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Recovery is never a straight line - it loops and backtracks and swings all over the place even as we work to proceed in a forward direction. Each spot along the path brings a different perception of the problem.

I'm in an observant phase right now. This is good because self-observance is very important to learning my behavior and thought patterns. It's not so good as I watch myself still exhibiting sick patterns.

I still have quite a capacity for violent thought. Not violent action! just violent thoughts. I hear about friends of mine going through bad times with their SO or XSO, and my first reaction is to find the offender and smack the crap out of them. I get confused/upset at work, and I find a strong desire just to hit something/someone. When I feel upset about someones behavior, my first instinct is to hit.

THAT comes from my mom. That was her modus operandi for dealing with "troublesome" children (me). If I didn't want to listen, if I disagreed with her, if I looked at her wrong or said anything, I got hit.

What is very interesting to me is looking back over the way I take this and swing the pendulum. At some points in my life, I was the one cringing because I was gonna get hit. At other points, I refuse to roll over, and I want to be the one doing the hitting (under the guise of "defending my rights"). I'm either gonna get it or I'm gonna dish it out. And I want to dish it out because I don't have to take it anymore.

Heck - sometimes I don't even realize that's what I'm doing while I'm in it. I may FEEL like I'm just standing up for my rights, defending myself against abuse - but that's not what's really going on. I think that I still equate the FEELINGS with the past and, when I feel those same things, I react to that same old stimulus. My boss is not my mom. Js XW is not my mom. The cashier at the grocery store is not my mom. Nobody here is my mom, and neither is anyone at my meetings.

Not only did my mom teach that violence is an acceptable response to challenge, she taught me the "skill" of sarcasm and abusive speech. When B and I first got together, we had one run in where he was hurt by my tone of voice. Tone of voice? I had never previously considered that I had learned my mother's other favorite weapon. Now that I know, I can see it sometimes...and I'm still doing it.

There's been discussion here on and off over the years about "being the victim". What interests me is that I can be both victim and abuser without recognizing either one. Often, I find traits of both at the same time within myself, and I'm extra sensitive to other persons taking one role or the other (even when that's not really what is happening!). I see it very clearly in my sister, too...

My mom is really good at these same distortions. She will be the abuser until her intended victim stands up for themselves, then she cries and cries because people are so mean to her. I understand it - I really do - but I see it differently now that I understand better where it comes from.

I still have a lot of learning and unlearning to do. One of the more important lessons is "you're not my mom". Just because I feel all that old crap does not mean that I'm back IN the old crap. I do NOT need to respond from either the victim OR the abuser stance because that's not what's happening today! I can be a thoughtful, kind supportive person IF I can stay in today's reality. I lose a lot of that very quickly when I allow myself to forget, when I treat today as if I were still that confused child and my current crisis as if it were my mom coming after me again.

It's amazing how quickly we can fall back on those old roles and thought patterns. Given just the tiniest void or weakness and there we are. I feel myself swinging into some different dimension of recovery now, but I don't know what it is or will be. May be time to get a grip and watch more closely.


One thing I've learned/noticed in myself recently and in others in real and here.... is that we can be both within the same moment... as soon as our abuser role is challenged, we take on the victim role. As soon as the victim role is challenged, we take on the abuser role. Thinking there may be more to this pattern then meets the eye, I started looking to see if there might be something about them that is consistent.. some way they are the same. I found it in my own behaviors and thought that might be unique. But now I see it all over the place, especially here where we're free to swing on the pendulum vine as fast and as far as we'd like.

For me, both are reactions to a sense of disapproval. I never learned as a kid how to deal healthfully with a sense of disapproval. I did the craziest shit to avoid and prevent it. And those choices, no matter how crazy, were better than feeling the disapproval I sensed was coming.

IMO, what it amounts to for me, and what I see here, is it's a matter of blame shifting. I have done this in so many ways... but they all amount to swinging from attacker to victim and back. And both are actually a form of attack... hitting being one form of that.

I guess the lesson for me, based largely on what I've seen here lately, is that if I see somebody playing victim, it's time to stand back, coz somebody is likely about to be kicked in the crotch.

Minx-

Thanks for this post. It expounds on what you wrote in the victim thread. I like the whole realm of this- that it's a pendulum and/or spectrum. I think it would be neat if I could keep this with me - someway somehow, somewhere. I think it's important to try to recognize.

IBF -

I like how you can see it as blame shifting and approval/disapproval also. For me it all fits.

I don't have anything significant to add, just wanted to say I found a lot of value in both of these posts.

I guess if anything I'd be interested in how you are/were able to start breaking these concepts down.

This so clearly describes my mother that it's hair-raising.

I've read about how insensitive people are hypersensitive when it comes to their own feelings, and I've found that to be true. In fact I recently heard an extreme example where a woman who was loudly abusing a receptionist was so upset when her friend simply told her she would have handled it differently that she didn't speak to the friend for years. It's like she wanted to be able to be flagrantly abusive AND receive validation for it ("Yeah, anybody would have ripped that receptionist a new one.")

I get that from my mom. Once she was making snide observations about my hair, and I took it for a while and then wearily said, "Thanks for pointing it out," and she immediately began shrilling and screaming about how nasty everybody thinks she is. I would chew my own arm off to be able to get out of those scenes, so 99% of the time I just take the abuse silently.

I have gotten so upset at myself when I have seen myself behaving this way with boyfriends that I have thought it would be better for the world if I weren't in it.

I think for me, finding the middle ground in the area of sensitivity is helpful. Being hyperalert for signs of supposed abuse and at the same time dishing out abuse guarantees a miserable life. My mother has never been able to force anyone to love her with all her screeching. I am trying to become more aware of the effect of everything that leaves my mouth on whomever I'm talking to.