Sylvanna Devlin

There are a lot of philosophies about healing from abuse. Step one always being get the fuck out of the abusive situation. Easier said than done I know, but also easier said than known to be done.

Here’s what no one fucking told me ever. If someone is abusive get out, get out always, and if they’re family have a relationship from a distance. Abusive people are not going to stop being abusive to you not matter how much you love them. How much couples therapy you drag them to. No matter what you do to appease and care for them they are not going to stop while they have you.

Fucking get out.

Do not breed with them

Do not begin an abusive cycle where they can pass on their shitty behavior to an offspring by being shitty to them.

Let abusive fucks die out. Okay?

Not an option? It’s your parent or their other qualities as so overwhelmingly positive you’re willing to laugh at bad behavior? Well in the latter they had better not dent your sense of Humour but chances are likely they will.

We’re talking abuse here. No just bad behavior. Bad habits, negative argument tactics, lashing out, grumping about are all things therapy and/or medication can take care of. I’m talking about using you up. But here’s the key; no one in life gets a cookie for having a worse lot and no one in life gets to tell you what you should or should not put up with.

Abuse is a problem when it crushes you. It will always crush you. Anything else is assholery. But the latter becomes a huge problem when you have a history of the former weighing upon you and no one – particularly not a spouse – gets to tell you that you’re being “too sensitive”. Fuck that. Try rubbing your skin with a Brillo pad then adding hot sauce to that. Different kinds of irritant way worse in the latter if you are more than a little raw.

Should you try to heal your skin first? Of course. But we don’t ever get over being abused we move on. What you need is to break the cycle. Abused people get into other abusive relationships because they were groomed into it or because the pattern is familiar maybe even exciting. Few love like an abusive ass who wants to make up for it. There are some that do – for sure there are some. And they usually end up in abusive relationships too.

Abusive assholes find non-abusive people to bully. And then think they are in the right. Get the hell out, away, apart. Start with a weekend to cool your head. It may take several shots and if it’s violent, run fucking far.

Abusive dicks do it for a sense of power and control, they do not like losing their chew toy. If being solicitous doesn’t work more abuse is headed your way because they can’t fucking let go till you’ve changed your number or put there nose so throughly out of joint (figuratively speaking of course) that they see losing you as a good thing.

I certainly advocate two people from bad relationships getting into good ones afterwards if they’re going to try again. But it’s likely therapy would be involved in between. And I advocate two (or more) people getting into relationships who haven’t developed all the hang ups and baggage abused people do. But fuck judging another for carrying weight with them. Once abused they need it to avoid getting abused again.

Let me make this unusually clear. Helpful, kind, sweet people are a magnet for abusive assholes. Please keep being helpful, kind and sweet. But learn the warning signs. Read up on the flags and listen to that instinct that something is wrong.

The big warning signs?

Is the word “No” an issue? Yes? Run.

Are they extra critical of your social network and try to separate you? Escape now.

Did they make you cry the first week you met them? Yes? For gods sake don’t let there be a second.

Do you have a pit of nerves that feels like trusting this person is just not what you want to do? For fucks sake you are not just overly anxious don’t and don’t get involved. Even if it was just you get some therapy first because you’ll make the other one miserable.

Now, do I have trust issues? Of course I do. But here’s the difference never, not once, don’t ever test another person. If you struggle to trust just let things take extra time and go through a few more ups and downs together before you do. No prodding, poking, or policing. Relationships can and should be better than that.

Have good boundaries. Date people who respect those boundaries is a shorter simpler way to put that.

Say you have no choice, the asshole is a parent. You have some healing to do and therapy isn’t enough. You need a new mindset before you can walk away and fuck this time heals everything because it doesn’t sometimes the more a wound, emotional or otherwise, is left to fester the worse it gets when it can’t be ignored anymore.

How bad are we talking? Well from miss bottle it up I’d say a suicide attempt is up there on the plausible list from those who don’t handle pain well. So I’m one to talk.

Don’t try to confront or get closure with the other person. It doesn’t work. If they’ve done a few particularly awful acts it can help to know just what the fuck they were thinking but that has limits.

My father kicked me out and took the key and told mother he thought I’d get violent. What the actual fuck? Where the hell did he get that idea? No never mind that’s a rabbit hole of fuckery and I’m done before I start. It’s too late now.

He had his reasons and he fucked up my life because of them. I don’t trust that he told mother the truth and never will because he’s the kind of asshole to kick someone out. And even if it were just fear taking the keys is a little fucking malicious unless you think I’m sneaking back to kill you in your sleep and in that situation again, what the actual fuck? No never mind it’s going to be stupid and just piss me off.

That’s what you’re looking at when seeking “closure” the reasoning is never going to be true/accurate/reasonable and we want one. We do do. We so badly do. But “broken by their parents” is really all there is too it when you get to the bottom of the “why would you believe that” barrel.

If it’s just general abuse without an “ending act”? Still get out. And still don’t try to seek closure from them. The best you end up more upset or even in a long discussion that does no good, the worst you get sucked back in.

So what now? If time leaves things to fester and closure is a stupid concept by someone who hasn’t been abused but might have been “mistreated” what can you do to heal and maybe stop the cycle of abuse because sometimes abused people become abusive themselves.

First, yes it does indeed involve some time after you’ve gotten some distance. Then what you need is what I call a philosophy of grief. Because what else is the wounding of abuse than the grief of what could have been or even what should be? You know you deserve better, or even if you don’t, you know you want better. And you plain didn’t get it. And aren’t going to get it from them. That deep rooted sadness is more than death. It’s living on scarred – sometimes physically. That’s in some ways harder.

I used to think nothing was wasted in a writers life but if the bullshit keeps you from writing that’s certainly not true and what if you’re not a writer. A better philosophy is in order. How to cope with the suffering another heaped on you.

How do you cope with suffering at all?

One thing is true about eastern philosophy life inherently has suffering – from the times a hunt failed to the house hunt from hell, survival or comfort we do not lead happy glowy lives with nothing bad ever happening. And it benefits no one to prevent otherwise. What we need to do is cope with it.

Do we journal, talk to the wind, talk to a therapist, talk to friends or family? All of them? What do we do? Actually yes, all of them. Or as many as we have options to. We help others. We pet a cat. We care for our bodies and trim unwanted hair. A lot of us get a hair cut. We change. Remember my saying when hope dies change and there’s not greater grief in the world than losing hope.

Reframing the past helps it you can put it in positive terms. That’s true. But it can bog you down in details. Changing something, anything, everything will get hope going again. But do not change gods. Just because another person or animal has heaped injuries on you (looking at you flies who commit fly-strike) doesn’t mean your god isn’t listening. It’s a sign people or potentially insects got there first.

What if you have no god?  You’re an atheist or agnostic and taking a break from the concept of spirituality entirely? What then? Does change really bring back hope?

No. Positive change does. But sometimes it’s a rough fucking road to that positive change. And meanwhile we’re fucking miserable, and wallowing in the misery of the past. Then when we start to get better we grieve over what we need to do/missed doing while we were under. Getting better sometimes doesn’t seem desirable either without a cradle of some kind.

Does it help to know why abuse exists? Maybe. But the answers are unsatisfactory. Is it territory? Why do we want power and control? To be less anxious is that really all it is? To make people actually help us? Is that why we want wealth? What’s the point of sitting on a few billion dollars unless we don’t understand the numbers because it’s not in bars of gold? What’s the point of sitting on Fort Knox without spending it on the poor? Conservative should mean conserving culture and values not money. Is abuse about money? Usually actually. Even when you don’t have any.

Abuse is in the lizard brain. It says for you to have more I must have less. Three berries to me instead of five and I’ll hit you over the head till I. have five.. It does not account for a society that could have equal access to basic needs if we were more cooperative. It’s in the animal instinct to fight over food and even then we see cats give to others before taking for themselves. But in general there are a few shared attitudes.

This happened to me and I turned out okay.

Did you really? I mean do you like that about you? I’m willing to bet not. And just because your dad did it isn’t a good enough reason for you to either. This isn’t the foolish jump off a bridge analogy – though I have a comment on that. It’s that behaving in the same way as your parents without examining the harm it does is not responsible or even reasonable if you want love in life.

Which brings us back to what’s the point of all of this?

Money doesn’t buy happiness but it sure as fuck helps. But without love in our life that happiness is meaningless. Compassion is important but we wouldn’t be so love crazed if it wasn’t a fundamental need emotionally. For gods too by the way.

So what gives? What is abuse really? A fight over imaginary resources?  A fight over emotional resources? Actually in the case of the latter, yes.

We’ve evolved past the point of needing to hit someone over the head to get berries. But while most people will argue abuse it about power and control, usually not having some, it doesn’t explain those at the top unless they’re suffering massive imposter syndrome and no amount of power and control will make them feel like they actually have that.

A separate situation for a separate book.

But power and control is at the root a fight over resources including the all important attention. Abusive assholes want your attention, want it right now, want you to do everything they say,  and sure as fuck don’t seem to care that you have different wants, needs, and plans. They might when they’re not lashing out. But when they are it is because somewhere in their life they’re not getting the resources they need. Emotionally counts for that too.

Okay fine but there are nice unloved people.

Are there? Or are they loved by someone or at least a god?

Which brings us to the interesting idea if grief is the root of all suffering – which it is – what love is this we don’t have – a dearly fucking need as much as water?

What the fuck is love?

We all know it when we feel it isn’t helpful to those with a cold life. But I will bet you anything abusive people come from cold backgrounds. Some feel love as forgiveness, and some throw tantrums when they don’t get what they want because that’s love as far as they are concerned. It depends if their cycle has a honeymoon phase of trying to lure you back in.

Remember

We all feel justified.

Even if that reason isn’t fair.

Fair and just being two separate concepts.

That’s the bottom row of all the things we do. With context everything is reasonable and has logic to it even if it’s emotional logic or the weight of ones personal history.

And

We all want love.

That’s why we seek each other out and if not each other a god to please talk to. We need love. Jesus is a popular concept because no matter how deeply we fuck up he loves us. That means the light of the trinity is on us for those who believe in that form of love.

So if you are recovering from abuse what do you do? You seek love. And quite often end up in the same because abusers pray on those who need their attention and don’t take well to you getting better.

If grief is love with nowhere to go, and grief is the root of all suffering it seems clear, almost mathematically so, that healing from grief requires giving and receiving love.

This is why the suffering find god.

If you’re not inclined to and not in a position to make friends to pour your heart into, find something to contribute to society. Find someone to love even if it’s the safety net of the fucking NSA. Love someone and treat them with love and kindness.

If you are spiritually inclined, congratulations spirits thrive on being loved. On the energy of love. On prayer or just being talked to. If you need formality you can find it here. But if you need more structure than this book there are no arms more welcoming than Orthodox Christianity and Islam. They have some outdated rules. But the structure for being with and communicating with god really firmly exists in those two. As are rules and guidance for loving one another.

The more you offer love the deeper the well of offering gets, the better society, the better you feel. Receiving can be difficult if you are isolated and only have spirits to love you back – provided you believe enough to sense them. And woh if you live in an environment hostile to you. Then change where you are.

What if you are an abusive asshole? Get therapy my friend, you don’t have to stay that way. But don’t drag others into your bullshit till you’ve sorted your shit out and don’t have it anymore. Find another way to “feed”. Try giving instead of taking.

Now here’s where things get complicated. If you have a history of being taken from you might become the kind of person who takes too. Please don’t. Because that’s not healthy. But those taken from develop anger and grief and become abusive or loving. Those are the two paths. Take the latter.

Choose love.