Sanctuary for the Abused
Monday, March 01, 2021
Phrases Abusers Love to Use
Bullies all seem to have read the same phrase book. Compare notes with other victims of other bullies and abusers and you will think they're describing your life and the things that you get to hear on a regular basis.
"You make me feel …."
I can not make you feel anything, nor am I responsible for anything that you may be feeling. If I am doing something specific that bothers you, then be specific and we'll discuss what I am doing and why you respond with those feelings.
If you want me to make you happy, forget it. It is way beyond my capabilities to orchestrate your emotions.
"You never .."
Never is a big word. Do you mean that out of the 7354 mornings we have woken up together I have not once made you a cup of coffee? Do you mean that out of the 7475 days that we have been married I have not once listened to anything that you have said to me? No? Then please define "never".
"You always .."
This is just as bad as "never". Both are absolutes that are impossible to address in any realistic way. It is also a highly offensive exaggeration that is designed to put you on the defensive.
"You don't understand me"
For a bully this is a classic cop-out that is part of the "blame shifting" package. For a narcissist it is a deeply held belief.
Let's start with the common bully. By telling you that you don't understand him it implies that you are not performing up to scratch. First of all there is the underlying demand that you must understand him fully and secondly there is the silent accusation that you are failing and need to try harder. The onus has shifted from him squarely onto you.
I don't know about you, but I have a hard enough time fully understanding myself sometimes. It is unrealistic to expect someone else to always understand you. They are not in your head. They are not in your heart. They have not lived through and assimilated your lifetime's junk.
If someone doesn't understand me it is either because they simply cannot relate to my experiences and inner processes, or it is because I am doing a lousy job explaining. One is the result of their own life experiences and the other is the result of my ineptitude. Neither gives me cause to hold them responsible.
When it comes to the narcissist, the same rules apply - you cannot understand anyone 100%. However, the dynamic is a little different. The narcissist believes that he is so unique and special that nobody can possibly understand him. He believes that this is a large part of all his life's problems. He is surrounded by inferior beings and it gets really tiring to have to constantly stoop to such a low level just to maintain a source of supply. However, he is such a magnanimous superior being that he exercises immense tolerance and patience, despite the perpetual frustration and despair it causes him.
Finally, when he is saying, "you don't understand me" what he is really saying is that you are not allowing him to get away with something, he is feeling cornered and he just wants you to shut up and let it go now.
"You don't care"
This obviously also includes, "you don't love me" or "you don't love me as much as I love you" and a host of other phrases that are designed to make you jump to assure him that he is wrong.
Pure emotional blackmail and a really nifty catch-22 for you. Unless you now go out of your way to try to disprove the statement, you will in fact have proved it. It is a real "damned if you do and damned if you don't" set up.
Even if you give it your very best but slip up on the smallest thing, you have proved him right. You can't win, so why twist yourself in knots in the first place?
Love is an emotion or choice for the giver and an act of faith for the recipient. How does anyone prove an emotion? - This is exactly what they want you to realise, because then you will also have to conclude that the only way to prove it is by your actions - lots of them - all the time - to perfection. Exactly what they want.
"You provoked me" along with "you made me …"
The saddest thing about this is how often it works. The victim gets turned into the abuser and the abuser gets off without an ounce of accountability. The victim even ends up apologising for causing the abuser such agony that he was forced to abuse her in the first place.
- "Oh honey, I'm so sorry that I made you hit me".
- "Oh daddy, I'm sorry that I made you so mad that you hurt your hand on me".
- "Oh darling, I'm so sorry I hurt you so much you went and had an affair"
"I have the right "
I know that there are female bullies and female narcissists as well, but this particular stock phrase seems to be more pronounced in the male persuasion, mainly because they have the odds on their side before they even begin.
We live in a male dominated world and although it is slowly changing, the attitude is deeply ingrained. As men, they automatically believe that they have certain irrefutable rights, like the right of ownership and dominance over women and children. Unfortunately many religions support and encourage this view, or are interpreted to support it by the very same males who stand behind the pulpits. - One of their rights being to interpret and enforce religious precepts and principles.
So having this "God-given" right to total control, it is no wonder that they believe they have the right to say what they want, demand what they want and do what they want.
While bullies may still have some hope, the narcissist is way beyond it. If he is religious, then he honestly believes that he holds a favoured position with God and that when he speaks, it is as good as God Himself speaking.
The main purpose of invoking these different rights is very simply to strip you of all yours, or at least to convince you that you had none in the first place. He now has absolute power to control you and you can do nothing - because it is his divine right. Are you going to argue with God?
If you are living with this particular dynamic, please google "christians and abuse." It may salvage both your sanity and your faith.
Tied in with this absolute right, it would follow then that phrases like, "you're lying" or "you will" and "you won't" come so naturally to them. Right along with these come all the religious scriptures that they have at the ready, all bringing you instruction directly from God himself that you are to submit to, obey and all but worship the man in your life, whether dad, husband or boyfriend. I have even seen brothers using this against their sisters.
I am not anti religion. I am however anti abuse and exploitation in any shape or form.
These claims to rights are no more than base-level manipulation, blackmail and the abuse of power in order to exercise dominance and control over the life of another.
I have focused on men here and therefore need to reiterate that they are not the only guilty ones. I have in fact seen women come into power and become more abusive than any male I have ever encountered. I have also seen abusive mothers and abusive wives, so I am certainly not excluding the female gender from this evil.
Abuse is not gender specific, it is power driven. The thing that makes it worse with men is purely these supposedly inbuilt rights that they believe are genetically encoded and therefore absolute. The structure of most societies sadly supports this as well, making men far more prone to being abusers than women.
SOURCE
Labels: always, blame shifting, gender, guilt, manipulation, narcisissts, never good enough, pathological, rights, sociopaths, stock phrases
4 Comments:
Thank you again Barbara for another great article.
I have come to love the Lord Jesus deeply in the past few years and I have learned to take everything to Him. Let me tell you something, IT AIN'T ALWAYS PRETTY! But I have learned that he can handle all of it and I have also come to learn how much he loves and cares about women. I didn't even realize how much psychopathic men hate women (they hate everyone really, but especially women). How they think of others as objects (this is simply how their brains are wired), but they see women as objects that should also SERVE AND WORSHIP THEM and shut-up and be grateful on top of it. Waneta Dawn has some great articles on her website and they are Biblically based. She searches the Scriptures to find out what God's word REALLY has to say. Barbara Roberts is another author that has a book about Biblical divorce based on Scripture "Not Under Bondage: Biblical Divorce for Abuse, Adultery and Desertion."
Now that there is irrefutable proof that people are actually BORN without a conscience, and that there are genes and chromosomes to check as well to prove this, I've wondered how the world could deny that this is real? But lately I've found a common trend that horrifies me as much as psychopathy itself. When confronted over and over and shown this proof, these deniers who have been lambasting us (the non-psychopaths who've been so completely destroyed BY the ravages of psychopaths), do you know what they are now doing? They blithely crook their head and say, “Oh well, it's just part of the human condition, there's nothing that can be done and we need to just move on from this issue as it's been beaten to death.”
So I'm thinking, WHAT? I had to scavenge and scrounge and be emotionally raped by every person who said it was clearly something to do with me, to search website after website, to buy book after book (books that STILL give it different names in order to dumb it down, and keep us running in circles) in order to finally say NO! It is NOT my fault, it is a BIRTH effect and that there are MILLIONS of these people and nobody even has a treatment facility for us let alone a way to even help psychopaths!
So now we've just SKIPPED over all the rape that the non-psychopaths have endured as if the entire world KNOWS about psychopathy and what it looks like and what it means and the damage that’s been done to non-psychopaths, and just say, “Yeah, SO?” But see, this is the world. They will always find a way to deny the truth and deny reality and try to force us to concede. Well, for me, God won’t let me. He won’t let me “unknow” this truth about psychopathy. That’s its real, prevalent, genetic/chromosomal and that we are not even letting society know about it so we are giving birth to millions more and forcing the non-psychopaths to pretend we’re all the same. Feeling hopeless yet? Well, the Bible does talk about it in 2 Tim 3:1-5. And keep this in mind; Paul (the writer of the letter) was in PRISON, living during a time when Christians were being burned like a torch and beheaded, but he’s concerned for those of us who will be living during this time by saying, “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.” So, if you can’t seem to go back and unknow this horrible truth about psychopathy, give the Bible a whirl. You may be surprised and blessed. And just to clarify, God dearly loves men and children too and will reward all who earnstly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)
From an article titiled "Christians : WHAT YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT PSYCHOPATHS!!!!!!!!!!!"
Reasons why psychopaths might pick you for their prey:
(1) If you believe there is some good in all people whether they are true Christians or not. There is absolutely no good whatsoever in a psychopath. They are pure evil. Everything they say or do that "appears" to be good, is only part of their invented persona meant to deceive, manipulate and disarm you and others.
Psychopaths are the most deceptive creatures and the most convincing liars on the planet. They can deceive and manipulate seasoned psychologists and psychiatrists who have had decades of experience trying to help psychopaths and their victims. So, you do not necessarily need to be naive to become a target, it just makes it easier and less challenging for the predator.
Psychopaths are classic "wolves in sheep's clothing," which includes many so-called pastors and church leaders. Psychopaths are as evil as any demon. If you cannot accept this truth you are ripe for becoming a victim, with very serious consequences.
(2) If you don't believe there are people who do not have a conscience.
(3) If you are very lonely and looking for companionship.
(4) If you easily fall for a pity play, including, for example, wanting to give money to every street person with a cardboard sign that you encounter.
(5) If you are emotionally insecure and desire a relationship with someone who is emotionally strong. (Psychopaths can spot an insecure person very easily.)
(6) If you have accounts on social networking websites, you should consider deleting all of them. Those websites are a feast for psychopaths, who are the world's best con artists.
Once again psychopaths have no conscience and they believe that they are far superior to normal humans. Psychopaths have nothing but disdain for all normal humans because they were created in the image of God with a conscience.
Psychopaths are among the earths most evil creatures, who, just like Satan and his demons, are here to steal, kill, and to destroy humans. "God...endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction" Romans 9:22.
Psychopaths are in the same class of creatures as some of the Juuus whom Jesus told, "You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father" John 8:44.
All psychopaths are antichrists and antihuman. They believe that humans are at their disposal to use just as their father, the devil, desires.
"Just as you heard that Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of us" 1 John 2:18-19.
Be on high alert so that you will not be tricked by a antigod psychopath.
I have battled cancer some 3 times an have many health issues . My boyfriend of 10 years blames me for being so far behind. And said its your excuse to be lazy . But I just feel so tired . Is it really my falt
If you've battled cancer 3 times & have many health problems & he's calling u lazy...Sorry hun, but you're dealing with a true narcissist, sadist & psychopath. Of course none of that is your fault that your health problems make u very tired. I have Fibromyalgia, Degenerative Disc Disease, Sciatica & a whole bunch of other health problems that wear me out daily. Mine used to be kind, thoughtful, considerate & helpful. He does nothing for me now & I know why...because the mask came off. It was all an act - none of it was real :( A true Jekyll & Hyde personality - loves me one minute, wanting to marry me etc & in almost the same sentence, yelling @ me, putting me down & berating me. It's abuse - either way. God bless u & hope u enjoy the rest of your weekend :)
Post a Comment
<< Home