Heal The Abuse - Recover Your Life (21 page)

One of the reasons I kept repeating this
pattern was because I believed that I could change my partners.
Some part of me thought I could turn the person I was with into the
loving person I wanted them to be. Subconsciously, I wanted to
reverse the abuse of my past. I wanted to figure out how to make my
abusers finally love me in the way I wanted them to. This
unrealistic fantasy was poison to my self-esteem. A destructive
illusion that kept me chasing after sick, abusive partners.

As I child, I was forced to depend on people
who abused me. I was forced to seek love from people who were
incapable of loving me. I became trapped within a self-destructive
paradox, and there seemed to be no way out.

I never wanted to trust people who were
untrustworthy. I never wanted to rely on people who would neglect
me. I never wanted to seek love from people who were incapable of
loving me. But the messages from my childhood all said, “It doesn’t
matter what you want.”

I wanted to survive. As a child, I was
trapped between two conflicting needs and I chose the best of bad
options. I chose to trust people who could not be trusted in the
hopes that I could somehow earn their love and approval.

There were times when I hated myself for this
decision. As a child, I had chosen love over self-respect.

Sacrificing my self-respect led to the loss
of my integrity. I felt so ashamed that I attempted to destroy
myself with cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, isolation, bad
relationships, depression, and sexual addiction. It was so hard to
forgive myself for the decisions I was forced to make as a
child.

But I no longer have to trust people who are
untrustworthy. I don’t have to rely on people who abuse me. I don’t
have to seek love from people who are incapable of loving me. I
need to forgive myself for the choices I made. I can make new,
healthy choices in my adult life today.

Why should I forgive myself? Because I was
afraid. Because I thought that if I sacrificed my integrity, it
would save my life. And it worked. It was a good choice at the
time.

Process
Questions

How was I been betrayed in the past?

How do I feel about having been betrayed?

How did this betrayal affect my ability to
trust other people or the world?

How have I expressed my anger about having
been betrayed?

What are some healthy ways that I can
express my anger? Are there healthy things I can do to protect
myself from being betrayed again in the future?

Chapter 23
–
Trust

“We can only trust when we feel safe about being
vulnerable.”

-Jason Goodwin

Trusting someone means believing they will
act in our best interests and tell us the truth. Trust is a
difficult issue for survivors of sexual abuse because we
experienced the worst kind of betrayal.

First we must learn to trust ourselves. We
must become men and women of our word.

Being trustworthy is a question of integrity.
It feels good when we speak the truth. It feels good when we honor
our commitments. We can be proud of ourselves and avoid any
feelings of shame and guilt. Our honesty can become a powerful
source of self-esteem. Even if we don’t have much in this world, we
can still have our word.

We must avoid making promises we can’t keep.
It’s important to be aware of our personal limitations, our
problems, and how much we can realistically do for others.
Misunderstandings occur when we over-commit, promise more than we
can deliver on, or undertake more than we can accomplish.

We must treat others in the way we want to be
treated. Others will learn over time that we can be trusted,
because we do what we say.

Trust usually becomes an issue when we are
feeling vulnerable. Sometimes we feel vulnerable as children or
when we’re in a relationship. We feel vulnerable when we are
dependent on another person for our welfare.

In choosing whether or not to trust someone,
we need to ask ourselves, “What is it that I am trusting them to
do? What is it I am trusting them not to do?” Trusting someone
means depending on that person to act in our best interests.

Trustworthy people have our welfare in mind.
They want us to be safe, happy, and healthy.

We can only trust when we feel safe about
being vulnerable. But how can we ever truly know who will be worthy
of our trust? Can people produce documents that attest to their
honesty? Is there some way we can screen out the untrustworthy
people in this world to avoid getting hurt?

Everyone wants our trust. Honest people want
it because they deserve it. Dishonest people want it so they can
manipulate us. How can we tell the difference?

The answer is we have to get to know them
first. We have to watch them carefully and observe how they treat
others.

So how long should we observe a potential
friend or lover before giving them our trust? A month? Two months?
A year? Two years? Everyone is different. How can we be sure? What
if they’re just good at concealing their motives?

Many of us react to the betrayal of sexual
abuse by going to extremes. We trust everyone or we trust no one.
We stop seeing people as unique individuals, and start believing
that they’re all the same.

“Those lousy women, they’re all lying,
cheating backstabbers!” Or, “Men are pigs, and the world is their
trough!”

We see people in black and white. They’re all
good or they’re all bad. We conclude that, “I have to trust
everyone in order to get my needs met,” or “I can’t trust anyone
because they’re all out to get me.” We take an unmeasured,
irrational approach to the issue.

Our beliefs about trust are often a product
of our experiences. Is it any wonder that we, as survivors of
sexual abuse, are afraid that people will turn out to be
untrustworthy? We’ve experienced the worst humans are capable of.
We’ve seen the lies and the hypocrisy.

But to give up on finding healthy
relationships with people of integrity is another form of
self-abuse. We deserve trustworthy people in our lives. We deserve
relationships with strong foundations. We deserve to be treated
with dignity and respect.

If we expect healthy relationships with
trustworthy people, we must first learn to be trustworthy
ourselves. We need to examine our own actions. Are we true to our
word? Do we make promises we can’t keep? What is our own record
when it comes to this question of trust?

Some survivors of sexual abuse strive to find
the perfect partner or friend who will be completely trustworthy
all of the time. We feel insecure. We don’t ever want to be hurt
again. We don’t ever want to be lied to again. We want
relationships that are completely safe. Relationships with people
who are completely trustworthy, when in fact, no such person
exists.

While it may be impossible to find friends or
lovers who are completely trustworthy, it is possible to find
friends and lovers who are mostly trustworthy. Everyone make
mistakes. It is possible to forgive. It’s possible to allow for
another person’s faults and a certain degree of imperfection.

So where do we draw the line? I believe that
infidelity is unacceptable. Physical, verbal, emotional, and sexual
abuse is unacceptable. When people deceive us about the most
important things in life, their behavior is unacceptable.

Each person must determine where his/her own
boundaries lie. Trust is not a black and white issue. It is a shade
of gray. As survivors of sexual abuse, we don’t want to hear this.
We want to feel completely safe, secure, and in control. We want to
find that perfect person who will make us feel safe, secure, and in
control. But absolute safety and security are not to be found on
planet Earth, and the more we accept that fact, the more capable we
become of facing life’s challenges.

Deciding whether or not we will trust another
person is often a struggle between wanting to have our needs met
and wanting to feel safe. It is critical that we find a healthy
balance between these two competing needs.

At one extreme, we err on the side of
caution, never taking a risk and never trusting anyone. When we
make this mistake, we can end up feeling isolated and alone. We
shut down and give in to our fear of betrayal. We give up on our
need for love in an effort to feel safe.

At the other extreme, we err on the side of
risk, trusting people we barely know, falling in love with people
we just met, and getting hurt over and over again. We give our
trust too quickly. We ignore our safety in an effort to get the
love we need.

As I look back on my life, I realize that I
have swung from one extreme to the other, never finding the middle.
I threw myself into relationships too quickly and over-committed
too rapidly. I trusted women within the first few months of a
relationship, only to be rejected and betrayed. Then I would swing
in the opposite direction, shut down completely, avoid
relationships altogether, and isolate myself because I felt so
afraid of taking a risk.

Swinging from one extreme to the other
becomes a self-destructive cycle. If we avoid relationships because
we are afraid of getting hurt, our needs can grow so big over time
that we end up abandoning safety and ignoring common sense. We then
throw ourselves into intimate relationships with people we barely
know. When our latest, ill-conceived relationship ends, we go back
to isolating ourselves because we feel so hurt and depressed.

Some of us grow increasingly bitter after
each betrayal. “See, I got hurt again! No one is worthy of my
trust. No one will ever treat me well. It’s completely
hopeless.”

Because we have a hard time finding balance
with this question of trust, we should probably start with a policy
that allows us to take a measured approach. Often it is easier to
have a plan. Otherwise, we may find ourselves compromising too much
of what we want in our relationships.

The following is an example of my personal
policy for relationships. I suggest that you develop your own
policy if you have a hard time knowing when to trust others. You
might use mine as a starting point. Modify whatever you like and
keep whatever sounds reasonable to you. The policy we follow should
be designed to help us move at a reasonable pace with our
relationships. The risks we take in a relationship should always be
measured.

Personal Journal Entries

Entry #1: Intimate Relationship Policy

Phase 1 – Months 1-4

1. Do not throw yourself into a relationship:
Remain where you are. Remain in your place of residence. Remain in
your job. Maintain your usual activities. Remember that dating and
the early stages of a relationship are a trial period. Do not allow
your life to change in any significant way.

2. Do not over-disclose about yourself:
Refrain from telling a partner all the details of your history,
especially the very personal parts. Refrain from putting yourself
in a vulnerable situation with someone you cannot yet trust. Do not
open yourself up too much during this time.

3. Do not over-spend: Never make financial
commitments that involve substantial risk during this phase.
Examples of risky financial commitments are giving someone a loan,
helping someone with their rent, or spending money on relocating to
a new area. Your financial commitments should remain at an amount
of money you are willing to lose. For myself, this means less than
one thousand dollars.

4. Do not over-commit: Do not make promises
for the future. Do not make wedding arrangements or long-term plans
with someone in this phase. If it is an intimate relationship, you
may want to commit to monogamy if you are comfortable doing so this
quickly, but only if your partner is willing to make a similar
commitment.

5. Understand that you are more likely to
overlook someone’s faults during this time. This is the “honeymoon
phase.” If you realize that you can’t trust this person during
Phase 1, or if you or he/she has become abusive or disrespectful,
don’t let the relationship continue.

Phase 2
–
Months 5-6

1. Begin by disclosing more information about
yourself. Wait for their reaction to determine if you can trust
them with your disclosures. Talk about the things you want and
don’t want from a relationship, and see if he/she feels the same
way.

2. Have a conversation about where you want
the relationship to go. Do you want to continue to be friends with
this person? Are you in love? Do you want the relationship to move
to the next level?

3. Do not make any major changes to your job
or living arrangements. Maintain your usual activities.

4. Do not make any long-term commitments or
promises during this time.

5. Try to look realistically at their faults.
Can you live with their issues? How much do their faults concern
you? Is your partner abusive in any way? Does he/she care about
meeting your needs? Is he/she willing to compromise? Is he/she
willing to work on his/her personal problems and work to better the
relationship? Can your partner see and admit his/her
shortcomings?

6. If you have similar goals, if you both
want your relationship to move to the next level, if you can live
with each other’s faults, and you are happy with the answers to
these questions, you may want to move to Phase 3. If you realize
that you can’t trust this person during Phase 2, or if you or
he/she has become abusive or disrespectful, don’t let the
relationship continue.