeup, no jewelery, and most importantly, an attitude of sobriety and modesty. I was brainwashed to believe that physical attention was sinful, and yet never truly recognized the degree to which I was brainwashed until tonight. It might seem an obvious link to some, but after breaking away from that church in 1999, it has taken me the last 10 years to realize what an unhealthy relationship I developed with my body and mind in my most formative years.

Something happened today that demonstrates just how this affects me. I was volunteering for my son’s elementary school Christmas Fair, and a 77 year old man was harmlessly flirting with me, and made a complimentary remark about my blue eyes. It creeped me out to the point that I posted it on my Facebook status, in an effort to make light of it. Instead of just laughing about it and moving on though, I found myself self sabotaging, eating twice as many calories as I should. I really hate people noticing me or making remarks about my appearance.

My mother was the one person I wanted unconditional approval from, and she was the one person who was reluctant, or maybe even unable, to provide it to me. No matter how good my grades, how well behaved, how much I worked at learning the piano, how many cupboards I organized, how often I babysat, it was never enough for her. She died when I was 22 years old, and I still feel like there’s unfinished business there. I long for her approval even to this day. My dad, my stepmom, my siblings, my son, my husband, they all give me unconditional approval. Why can’t I let it go and accept their approval? Why does their approval make me freak out and self sabotage?

I want to overcome this tendency to shy away from positive attention. Here’s some of my own ideas for overcoming this mental hurdle… feel free to make your own suggestions.

1. When someone compliments me, practice accepting with sincerity, “thank you, I really appreciate you noticing” instead of down playing the compliment. Believe it comes from a place of authenticity.
2. Make a point of complimenting others sincerely. I find it just as difficult to give my approval or compliment others, even my own family, as I do accepting compliments. Maybe practicing giving authentic compliments will help me be more open to accepting them. And I don’t want my own son to grow up feeling he doesn’t have my approval, cause he most certainly does!
3. Get out of my comfort zone. Take risks. Wear something flamboyant, put jewelery on, or do my makeup more regularly, and accept subsequent comments and compliments gracefully, “thank you, I really appreciate your compliment.”
4. No matter how cheesy it feels or sounds, take time to compliment myself. “This colour really suits me. I should buy more shirts in this shade.”
5. Acknowledge triggers of self sabotage such as positive physical attention and compliments as soon as it happens, and find non-food healthy ways to overcome the negative feelings it brings up. Try blogging, talk to a friend about it, do a workout on the Wii Fit, or play a few rounds of Collapse on Facebook.
6. When a set back happens and I self sabotage, acknowledge it happened, forgive myself, and carry on.\

This is one of the most vulnerable posts I’ve ever written. Be gentle with me.

Blue Funk – Getting Motivated When You Feel Down

For the last few days I’ve been waking up in a blue funk. I feel down on myself, unmotivated, headachey, and tired. All I want to do is crawl into bed and sleep the day away. I live on the west coast of Canada, and this time of year is the worst because you have overcast dreary rainy days for weeks on end. It has a name… Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). And it affects many Canadians every year. Time to get my full spectrum lamp out…

So what do you do when you’re feeling down in the dumps and unmotivated?

Yesterday was rough. I woke up with a dull throbbing headache that wouldn’t leave. I had a simple client project to do that should have been done easily in under 2 hours. Instead, I spent literally 12 hours fighting with the program I was using, my computer freezing and locking down constantly. Around dinner time I finally decided to just turn it off and walk away. Take a break. Concentrate on something else.

I made a big pot of Chickpea Chili. I watched X-Weighted on Slice. I snuggled with my family.

The headache didn’t leave.

The program still wouldn’t work.

But around 10 PM I was more relaxed and ready to tackle the software issue with renewed vigor. I uninstalled the program, ran a virus check, reinstalled the program, and managed to get the draft ready to send to my client without smashing my laptop on the wall.

The program is still not working the way it should. I still have a headache. But I got it done anyways.

Today the sun is shining, but I hear it isn’t going to last. I’m going to spend some time in my south facing sunny garden before I pick my son up from school. The comfrey needs to be cut back, and a lavender plant needs to be transplanted. I have bags of leaves that need to be emptied on the new lasagna beds.

At 2 PM I am going to volunteer at our local food bank. Take the focus off myself and get out of the house to do something worthwhile in the community.

Hopefully I can shake the blues and get back to my usual happy optomistic motivated self.

Taking Time to Enjoy the Present

Last night we had another power outage. Last week it was fun. This time I found myself getting annoyed at the inconvenience. I had places to go (tv shows). People to see (online). Things to do (computer work).

It was downright silly to feel that way because I had an amazing new book to read (Watch Over Me by Christa Parrish) and plenty of candlelight to read by. We had food in the fridge and a pot of cold tea that was easily reheated on the wood stove. Our family was together. My son and I spent some time playing “Blink” and my Palm Treo was fully charged so we were able to listen to music.

Yet these was this restless need for things to be “normal” (electricity, cable tv, internet access). I felt unreasonably irritated that some idiot had knocked down an electrical wire. I can understand losing power when the winds are gusting and torrential rain is falling. It can even feel cozy in those circumstances. But the air and ocean were calm. There was no storm. In fact, we had just spent three quarters of an hour meandering down an oceanside road and were just home as dusk fell. The sky was overcast and the threat of rain was in the air, but it was so calm it almost felt balmy.

We were just getting ready to make dinner. Not fair, my brain screamed!

As the hours crept by, my restlessness increased, and I kept calling the hydro power outage line for updates. But I also found ways to distract myself. I took my camera out and snapped pictures of candlelight and a warm wood fire.  I played scrabble and solitaire on my cell phone. I got lost in my book and the good music. In fact, when the lights finally came on 5 minutes before the hydro company had predicted, I barely noticed.

I realized later that these moments are my child’s memory making moments. He literally hoots with joy when the lights go out and cherishes the quiet family time and the one-on-one attention. My lesson? Treasure these moments and be fully present.