Abuse: I "didn't know that I didn't know"

We'll get back to the discussion on making the shift from "illness" to "wellness" mindset shortly; in the meantime...

Some of us "don't know what we don't know".

Personally, over the years when I was asked if I was "abused" I would say shamefully "no" because first - I didn't know what it was like to not be abused, this was my "normal"...

...and second - I'd been trained to believe that somehow it was my fault what the adults in my life had done to me and thus as I grew into adulthood, I repeated this pattern in my relationships not because I was "bad", "defective", "less than" or "ill" - but because it was all I knew.

I "didn't know that that I didn't know" that I was living the generational pattern of abuse in my life.

I just thought something was "wrong" with me; that I was "defective" and as I entered the mental health system in 1992, the abuse was ignored and I accepted that I was actually "ill", "diseased" and "defective"; somehow I was "genetically" broken.
That something was "wrong" with me...not that I'd been raised in an environment that left me ill equipped to face the world as an individual.

This article I'm referencing addresses male to female abuse but truth is....these are indicators of men to women, women to men,male to male or female to female, adult to child, perpetrator to victim in any situation, any relationship.

Abuse of any kind is not restricted to "intimate" or "domestic" relationships but can be seen in all societal relationships in various degrees. It doesn't matter what we call it...."dating violence", "domestic violence", "gay or lesbian" violence, "sexual discrimination" in workplaces...

...it all boils down to one thing: a perpetrator needing to validate their existence through the control and oppression of another.

Think globally as in war and prisoner of war camps. Same idea, different people, places and circumstances.

Abuse is often tolerated as "normal" although in truth is an indicator of that struggle of "power and control" and that power imbalance in oppressive relationships and may often precede physical abuse and violation as the victims are "groomed" to tolerate the intolerable.
Knowledge is the beginning of the truth that will set us free.

Often, abuse issues are looked at as if controlling the "abuser" will change things yet we hear over and over how those who were once the victim repeatedly find themselves in abusive relationships and environments.

So while becoming informed and learning how to identify abuse is the beginning - the cycle of abuse doesn't "end" by focussing on the "perpetrators" and we know this because we frequently will leave one abusive relationship and find ourselves in another.

Escaping the pattern of abuse for me began with identifying what it was within myself that attracted me to and was the basis to repeat this pattern in my adult relationships - not by living in that state of hyper-vigelance where I had to be "on guard" to catch the next perpetrator.

As long as I lived my life "on guard" for the next "abuser" I was focussed again on finding my "solution" in something or someone outside of myself instead of concentrating on learning how to no longer be a victim.

This was that "false sense of power" that came from an environment where I learned to "be" good enough or "do" right enough to avoid being hurt or to be "loved" by manipulating situations and circumstances in order to be "accepted" in an environment where being "me" wasn't allowed. (I.E. if I could "spot" the abuse, I could "avoid" it someway or do or say something to make the abuser "love" me...or at least stop hurting me.)

We can't change other people or the choices they make... but we can gain the knowledge that will empower us in our own lives and help us to change things for the next generation.
You can read the article here.

Q: Thoughts?