post estrangement: healing encompases much learning

Obviously, anyone who is struggling to heal from trauma goes through many stages and steps toward recovery.  There are many ways we learn to make changes within ourselves, our thought patterns, our responses, discovering false core beliefs etc.

However one of the most valuable tools that I have discovered in healing is learning about the bad behaviour patterns of others.  The more I am aware of the types of actions used by Character Disturbed People (that is people who lack character and to some degree actually gain pleasure from using and hurting others) the more I realize that being proactive in recognizing these traits and categorizing them as "bad behaviour" and then making choices for my own defense the more "safe" I feel.

One of the aftermaths I experienced post trauma was a fearfulness.  For a long time I did not recognize what was holding me back, I just resisted virtually all social situations. I felt great anxiety or panic when forced to face such situations.  Now, as I have learned so much more, I have come to realize that this is my "flight" response in anticipation of being rejected and exposed to more of the same trauma.

I never learned about bad character in my life and so I was not prepared for encounters with bad people.  Most of my life the manipulators and controllers went under the radar!  Their jabs so subtle that that vague sense of un-ease I felt was my fault, I labeled myself as too sensitive.  Oddly enough this was often reinforced when I did dare to voice my opinion that I was feeling hurt!   You know exactly what I mean;...the well meaning advice "oh you are just being too sensitive". 

How many unkind words are spoken, how many put downs uttered, how many times are we made to feel inadequate and when we complain we are the "overly sensitive" ones; or we have no sense of humour; or we misunderstood.  And when the events of unkindness are small ones we tend to ignore our inner warning signs.

Here is an example from my past.  I redecorated a room. I put in hours of research, found pictures that spoke to me and made me feel good.  I was excited about creating this room and worked hard finding the colours and patterns to create my vision.  When done I was incredibly proud of what I had accomplished.  When completed, most people enjoyed the results.  However one person looked and said "I would never do a room like that!"  Now this was not a direct insult but it did imply that my room lacked appeal.  I ignored the warning signs that this was not a nice person. I continued to be friends with her. 

Years later when our children were teens and I confided in her my challenges with my son she blamed me for his behaviour.  It was my fault because I was not strict enough.  Now that of itself hurt, but she then went on to make sure my children knew that she felt I was an inadequate parent. She continued to undermine my parenting because my children started going to her for advice and ignoring mine.

Here is a classic example of how a "gut feeling" ignored early in the relationship led to this person remaining in my life to cause me harm later on.

The small warning signs should NEVER be ignored. First of course we need to know that they are in fact warning signs.  And sadly that is not something I was taught and I presume that there are many "nice, people pleasing" types of people around who fall into the same category of lack of knowledge, as I did.  We brush off the small slights maybe with a cringe, but we forgive and forget too easily.  For this reason a vital aspect of healing is to learn to recognize  these warning signs. That requires learning about what makes manipulative controlling egotistically full of themselves people tick! 

The second thing we need to learn is that we do not have to tolerate such behaviour!  We do have the right to respond with boundaries and limitation setting retaliations!   In the past my "I am a nice person" persona did not allow me to do this.  So my next step in healing is overcoming my fear of responding!

I can recognize bad behaviour, my "gut" always warns me.  If I feel bad I know I have been treated bad.  But now I also have the vocabulary to define what the bad behaviour is!

In the process of healing I have gotten good at removing myself from the presence of people who exhibit bad behaviour.  I call this my coward approach, but in my fragile state of recovery it was all that I was able to accomplish.  If you do or say something that is derogatory or harms me, I reserve the right to remove myself from your presence.  That is called "flight"

Now I face my next challenge, when I recognize bad behaviour to confront the person immediately with a response about how I feel about their behaviour and that I won't tolerate it!  That is called "fighting".

Most of my life I have used "fawning", doing things to try to get people to like me and treat me better, or "freezing", trying to become invisible, insignificant not worth picking on.  I never felt I had the right nor the option to flee or to fight. 

Healing has taught me that I do have the right!  

As always, dear reader, I love to hear your thoughts on what healing has taught you.

Renate Dundys Marrello

2017 - 07 – 07

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