Category: Uncategorized

My Abuse Story is Better than Yours 

Everyones’ story is different and so is every abuse survivors’ story.  

I admit that I am absolutely guilty of this: someone mentions a terrible thing they went through in their life, a break up, the loss of a job, a fight with a family member and they make it sound like it is the worst thing that ever happened to them and all you can think is: – if that is your worst, you wouldn’t survive one day of mine. As an abuse survivor, sometimes this can make you realise that maybe the majority of people in your life, have no idea what your ordeal really meant for your life and how much it has impacted you.

When it comes to abuse, of course there is no better or ‘less bad’. However, there are certain topics and certain groups of survivors, who seem to be more in the spotlight than others. For instance, when the type of abuse falls into the range of one of the big ‘-isms’, like sexism, racism and ageism. Sometimes though, labelling it is not that easy, and while all abuse is bad, being able to categorise things often makes talking about them easier.. 

Many people think that abuse has to look a certain way and it can be frustrating to hear others talk about things like horrible boyfriends and demanding your pity, when all this does is make you remember what you went through and that in your mind the story you’re being told right now, simply doesn’t compare.

Of course all bad experiences are horrible and everyone should have the right to let off some steam and should be able to share their story with people they trust. The danger lies in comparing and making it into some kind of competition. Like I said, it is tempting and I’m surely guilty of this, even though I am aware that this approach cannot be healthy.

But I believe that some things are simply more talked about and therefore more on our societies’ radar, like domestic violence and racism. And if you don’t belong to a group that is obviously ostracised, it can feel like your pain and what you went through doesn’t matter as much. If  you didn’t live through domestic violence and you are not a female, but instead you are a white man who was molested as a child and has trouble coping with that in adulthood, – people may not be as sympathetic or downright won’t not believe you. 

But just because others don’t take your experience seriously, doesn’t mean your experience doesn’t matter and that you don’t deserve to heal. 

There are many reasons why some survivors may feel less recognised than others. One could be that you live in an environment where what you went through is  simply not seen as abuse but as ‘normal’ behaviour. In some families, corporations and  other social groups, the degrading of others and manipulating behaviour is actually encouraged. 

Therefore,It can be hard to stay true to yourself and remember what you know to be your truth, even if there are few to none to validate you. Sometimes the opinion of a hundred stands against the opinion of one, while it is still possible that the individual standing alone, is actually right.

The hive mind can be powerful and t can make it very hard for you to stand your ground. People easily persuade each other. They can make each other believe that something does exist or sometimes that it doesn’t. It must not deter you from what you know. about what happened to you. 

Never let anyone diminish your experience. If you feel like something that happened to you was atrocious, chances are it was.And even if it looks like, others had it way worse, that doesn’t take away from the fact that what happened to you was wrong. 

No form of  abuse is better than the other and all of it leaves survivors at the very least with emotional scars. and often with visible ones. 

This is not about being unforgiving, but remembering your own truth and validate your feelings can actually help you in overcoming these things. Never give that up – you deserve to be heard, to be taken seriously and you deserve to heal. 

Soul Expansion – the one thing they’ll never have

If you believe in the concept of a soul, you are probably also familiar with the concept of its journey.

Personally, I believe that our souls are on a journey of learning, development and exploration. Attributes we assign mostly to children, like curiosity, playfulness and joy in discovering new things should actually be a big part of everybody’s life at all times. But society (don’t even think, it is only modern society) has done a fine job to suppress this notion and replaced it with dogmas like ‘too grown up to dream’. When you are supposed to be adulting, but you’re a big dreamer, who is not done exploring the world yet, you might even get dirty looks and snide comments. 

These comments may come from your abuser, because this is one of the things that  separates them from others. 

Every soul aims to expand, to go on adventures and discover the world around them. It is a part of life and NO, you’re never too old to jump into a new adventure and discover something new. Even abuse survivors, who often feel stifled or even even hindered by what has happened to them, will eventually develop the need to explore and expand again. It can take years and years to fight your way back to this point, but you will listen to that inner voice again that is guiding you to the adventures that bring back joy.

You might be prompted to travel, to change jobs, move, change your wardrobe, pick up a new hobby or study something you want to know more about. It can really be as simple as that or it can be the adventure of a lifetime, like quitting your job and travel the world or starting a new business from scratch or you could be guided by some kind of event into taking a whole new perspective on life which is an adventure on its own.  Or it could be something completely different – your choice, your creativity, all yours really. This will probably be at a point, when you have already healed a little bit and it will assist you on your healing journey.

For abusive people, like narcissists and psychopaths, this doesn’t seem to be the case though. They do not seem to feel the need to expand and follow the voice of their soul. 

I remember distinctly asking one of my family members what they wanted to be when they were a child.  Their reaction was odd, to say the least.  She froze and gave me one of those dirty looks, we survivors are so used to.  She had nothing to say and my question created a very awkward moment of silence, which was almost unbearably long. It made me feel bad, like the co-dependant I am, but it was also evidence of how empty their lives really are, which even with all they do to us – it’s just so sad. 

This was ages before I even realised that parts of my family are deeply toxic and that I had been abused. But, it made me notice that at least this person is very different to me. Today, I believe this can be one of the red flags, that might enable you to identify a character disorder. They do not get excited about anything, not truly – they just pretend, they do.

Abuse, no matter what kind, sucks the life-force out of the victim.  Maybe it is because of this, that abusive people do not try to take good care of their own soul. They just take our energy.  

I don’t even want to think about an existence like that.  Yet, I find it fascinating. Abusive people don’t like to expand, because expansion almost always disrupts your daily routine. This is in direct conflict with their way of living, because when you aim to abuse, extort and hurt others, you really need this routine and you also need your victim to have one. Thus, they have no use for more freedom, as long as the system of abuse they put in place continues to work. No need for expansion.

If you suffer from PTSD after being abused, continue to listen to your gut, your intuition, your soul. Don’t give up – and eventually you will engage back into your personal growth, exploration and those soul adventures. You will surpass your abuser(s) and maybe, even after all you’ve been through, you might be bale to get some solace in the fact that they will never have that. Your possibilities, on the other hand, are unlimited.

The Female Psychopath

The Underrated Threat

Women are often labeled as being soft, nurturing, always kind and supportive.

Since patriarchy has been on the rise for some time now, these overly generalised notions about our gender get a lot of support. The layers of misogyny are deeply interwoven in today’s society and it gave classic Feminism a major comeback over the last few year. It often may feel like women have been pushed in a permanent one-down position: we usually don’t earn the same, we are often pushed out of opportunities of any sort, we’re being belittled and objectified.

However, when it comes to abusing fellow human beings this generalisation of women as being the all time victim might be dangerous. We forget the female interspecies predator – the female psychopath. 

Whether it is a co-worker trying to disrupt your chances for a promotion, a best friend who has been sleeping with your boyfriend behind your back, while slipping in comments about how unattractive, unworthy and hopeless you are or the mother, who would molest her own son. Just like with all other abusers the severity of their attacks may differ. However, the female psychopath often manages to avoid detection. They will officially support your promotion but backstab you covertly. They will tell the world that you are their best friend and how they’d never hurt you, while enjoying your discomfort when they tell you in private that you really should not wear skirts with your legs and how sorry they are to inform you that your boyfriend might be cheating. And should  their qualities as a mother be questioned, they will start crying on cue and still touch their child in an inappropriate way behind closed doors. 

They will leave those invisible scars on their victims.

Our perception of the common narcissist or psychopath, especially through the media is dominated by their male versions. Psychology itself has largely accepted the notion that female psychopaths are way less common than their male counterparts. However, there is simply lot more data on male psychopaths, because they will end up in prison more often. Psychologists, therefore, seem to  have a tendency to label the female psychopath as a narcissists. 

They are simply much harder to find out. But nevertheless, statistics suggest  that one in a 100 people may be a psychopath and that, of course, includes women.

Their  abusive behaviour is usually more emotional than physical but the cold hard truth is that they are not  in any way to be considered less dangerous than male psychopaths – because they have no conscience. 

This is a vey hard concept for us to grasp, but you simply cannot assume that your way of thinking and feeling can be applied to them. Unfortunately, the prevailing dogma in society is that a woman is not truly capable of violence, coldness and heinous acts and this makes the female interspecies predator particularly dangerous. When their victims eventually figure out what is actually going on, it is often too late and the damage is done.

Just like their male counterparts, the female psychopath is superficially charming, manipulates while being free from empathy for their victims, loves a power play and relishes in observing the agony they leave their victims in. They wear a mask in every social interaction, even when they are with people close to them which allows them to seem normal. Their aggressive behaviour is usually way more covert and underhanded than that of the male psychopath. They have the stamina to go for the long haul and wear their victim down slowly. They will fake emotions and use sex to get a rich husband and have several lovers on the side. They have no restraint whatsoever abusing their own children in every possible way – they have no feelings for them. They will gaslight and triangulate their entire family and play each member like a puppet-master. 

Everyone who crosses paths with them will be forced in a one-down position and if you don’t go there willingly they will shame you, bully you and destroy your reputation by spinning a web of lies that you’ll only notice when it is too late. Often you lose people along the way, because others simply do not believe you.

Female psychopaths are extremely skilled in feigning emotions – those crocodile tears come easy to them. Like the male psychopath they study people and learn to mimic the appropriate reaction to all kinds of situations. Their performance is Oscar-worthy. And maybe because a little cattiness in women is often regarded as sexy and desirable, people don’t tend to see through the mask.

However, this mask does fall occasionally. This is your chance to see what’s really going on. When they feel unobserved they will stare at you with cold, emotionless reptilian eyes. And then you might start to notice, how they often seem to be overly sexual in very inappropriate situations, how emotionally unstable they are and how they can seem so heartbroken over something in one moment and be so joyful half an hour later.

Your best chance, however, to uncover a female psychopath is to react contrarily to their expectation. If they feel like they have miscalculated you or worse that you have stripped them of  their power and control over you – you will see a very different character.

Once you are on to them, you will notice more and more that there is something unsettling about them you cannot quite put your finger on. 

Please do not ignore those signs or your gut feeling and please be careful. 

These women can be downright dangerous and while their abuse may be more emotional – which is of course devastating enough – they are not above physical violence to get their way. 

The Courage of the Survivor

Abuse does not discriminate. No matter what the colour of your skin, your hair, your age or your gender may be, whether you are rich or poor, you might have been abused as a child or later in life. And just as the victims of abuse come in all shapes, so do the abusers. They can be lovers, friends or family and they can and will go to different lengths to torture you. Whether they are aware of it or not.

Survivors need courage more than anything else

We have kind of agreed on the term survivor for victims of narcissists, psychopaths and other manipulators. That seems fair enough. You should be proud to have survived the agony, you’ve been put through. Surviving anything implies a certain kind of strength. This survivor’s mentality will be helpful in making sure that nobody will ever be able to hurt you like this again. However, I believe that it is important to remember that we are also victims. And a victim who wants to overcome that state of being needs courage.

When we think survivor, we often relate that term to strength. But when we consider the journey a survivor has to take to even find their strength, there is that term again: courage.

When reality hits, when we suddenly see the abuse through our parents or caregivers clear as day and we acknowledge, in how many abusive love relationships we followed that co-dependent pattern. When we realise, how this one co-worker always takes advantage of us, no matter how exhausted we are or how a lifelong friendship has always been a oneway street … it feels like hitting a brick wall, head front. We were left alone, ostracised and at the same time, the abuser took all we had to give. It doesn’t feel like strength at all.

If you are a survivor of sexual, emotional, physical or any other kind of abuse, my heart goes out to you. The pain you felt and most likely still feel today, doesn’t compare to anything. You deserve admiration and acknowledgement for going through this and surviving!

But this also means that you found your courage at some point. You had the courage to walk away, to confront, to change and to start over. You had the courage to realise:

No one has the right to hurt you, simply because they can.

No one has the right to hurt you, because someone hurt them too.

No one has the right to put you down, just because they crave control more than anything.

No one has the right to tell you to be different, just because they are not happy to accept you the way you are.

You faced the truth, you changed, you walked, you started all over – you have courage. If you are in the process of breaking free – you have courage. When the flashbacks make you cry and cringe inside, but you still carry on – you, my friend, have courage!

Never forget how awesome you are, brave souls…the world needs your courage!