Yeah, you really have to watch the video. I know it might not be your cuppa tea in
terms of music style. However, I also
know you can suck it up for a few minutes.
If you don't watch it, the rest of this blog won't make sense. This one is about Life Lessons. Actually one of the Most Important things I
have written in this entire challenge.
This is not a fluff piece on euchre, umbrellas, movies, a TV show, or
even a great book I read. So, did you watch it?
Anyone who has ever been in an abusive relationship will
actually look back and see a pattern of abuse.
That last abusive relationship is probably just the WORST
relationship. Or maybe just the most
recent. This song will ring like a
Battle Cry for every person who has ever survived an abusive relationship. Until the next time.
Did you get the part about patterns?
Until you figure out the pattern, you have NO HOPE of
stopping the pattern. Until you
understand that you are attracted to abusive personalities, you have no hope of
stopping the pattern. Until you
understand what it is about that abusive personality that you are attracted to,
you have no hope of changing anything.
You will stick with that person until you scream, "No
more." Then, there will be some
Down Time until another Abusive Person steps into your life and the entire
Scene rolls again.
You will never change the Abusive Person. Obviously.
The person who needs changing here is YOU. If you are attracted to Abusive People, YOU
need to figure out what is going on so that you can break this pattern.
I knew that after several abusive relationships that I was
in a Pattern. I knew that I had to
figure it out. It wasn't a coincidence
that every long-term relationship I'd ever had was Not Good. There was some sort of emotional or verbal
abuse in all of them. The last boyfriend
introduced the" joys" of being with a liar, cheater, and someone who
would steal from you (on top of all of the other qualities I had already
experienced). I was already laden with a
chronic migraine, so I knew that the stress of that relationship Was Not
Helping. It still took me YEARS to untangle
myself from that Nightmare.
I dated a Pretty Nice Guy after him. There was zero chemistry there. It is only now, with my current therapist,
that I understand that he was not messed up enough for me. Had he been a Hot Mess (and I don't mean this
in a good way), I would have jumped back in.
He had potential. He was rather
aloof and emotionally not a "sharer."
However, that was not enough to hook me.
I needed someone who needed major rescuing or was constantly in and
out. Meaning he really loved me one day,
but was then not into me at all. You
know... someone who could really wreck me emotionally. This guy was simply pleasant. My mom liked him a lot.
Now I understand that the dynamics in my family were not
good. ::understatement:: My grandfather was a verbal and emotional
abuser. My dad tended to withhold
affection from my mom, but never from my brother or I. My dad's extended family were big believers
in divorce and didn't take any junk from anyone. All of the women just divorced their husbands if they were liars, cheaters,
abusers, or unpleasant people. My
great-grandmother divorced 5 times. My
grandmother divorced 5 times. My aunt
divorced 3 times. Then she started
living with men and kicking them to the curb.
Now, let's swing over to my mom's side of the family where it is a
totally different story. My mom's side
of the family was filled with tales of abuse all the way around. Every woman on my grandma's side was being
verbally or physically abused by their husbands, and possibly their grown sons.
However, No One Left. It was a major
dichotomy that I couldn't wrap my brain around.
This is important; my parents each married someone just as
screwed up as they were. (In other words, both of my parents were the products of an abusive/dysfunctional household.) However, they
picked someone from the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of the
"crazy." My dad vehemently
didn't believe in divorce and remarriage (after watching his side of the family),
but this also caused him to be emotionally withdrawn. My mother simply didn't want to marry a
verbal abuser like her father. She went
to the other end and got someone so far out that he couldn't give her anything. With these role models, I involved myself with men like my
grandfather, trying to resolve that relationship, or withholders of love, like
my dad to mom, every single time. Or
possibly a combo of the two.
People who are in abusive relationships are almost always
trying to fix another relationship with a family member that is Unfixable. The relationship with my Grandfather:
Unfixable. He passed away a long time
ago, but even if he were still living, I could not make him suddenly become not
emotionally or verbally abusive. He was
that way his entire life. The
relationship between my mom and dad: Unfixable.
I could not make my father become more emotionally available to my
mother. So, my pattern has been to get
involved with people just like my grandfather, and father, to heal things that
can never be healed. It is the hamster
on the wheel scenario. The healthy
person figures this out and decides to get off.
The unhealthy person never figures this out and relives this pattern the
entirety of their life.
I am now on a quest to get me right. I will know when I am there. I will actually be attracted to the Right Guy
from the start. The one with all of the
issues will no longer be the one who draws me like a Magnet. So, I won't have to sing Wrong Song like a
Battle Cry every few years into my relationship. I will start choosing better because I will
have taken the time to fix ME.
Rating: Life Lesson(s)
Have you ever been in an abusive relationship? More than one? Have you ever stopped to reflect on the pattern? Has this post made you think about changing you so that you change the kind of person to whom you are attracted? If you have never been in an abusive relationship, do you know anyone who has, and does this information help you understand abuse at all?
