Dear Cecilia:

You shared that your family (parents, I assume) left you when you were 17 and since then (now 41) you’ve been “barely surviving… looking for support, for someone to care about me…for relationships and a sense of belonging“, but instead of support, care and belonging you were met with abuse, with “a lot of individuals that have been wolves in sheep’s clothing… bad people… the wrong people… all of them emotionally unavailable, all of them taking advantage of me or putting me down or using me“.

“I spent my whole life searching out – and for the most part, unknowingly – basically people like my family so I could re-live the experience and hope against hope that this time it’ll be different, this time I’ll change them? Oh my God. Please. Tell me it isn’t so” –

– You did not want to re-live the experience of your childhood, not knowingly and not unknowingly. You wanted a different experience, one of support, care and belonging, just like you said yourself.

I believe that the main reasons you encountered abuse instead of support and care are the following: (1) It is a fact that there are plenty of men who are willing to take advantage of needy, disadvantaged women, similar to predator in the wild preying on disadvantaged prey: the very young, the old and/ or disabled, (2) Being as needy and unprepared as you were to live on your own, you weren’t able to evaluate men for their character or lack of, and detect predators, and because you were “barely surviving” all along, you never got a chance to learn to do so, (3) Once you found yourself living with a predator/ abusive man, you did not have anyone to help you out of the situation and otherwise, you felt paralyzed, unable to leave, just as you felt with your parents.

Let’s look at your current situation: “I live with an emotionally abusive ‘boyfriend’ who constantly puts me down…But, I have nowhere to go. And the homeless shelter or domestic violence shelters around me aren’t safe… I literally have nowhere to go. Nowhere. I don’t have a car… I’m falling apart physically. Mentally I’m all sorts of messed up. I feel like life is over and there is no future for me that seems inviting” –

– Living with him, you are physically falling apart and all kinds of messed up, feeling like life is over… that’s not a safe situation for you. The homeless and domestic violence shelters around you aren’t safe, you wrote. Can you tell me about the conditions in these shelters, and in what ways these shelters are not safe in comparison to you living with the abusive boyfriend, I mean… what’s safer about living with him?

anita

Hi Cecilia

I’m sorry for all of the suffering you’ve experienced. My advice if you are not willing to leave immediately, is look for a new job. This will position you in a better place when you choose to leave.

It is the story of many people to repeat the cycle of abuse before they are able to escape it.

There are many abusive people out there and it is easy for someone to hide their abusive behaviour until you live with them for a sustained period of time. By this point, you already care about them and financial concerns make it difficult to leave.

The only way to protect yourself is to have very strict boundaries. If someone treats you badly and they do not make a considerable consistent effort to alter their behaviour and change end the relationship. A strong desire to be loved and poor self-esteem can make this very challenging. Good luck figuring everything out!