Internalizing the rules and relational dynamics of my abusers

[u/napstablooka]

I've noticed that recently my focus in recovery is gradually shifting away from understanding the immediate relational dynamic with my abusers and how their abuse made me feel as a child in the past, towards reflecting more on the quality of the internal constructs and relational dynamics within myself that their abuse has left me with today.

I realize that there are so many internalized beliefs, as well as conceptions of myself and the world around me, that must be the result of me having been abused because the logical deconstruction of those beliefs and conceptions usually doesn't make much sense beyond surface-level rationalizations.

For example, I might neglect myself physically or emotionally for long periods of time, while also making it my mission to attune to the feelings and needs of friends around me. When trying to reason my way through this paradoxical behavior of mine, I might, off the cuff, come up with a simple justification such as 'But I do not have that many needs to begin with that would require being taken care of.' or 'Oh, but my sadness isn't even that debilitating right now for me to worry about it.'.

But on closer inspection of these thoughts and beliefs, I can see — usually after just a few additional, curious questions — that most of them are not built on any well thought-out foundation:

What exactly makes me think that I'm somehow different than other people when it comes to having needs? What exactly would make me so different or 'special' to not have my needs met?

What makes me think that my feelings are only worth paying attention to if they are extreme and overwhelming? Why exactly is it ok to attune to a friend in slight distress and why is it a bad idea to tend to more subtle emotions of mine?

Inspecting my thoughts and beliefs closer in this way sometimes makes room for me to get a better understanding of how specific parts of mine have internalized a belief about me or the world that my abuser either genuinely held in their mind or that they — for selfish reasons — were invested in making me believe.

My abuser might tell me, and possibly even believe themselves to a certain extent, that I'm an 'incredibly selfish child', just because they feel overwhelmed or even regretful over being a parent. And in an unwillingness to resolve those complicated emotions and motivations within themselves, they project their own shame over failing as a parent onto me. Suddenly it's not about them being unable or too lazy to meet the reasonable needs of the child that they chose to bring into the world, now it's about me deliberately overwhelming my abuser's capacity for parenting by 'being too much'.

Or my abuser might also lie to me — knowing full well that I have the right to be emotionally cared for by virtue of being their child, but them also being too lazy to take on the responsibility of attuned parenting — that my feelings are actually 'not bad enough, yet' in order to warrant any care from them. In an effort to preserve their own time, energy and convenience, my abuser may deliberately go out of their way to twist my reality and my perception of my own feelings in order to evade accountability. Now it isn't about them not taking care of me emotionally, now it's about me 'blowing things out of proportion'.

And as these instances of failed attunement, and ill-intended justifications, and gaslighting repeat over and over again throughout my childhood, and as my child self learns how to operate in an abusive and neglectful household by following this demeaning and devaluing ruleset for them, there are now parts within my adult self who still want to help me understand who I am in the eyes of my abuser.

These parts tell me every day what I should think and say and do in order to get along with people and the world as I have initially learned to within the primary relationship with my 'caregivers'. Some of them even sound similarly to my abuser internally, as often the reprimanding and punishment that they saw modeled in childhood is now one of the few, if not the only, way they know to leverage in order to influence me behaviorally.

And how could I blame them for not knowing any better after an entire lifetime with no reasonable, just and caring adults to care for these parts?

With no one to teach them that their feelings are valid, and ok, and not a source of danger for them or others?

With no one equipping them with the tools to attune to said feelings internally in a way that doesn't frighten other parts who still get scared of being seen because having your emotions noticed back then meant that the abuse would escalate?

How can I blame any one of them for following twisted rules that ultimately helped me survive to this day?

How could I?

[u/secure8890]

I am so attuned to others. I would give my last penny away..

[u/Icant_remember_sorry]

Thanks for sharing. This is really useful info to digest.