Dear Kenny:

There are three people you should not turn to for help: your parents because they have suggested to you repeatedly that you are worthless (“all they will do is criticize… and tell me how worthless I am”) and your ex girlfriend because she mistreated you badly.

From your descriptions, your girlfriend’s “love” was not love at all. It was her exerting power over you for her advantage and your disadvantage. She was about having power over you, not about loving you.

One day soon enough you will be involved in a loving relationship with a woman able and willing to love you, a woman who will have your well being on her mind, no less than her own. Until then, this is now your time to recover from your latest devastation.

It is now time to be very gentle with yourself, and very patient with the process of taking one little step at a time to make your life better. The discomfort you are in is temporary. Make it better this next hour, this very day, and then even better tomorrow.

From as calm as mind as you can muster, make a plan, a practical plan. You are welcome to share this plan here and post anytime you would like, sharing your thoughts and feelings through the process of making your life better.

anita

Dear Kenny:

Often an abusive person blames the one they abuse for suffering the consequences of the abuse. It is similar to this example: the abuser punches you in the face and then blames you for having a bruise/ black eye.

She abused you and then blamed you for sulking. Same thing.

A misconception: often the abused thinks that because they got angry at the abuser and reacted angrily, that it means they were abusive too. The truth is that it is impossible to not get angry when mistreated. Anger is an automatic feeling that follows mistreatment. When we are punched we get bruised and we get angry. Both.

Often enough the one abused reacts with abusing the one who started the abuse, and relationships are just that, mutual abuse. Thing is, better exit it ASAP.

From your descriptions she is an abusive woman, no doubt. It doesn’t mean you are or were perfect, no one is. But she was the one in power in the relationship and you were the one submitting to her power. Not perfectly submitting, not a perfect victim. But that is not what you should have been… a perfect, quiet victim. You shouldn’t have been a victim at all, quiet or.. rebellious.

She has been invested in blaming you for everything, including her initiatives, her actions. You took on her blame, believed it. This is a hallmark of abusers: blaming the abused. Abuse keeps going because the abused believes he/ she is at fault.

Please end and keep all contact with this woman in your past. Remove all abusive people from your life, whomever they may be. Place your well being as your top priority, and focus on getting your mind and life to a better place, starting now, starting today. Post again anytime. I will take a two hour break or so and be back to the computer then.

anita

Dear Kenny:

You are welcome. I was able to read only the first paragraph of the first post you wrote today. I will read the rest of that post, the second post and any other in about seventeen hours, when I am back to the computer. I will then reply to you. Please take good care of yourself!

anita

Dear Kenny:

You are very welcome. I will quote from you and give you my input:

“She also told me that her cousin’s husband would say nothing when she gets angry at him and that when she gets angry at me I will rebel and say mean things to her and ask me why can’t I be more like him”- she clearly communicated to you here that she is the one In-Power, the Authority, and you are the subject of her power. And you shouldn’t rebel against her power, she said. This woman may be someone’s mother one day. Can you see the trouble her child will be in?

“I see the best in people even when they hurt me consistently… I see the better side in her. She mistreated me consistently but she also brought me a lot of happiness, good times… I truly loved her unconditionally even with the abuse and the insults”.

A child loves his parent unconditionally, truly loves the parent even with the abuse and the insults. A child who is stuck with an abusive parent (having nowhere to escape to), needing the parent so badly, makes believe that the abusive parent is a good parent, holding on to any thing that looks, sounds, tastes or smells good as evidence of love (a smile, soft voice, food served). The abused child, unable to feel fear all the time, enjoys breaks from fear and misery, those “good times”. The most abusive childhood has that “happiness, good times”.

“I confronted her before but she will always convince me that I am the abusive one and that I am completely delusional for calling her abusive and controlling… Am I just delusional for thinking that she abused me and that I am in reality the abuser… this monster she said I am? … they (friends) told me she is the abusive one but she would go off and tell her family members that I abused her”

I understand your confusion, I suffered the same kind for many, many years. It was very painful to live not knowing what is real and what is not: am I the bad person or is it the other person? It has been a long, long process of seven years for me, healing from this confusion. Too much to this process than I can attempt to write in this one post. I will be glad to share more as we continue to communicate, over time, if you are willing and able.

For now I will say this: as far as this ex girlfriend is concerned you are not confused about this one thing: there was abuse in the relationship. Because you can’t tell who abused whom, best thing for you to do when there is abuse in a relationship, is to exit the relationship.

If there is no abuse, stay in it. If there is abuse, leave.

Your friends told you she was abusive. I did. You did. But you don’t believe it, not as long as she said she was not abusive. See, there is nothing I can say, or anyone can say, and it doesn’t matter how much you repeat the telling of her behavior to yourself and to others, as long as she didn’t say: yes, I abused you, you won’t believe that she abused you.

The process, like I wrote, is long, tough and long, but if you engage in it and persist, you will no longer be confused one day, you will see.

anita

Dear Kenny:

You are welcome.

You wrote: “I have come to a decision that I am the negativity in people’s life”. Well, there is at least this one exception: you are not the negativity in my life. And if I met you in person, it would be still true, you would not be the negativity in my life.

For one, you are gracious, being appreciative, thanking me for my replies to you, this is positivity in my life. You write well and clearly, so it is easy for me to understand you, this is another  positivity in my life. And then, you teach me things, teach me more about my life, more about people, by sharing your innermost thoughts and feelings and life experience. This last one is a big positive for me.

You wrote in your original post: “Now I am in a position where I have lost everything including my apartment and studies”-

When you lose everything, a Beginning is all you have available for you. A Beginning can be a beautiful thing. I am not religious but I like Genesis 1. Here is how it starts: “In the beginning”, just like your life right now, in the Beginning.

Next: “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep”- just like you feel, darkness, sadness, hopelessness.

But look at the beginning of the sentence, “without form and void”, this is what you need to do, void yourself of what you used to believe about yourself, become void of previous incorrect beliefs.

Next, god said, “‘Let there be light’, and there was light. And god saw that the light was good. And god separated the light from the darkness”-

what if you too said: let there be light, and with that light shining you can see what is true and what is not true. Seeing that will be good for you. It says in the quote  that light was good, and light will be good for you too.

You can start from the Beginning and call this day your first day.

anita