Hey, hold your horses there, stop hitching that wagon, I have a bone to pick. MINE was the worst person in the world! Hmph, stealing my thunder like that! ;-)

More seriously, acceptance was, for me, the first and most important step. Hating myself when my first H cheated on me and then left me for the other woman, well that got me fairly soon into a relationship with someone who was a little more overtly abusive. Hating myself for being foolish enough to be duped again when I found out that he had stolen my money and used it to pay for prostitutes for him and his friends, well THAT got me into a relationship with the man who ultimately led me here.

How to do it? Well, this place here helped me a LOT. I looked at all these wonderful women (we didn't have men here, then), who had done as I had done - hitched their awesome, compassionate, intelligent, thoughtful and caring wagons to the worst men in the world. If I hate myself for the choices I made that led me here, surely I should hate all the other women (and now men) here who have made similar choices? If I am unworthy of any good thing because of the mistakes I've made in the past, are not all the others here equally unworthy?

That was a start. Then I just started to force myself to accept the truism that you can't change the past. I had a choice - turn what happened to me, the poor choices I made and their disastrous consequences, into something good, or sit and wallow in the self-hate forever. Success is not born of success, but of failure overcome.

So I accepted that yes, I made some bad choices. But nobody deserves abuse - no matter how many bad choices I made, no matter how imperfect I am (and believe me, I got imperfect in spades, baby), I did NOT deserve what they did to me. Time to stop pitying and hating myself from frying pan to fire and back again. Time to accept my imperfections and work on the ones that really matter to me.

It's hard, and I won't say I never slide backwards, never have the pull of the old familiar and comfortable "yeah, but I suck, and that's why nothing good will ever happen to me". But I can now pull myself out (usually) and remind myself that none of us spends our life always getting what we deserve - otherwise I'd never have been abused, and all my exes' dicks would have grown cancerous boils and dropped off years ago.

So .. you didn't deserve it. Sure, you coulda made better choices. But that doesn't mean you can't learn from it and make better ones in the future. Until you know better, you do the best you can. When you know better, you do better (a paraphrase of a quote from someone, but can't remember who). You made those mistakes because you didn't know better. Now you do.

I made those mistakes because I was never taught to trust myself or my intuition. I was never taught or shown as a child that I was worthy and lovable just because I exist. I was fed the message that I was only worthy and lovable if I "behaved" - if I was a "good" girl. And so to be treated as needing always and forever to prove my worth just came naturally. How could I know better? But now I do - I'll not prove my worth to anyone who can't see it, ever again.

I found the concept of self-love just way too big. An unachievable goal. So I set myself the goal of self-acceptance. Seemed easier. I started by accepting all my "negative" feelings - like anger and hate and fear. I accepted that I was entitled to those feelings. Sometimes they seemed as though they may crush me in their intensity, but then I realised I was pushing against a brick wall that wasn't actually pushing back. When I stopped fighting to push them away, they just stayed put and I got to walk away from, around or over them.

Even forgiveness of myself was too big to swallow to start with. Acceptance of my emotions, of the reality of my experience, and of the fact that I'm allowed to be imperfect, even very imperfect - that's where I started.

Though that is, of course, just what worked for me.

Oh Vern..
I sooo get it
You are way too hard on yourself. I agree with Livn...Take a deep breath and ACCEPT your anger. It's OK to be angry!!Let yourself feel it because if you don't it will make you sick and stuck in badness forever without you even knowing it. I know this first hand.

Yes you must love yourself. Sounds so trite doesn't it? My response to that over the past few years has been "yeah, yeah, yeah... blah,blah, blah..sure..Whatever!" But I JUST realized how important it is. It helps me to picture my inner child. If I feel like I just can't mustar up the strength to love me, I give love to her.She is just a little kid, dammit. Isn't it our duty to protect those who are small and innocent?

Now back to that anger.. you and I are in the same place. Trying to figure it out. Should I punch the living crap out of a heavy bag, or meditate? I guess whatever feels right at the moment. Eventually though, I agree with Livn..we have to come to some peace with it, stop resisting it, and turn the focus back on ourselves.

We ended up in a crap situation. We didn't ask for it. We didn't deserve it. But with work I swear we will be cream of the crop, top of the line, rock solid, ass-kickin', tough-as-nails, strong women who are better than we ever were before.

So feel your anger and tell yourself it is OK. THEN start to work on letting it go.

My challenge for you today is to picture your inner child, tell her you will make sure she is OK, and give her a really, really big hug.

And I will send a hug your way.

Vern, I just posted a long, heartfelt response to your post; only to have my phone get shut off (along with my data services) as I was trying to post!! Ugghh!!

So, back to the point. What they said (haha). Seriously, you deserve so much better!! Don't let some asshole make you feel less than the awesome, compassionate, wonderful person you are. And you are!! You show such compassion and insight for everyone on here, give a little break to yourself too. We all got duped into believing we could turn a lion into a cuddly house cat; that we could control it and that maybe WE were the problem, not them. There are times when I think that there MUST be something wrong with me that I attracted this situation; maybe I'm not as smart as I thought?

I mean, I got my degree in the hopes that I could help children and their families in crisis--yet here I sit, with my own children messed up from a lifetime of living in an abusive situation--quite the hypocrite right?!

Please go easy on yourself. Feel your anger, feel your hurt...I think we have to at some point to process it and let it go before it does any more damage to us. But realize that you are an awesome, amazing, intelligent, caring, compassionate person who deserves so much better than you've received so far. So be the first person to give that "better" to you. You give it to me and to all of us all the time--save a little back for Vern!!!

Hugs!!

There is a time
when it's both
appropriate and
actually necessary
to feel so angry at
the status quo that
we cannot tolerate
one more minute
without doing
something to
change it.

And there's a time
when it's both
appropriate and
necessary to
accept and
possibly
forgive.
This is
CRITICALLY
necessary
in regards to
our SELF.

I did this for myself,
when I learned how
to re-parent myself.
I head to do this, as
my actual parents,
particularly my mother,
didn't have great skills,
in regards to parenting.

From my father, on the
other hand, I learned
how to LOVE myself.

When I think of myself
as if I were my own
innocent child, I'm
able to embrace
myself in all my
strengths, flaws
and uncertainties.

It starts with a decision
and gets easier with
practice.

When I got the hang
of how to do this, my
life changed forever.

I'm not claiming myself
to love myself every single
minute of every single day.
But I have learned how to
do this, 95 percent of the
time. And that's a pretty
good foundation.

It's a lesson that I
try to share with my
clients and anyone
who wants to live
each day feeling
more serenity and
satisfaction.

So much great advice posted already.

You put into words what I've been unable to up to this point but you nailed it.."using rage to propel forward". I've been worried that my negative emotions toward my H have become unhealthy and unfair. SInce this is not my nature I wondered what was up with this. You said it and it makes sense to me- using it to propel me forward bc I know myself enough to know that if I start giving him the benefit of the doubt I will doubt myself all the way to begging for HIS forgiveness.

I'm not trying to hijack here but show you that we all doubt, we all question, we all have palms to foreheads moments. Its the human condition I believe. Airbrushed celebrities who have young girls so enthralled by them end up drinking or drugging to numb their own self loathing.

You aren't stuck. You feel stuck. With the each rising of the sun you have a chance to start over. Do over button. Your past does not define you.

You need grace dear one. Sometimes people give it to you and that's great. But if they don't, you can still give it to yourself. You can hate your responses and impulses without hating yourself. If someone gave you one of those Alfred Hitchcock drugs that paralyzed you so you couldn't move one muscle but you still had your awareness, you would not cease to exist. You are in there! Who is that person? Do you know? What do you want people to think of you? What qualities? With every thought and decision you make see if they fit the person you want to be.

Go into your living room, move the plant in the corner and sit there a moment. Doesn't the room look different from there? Have you ever seen that angle before? You see everything else is the same, you simply changed your perspective.

Now get up, get out of that corner and live!!!

This is a great post and the responses are so very helpful.

I will echo Godis - not wanting to highjack, but I could have written your first paragraph word for word.

I believe anger is an emotion we rely on to keep us focused and moving forward. But it does feel out of character for us. And I fear that Im becoming a cold, heartless person by the way I feel and the way i act towards my husband - shutting him out, asking for space, not being receptive to his - now kind ways. I'm also very agitated and have lost patience with myself and even worse - when it comes to my little babies. I get frustrated when the little one wakes up in the middle of the night. i have to stop myself and mentally switch out of the gear of anger and back into the sweet, loving person and mom I am - and it's HARD!

But I am struggling with my true self too. I am NOT this person. I have become this person as a coping mechanism, to be strong and make right decisions with my head and not to waver with my heart.

Vern - You ARE worthy of forgiveness. Be kind to yourself. Find that box and unpack the self love....it's time to come out again. You're free and safe and you deserve it.

Sending peace, strength and hugs.... xo

i can't tell you how good it feels to not be alone and have such compassionate kindred spirits to guide me. livn, you DO win, yours was the worst person in the world. my ex is such a loser he can't even be the BEST loser. ha!

this advice is invaluable, i find it so hard to maintain my anger/boundary maker without it swallowing me, keeping my razor tongue to shut down my ex/softening it so i don't rip my son in half, remembering the injustices to keep me focused/not dwelling on them to heal.

it's impossible. its an impossible task. and yet, you here have all done it. sweet if i lost my internet trying to post a long rant i would have smashed that phone into a fine powder.how amazing you can bench the frustration, try again, and succeed!

thanks so much to all of you, you are an inspiration and the kindest words i hear. but in 15 minutes i'm going to write another "i tried it i can't do it i hate everything aughhhhh! post and you might have to do it all over again.

the advice about picturing my inner child is very good, that gives me at least a place to start. plus when i was six i had these righteous white knee-high go-go boots and i'll be wearing them when i visualize her.

thank you again, and when i achieve my zen i'll plant bonsai trees for all of you.

I don't care much for Dr Phil - but that quote makes sense to me. You make positive change when you love yourself and know you deserve more, not by hating yourself and trying to change what you hate.

I can certainly say the hating oneself doesn't work. That's what my girlfriend does. She hates herself, and has always hated herself. She deals with it through anger towards her now deceased abusive mother, to others who abused her, and to anyone and everything. She dealt with it by cutting herself, abusing drugs, attempting suicide, and risky relationships. And she still hates herself. She tries to fix it by fixing the external - a new job, a new boyfriend, an new place to live, a new lifestyle. But in a few months, that wears off, because she never fixed the problem in that she hates herself. It's a tough cycle to break. But her issues now are the same they always were - she doesn't think she is deserving of happiness.

I can offer you a few suggestions. Look for that one thing deep inside you that you know always makes you feel good or happy to be alive, and expand on it. The past is the past, and all those crappy relationships and poor decisions are superficial. Accept them for what they are. We all have them. Don't let them be regrets.

Find that thing that makes you feel like you, develop it. It could be a hobby, a club, reading, gardening, working with animals, art, music - anything. Once you find that one thing, you begin to daydream about it when you are stressed. You look forward to it when you get home from work. You begin to take pride in it, and talk to others about it. And soon that one thing becomes two things, and then four. then you are strong, and all this superficial crap doesn't matter so much. Some day, XYZ will happen, and it stinks, but it doesn't matter as much because you love yourself and who you are, and you know you can move on.

accept who you are then changed the parts you don't like ,only you can minnie

Fantastic advise here, from a group of very wise people.

Mastering rage is similar to mastering any other response. Any other addiction. You do the best you can, hold yourself accountable when you fail, and try to do a little better next time.

I'm introducing my 13-year old nephew to the old NES video games I grew up with. No save points, no cheats... three lives, and then you start over. He initially protested "this is impossible! How can anyone beat a game like this?!" I told him, "You do it again, and agin. You find the spot that always trips you up, and you try slightly different things, and eventually you get past it. Only to face a new point that you can't get past. Sometimes, you make mistakes, and don't even reach the point that always trips you up. And then you start over again. Eventually, you're so good at it, that you can beat the whole game without even trying very hard."

When you slip up, and lose your temper, loose your tongue unkindly... Don't be like your abuser. He wasn't strong enough to admit that he made a mistake. He had to rationalize, and blame you, and pretend it never happened - because he couldn't face the knowledge that he had failed. Feel the pain that you caused another human being - one you may love and respect - and then go on from there. And try your best to do better next time.

Not that rage doesn't have it's place. But just as with alcohol, with fear, with chocolate - you be its master. Don't let it master you. Than a powerful fury becomes a powerful tool. I have every confidence you'll learn to control it! :)

Hi Vern,

There isn't much I can say that hasn't been said here already. I do know that my brightest days came after my darkest days. The days when I hated myself the most led me to the freedom to actually loving myself, accepting myself.

When I seriously contemplated suicide, I had to face the realization that my life, as it was at that moment, would be the entirety of my story on this earth. There would be no more sunrises or sunsets, no child born or grieved, there would be no rage or anger that could possibly transform me, there would be no more love. I would never know what it would be like to just make myself happy... Or what my life would even look like if I lived true to myself. There would be nothing. And at that moment I began to accept myself. I had already made my decision to die, so I had to face myself and the decisions I made, and it meant that final one too. I had to accept myself as I was just then in order to kill myself. And in that moment an amazing thing happened... I began to love myself. In all of my flawed, fucked up ways... And the pretty amazing things too!!!

I had to accept my rage, my anger, my dark side... In order to find the light. I had to admit to myself that there was a part of me that liked the drama, the sense of living on the edge... And the part of me that thought that this is the best I could do... And with that came the deep realization that 'he' was the best I thought I could do because it felt normal to be on edge, that I felt at peace in drama because it was the environment I was raised in. With that realization came the ultimate responsibility that it was up to me to fix my life... Even if that meant doing things that made me extremely uncomfortable...

Leaving my relationship...

Leaving my family....

Re-creating my career...

And going back to school...

I began to harness the darkness that almost ended my life and use it to fuel me, nit out of hate or rage... Out of survival. I have never been one ti take things lying down... And I can tell you aren't either. And that is probably why all of the accept and love yourself 'crap' -as it sounds when Dr. Phil says it- makes you want to puke. We are not all sunshine and light. None of us are. And it is by loving these disowned parts of yourself that you can begun to truly love yourself.


The darkness we have, the parts we fight, to love, accept and even to admit their existence, are the very things that PROVE we are nothing like our abusers. We choose to act out of love, empathy and compassion. And this is what makes us who we are.

LOVE YOURSELF.

Where's the like...ar fuggit, where's the LOVE button for what freedom said.

Nothing new to add, other than thank you all for a great thread!

This is why I stalk DS!!! I had been off a few days and actually was struggling with the usual woe-is-me stage of my darker emotional cycles.

Can't tell you how spot on this all was for being up at 3AM with worries. and regrets of ex and my choices. Yup, still hitching my wagon up to his troubles.

Perfect sync up to what I needed to hear + really changed my current POV and mood.

The darkness we have, the parts we fight, to love, accept and even to admit their existence, are the very things that PROVE we are nothing like our abusers. We choose to act out of love, empathy and compassion. And this is what makes us who we are.

freedom, that is one of the greatest things i have ever heard. and thats really saying something, people on here just spout poetry. but this is one of my favs, right up there with alan's 'soup shield' (find it. use it. live it. brilliant.)

thank you all so much for your insight.its unfortunate that we all have this particular dragon to slay, but wow it feels good to not be alone. and the fact that this all stemmed from a dr. phil quote still chaps me. so many sources of anger. but that so many of us, myself included, went all the way to loading up the gun and putting it in our mouth only to access hope from somewhere and claw our way back up tells me theres a secret well of strength somewhere. and i can always get a tall drink of it here.

thank you.