Antidotes For Reactive Abuse

A few simple fixes for turning isolation, being blamed and lack of support into a positive

This blog is written for female survivors of male perpetrators.

Being highly reactive is a common trauma symptom. So now we’re more likely than ever to blurt out something we’ll later regret. We have an opportunity (a pressing need) to learn and practice non-reactivity more than ever before. Case studies are filled with instances of women being accused of being the abusive one because they responded to the first hidden punch thrown by the narcopath – either real or figurative. It’s natural to want to defend ourselves by throwing a punch back. This is known as reactive abuse, and it has been the cause of many women losing settlement disputes, custody battles and allies. It’s another clever manipulative tactic used by covertly abusive narcopaths.

For an ‘other-referencing person’, learning to prioritise our own healing and recovery can be a daunting prospect. Something we possibly don’t know how to do because we learnt to overlook it. We learnt to please other people. To automatically forgive the things we didn’t like in others in the pursuit of having them like (or love) us.  Whilst we all have some friends who share our values and virtues, we also attract ‘friends’ who somehow suck all the energy out of us – people to whom we give and get very little in return. People who bask in our vibrancy or our generosity but are quick to blame, judge and criticise (or mock and humiliate) when they don’t get what they want out of the relationship.

And we all have friends and family we may not even like very much who are just around ‘because’.

We habitually put our own health and wellbeing last on our list, and for a long period during our devaluation by a narcopath, we were last on the list for our intimate other as well! That’s some rut we got stuck in. Some bad habits we got into.

You know what I’m talking about, right? You can recognise these people in your own life? These are not the kind of people we want around us when we are traumatised. Our unconscious self-protective mechanisms know this, and we start pushing people away. We can compound our own trauma and shame by doing this in a very unskilful way. By telling people to fuck off and leave me alone.  If someone keeps approaching us to kindly ‘help’ us by telling us what they think is wrong and why they think we should blame ourselves or get over it, how do we tell that person we’d rather not have that kind of help thank you?

Learning how to receive criticism (fair or unfair) and blame (reasonable or unreasonable) is a mature skill that eludes a lot of people. Not throwing the second punch out of anger is a response that requires patience and wisdom. Not retaliating with harsh speech that escalates the situation is a life skill that can be practiced and developed. Learning to say, ‘thank you for your opinion’ instead of ‘fuck off’. To say, ‘you might be right’ instead of defensively improvising all the reasons they’re wrong or aggressively attacking the messenger. Learning to detach from the harmful, hurtful speech and actions of others. To intercept our own habitual reaction and respond differently. These are grown up skills.

The Buddhist approach is very simple, and not unlike what your primary school teacher or your grandparents might have taught you. Or tried to teach you. It’s the very first moment that’s the hardest bit. That is, catching ourselves the moment we are ‘hooked’. The moment the righteous indignation at wrongful blame, or the anger at criticism, or the humiliation of unkind gossip arises in our being. Catching that moment when we suddenly feel a verbal or physical response to unwanted stimuli is necessary. Catching the need to retaliate with reactive abuse.

Pause.

That is: take a breath. Stop. Breathe. Count to ten, as your grannie used to say (if you had that kind of grannie). This skill is essential. Without this pause, this momentary do-nothing, we have no room to intercept our habitual reaction and change our habitual response.

From there, in terms of speech, there is a simple teaching:

Is it helpful?

Is it kind?

Is it necessary?

Say nothing.

In short, learning to say nothing at all is do-no-harm 101. Learning not to open our mouth and scream, ‘you done me wrong!’. The feeling of ‘needing’ to do it doesn’t go away. We’re stuck with that feeling for a while. Until is passes. Until the anger or the righteous indignation stop flooding our system on top of the trauma that is already drowning us. But by saying nothing, by doing nothing, by refraining, abstaining, declining, waiting, pausing, being still, keeping schtumb instead of acting out from our hurt, we throw water on the fire. We don’t make things worse than they already are.

Write it down.

Then if the habit to express your opinion is so great…or the habit to have the final say …. then writing it all out of your system is a commonly recommended antidote. Just not on Facebook. And not in an accusing, angry letter or email that you hastily post. Refrain from pressing ‘send’. Wait. Pause. Contain yourself again. For a longer period this time. For a couple of days. Longer. Rewrite it. Over and again. Start a journal? That’s another common antidote. Tell your shrink, tell your best friend, but don’t tell just anyone. Most people, including your friends and family don’t want to know.  And the ‘I told you so’ kind of people only make you more infuriated. Shrinks call telling your story to just anyone ‘clienting’. It is surprising how badly we want to tell people how cruelly we’ve been treated when we are traumatised. How much we need to be heard. But most people don’t want to know.

Keep yourself safe.

Some friends get it. Some people will be kind enough to let you open up, express your jumbled emotions, tell your ugly story of cruelty and abuse. Share their own story with you. Some people like to connect at a very base human level. These are the people you want around you when you are traumatised. One day, you can return the favour. No need for guilt or shame. Just discernment. Start sorting through the ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ people in your life. You need all the safety you can get when your life has been undermined by a narcissistic sociopath.

Trust your instincts.

But it’s not just the judgers, criticisers and blamers that might create a toxic environment for your own recovery from psychopathic abuse.  A curious and self-compassionate reflection on the trauma of betrayal and duplicity will assist you in identifying other people who make you feel unsafe. Your own instinct will tell you. Learning to trust your instincts is another positive skill to take away from this shocking experience.

De-toxify.

Think of someone on a diet. Most of us understand if a dieter avoids people, places and things that will tempt them. We get that. We get that if a friend on a diet changes their behaviour and we don’t see that much of them for a while, it’s OK. We get it without really having to examine if we are the unhelpful influence. The person who is pushy about ‘just one drink’ or ‘ a piece of cake won’t hurt’, or ‘one day without exercise isn’t going to make any difference’.

Excising toxic people from our lives is a lot like dieting.  The big difference is that the friends we avoid don’t get it and don’t like it. Because it forces them to admit to the reasons you find them toxic. Or, the more likely, they cannot see how they poison us and they get hurt and angry about our new boundaries. Admitting to our own faults, our own ‘demons’ takes a tremendous amount of courage and honesty. Plus, Westerners learn to skip over courage and honesty and go straight to blaming and hating themselves. But the bulk of us shove our uglies under the rug until life really forces us to out ourselves.

Make room for positive influences.

None of us likes it when someone dumps us. We most often feel hurt and rejected. But the right of association is a basic human right, and we eventually come to accept that if someone doesn’t want us around, they are within their rights. We learn that when someone tells us ‘I don’t want to be your friend anymore’, we have to accept it. Even as a child, we let friends go when they are holding us back from being the person we want to be or treat us badly. Life’s too short.

So it’s OK to shift away from people whose behaviour and values are damaging to your fledgling new self. Not only OK, but essential.  It’s much easier when you give yourself permission to associate with people because they support, empower and inspire you. And let go of the guilt that you are being disloyal. Odds are, you were already loyal beyond reason with some of those you are now letting go. Insane loyalty.

Slowly rebuild.

There are friends who always make you feel small. Let ‘em go. There are friends who influence you to behave in ways you no longer wish to behave. Are they keepers? There are people who never tire of picking you apart, who find it amusing to put you down, who you see regularly but never liked or they never liked you. The deck of friends cards can take a really big shuffle when you are traumatised, and that’s OK! Everything is going to be different in a life after psychopathic abuse. Your life came tumbling down around you, and now you get a choice about the bricks you pick up again to rebuild. Your world collapse is actually filled with ripe potential for a new way of being. Starting with looking after yourself before you take on everybody else’s shit. 

Lifeline 131114

Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467

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https://www.lionsroar.com/the-wisdom-of-anger

https://www.lionsroar.com/of-course-im-angry/

A Practice for Developing Kindness toward Yourself

https://www.lionsroar.com/a-practice-for-nourishing-yourself/