Physical & Emotional Abuse Support Group
Abuse is a general term for the treatment of someone that causes some kind of harm (to the abused person, to the abusers themselves, or to someone else) that is unlawful or wrongful. No one deserves abuse, period. Abuse can be emotional, physical, or sexual.
For people who don't know me..I was in an abusive relation for about 5 years and I am now happily married for three years.
My ex was emotionally abusive and a manipulative person.
It was alwayssss about him.
His mood, his needs, his desire, his ambition...
Now, when we had a fight and we would be not talking.
In the begninning..I kept the phone and then tried to give me some time to cool off and then talk about it.
But he would never want to talk about it and only blame me for everything.
Eventually I turned into a person who would apologize and apologize..I even touched his feet to tell how sorry I am..Anything to get him to like me again.
My elder sister was also like that when we were small.
Though now she is my support system and has helped me a lot.
But during our childhood whenever we had a fight, I had to apologize or else she would stop talking to me which was like the worst anyone could have done to me as I was litterally scared of someone not talking to me.
So now back to present.
My husband and I do have fights..Big and Small..But we alwaysss talk about and tell eachother what was the issue.Then try to ensure that we don't hurt eachother again.
But lately I am again seeing that I am still the girl who wants approval from all.A colleague of mine wrote that she is getting married..I congratulated..Later I saw she liked all replies except two..Mine and another one.Now I think a normal person would have just let it go as an oversee as that colleague and I were never much in contact but always cordial.But I went online to ask her that if she was angry...She said no and said that I was always nice to her when we met.Then I saw she liked my comment in sometime.
Another example, I wrote something here disagreeing to someone's opinion.Though her reply was very nice and just said we have different opinion..I actually felt the need to apologize to her..
Why do I need an approval stamp from all??
People may like me or may not..
That doesn't change who I am than why do I run after people who actually or in my head have disapproved me...
My ex was emotionally abusive and a manipulative person.
It was alwayssss about him.
His mood, his needs, his desire, his ambition...
Now, when we had a fight and we would be not talking.
In the begninning..I kept the phone and then tried to give me some time to cool off and then talk about it.
But he would never want to talk about it and only blame me for everything.
Eventually I turned into a person who would apologize and apologize..I even touched his feet to tell how sorry I am..Anything to get him to like me again.
My elder sister was also like that when we were small.
Though now she is my support system and has helped me a lot.
But during our childhood whenever we had a fight, I had to apologize or else she would stop talking to me which was like the worst anyone could have done to me as I was litterally scared of someone not talking to me.
So now back to present.
My husband and I do have fights..Big and Small..But we alwaysss talk about and tell eachother what was the issue.Then try to ensure that we don't hurt eachother again.
But lately I am again seeing that I am still the girl who wants approval from all.A colleague of mine wrote that she is getting married..I congratulated..Later I saw she liked all replies except two..Mine and another one.Now I think a normal person would have just let it go as an oversee as that colleague and I were never much in contact but always cordial.But I went online to ask her that if she was angry...She said no and said that I was always nice to her when we met.Then I saw she liked my comment in sometime.
Another example, I wrote something here disagreeing to someone's opinion.Though her reply was very nice and just said we have different opinion..I actually felt the need to apologize to her..
Why do I need an approval stamp from all??
People may like me or may not..
That doesn't change who I am than why do I run after people who actually or in my head have disapproved me...
It's also a hard habit to break, the habit of apologising for everything, every possible problem. But it can be done. One of the things I have done when I have an urge to apologise to someone is to ask myself whether I would expect an apology if the roles were reversed. Then I consider what it is I want to apologise for. And I look at any reaction from the other person that might indicate they have received a different message than the one I intended to send (for eg in a difference of opinion).
And above all, I remind myself of what I know - that I am a good and decent, caring person who doesn't set out to upset anyone. I trust in myself and in my motives. It's still sometimes hard - I found myself just this morning apologising for something someone else chose to do, to obtain a result we both wanted, but he put himself out massively because my attempts had failed. There was nothing at all that I had done wrong, I hadn't failed because of any incompetence or stupidity or any other failing on my part. In short, I had nothing whatever to apologise for. But that's ok, I know I'm way better than I used to be, so an occasional backslide doesn't bother me.
Just keep working on your self worth and your knowledge of who you are as a person. That will help with your need for approval from others, if you can work on giving yourself the approval you need and desire.
All that said, a need for SOME validation is a perfectly normal human trait. We are social animals and so some form of approval from the "herd" is always going to be necessary. It's just a question of balance.
It's a natural thing
to want to be liked.
It's likely a survival
mechanism that
evolved in humans ---
as we are social animals,
and it puts us in jeopardy
to be on the outs with
our "group."
If, as a practice, we work
everyday on (as Livn opened
her response with), the ability
to self-validate, we become
less susceptible to feeling
as though we need
everybody else's validation.
Notice, I said, less likely
to need. I'm able to self-validate
pretty well, and I know I still want,
to at least some degree, positive
feedback from others. But, again,
I don't think that's weird. It's just
the way most of us are wired.
Bottom-line. . . . please do
focus on SELF-CARE and
developing ever increasing
self-love and self-valuing.
Those, in my perspective,
are the keys to not being
susceptible to everyone
else's opinion. And not
hanging on someone
else's "nod of approval"
leaves us less susceptible
to being the target of abuse.
Your replies just made me feel sooo much better...
Yes, I am still working on self validation and though I have improved a lotttt, I have a long way to go...
I know there is nothing wrong with wanting some validation but asking from validation from all is what I think aftermath of the emotional abuse I went through.Thanks Livin for telling me that we all go through it and some backslips are OK...
Love You All :-)
From my side, I think the hunger for validation comes from not being accepted by my FOO. I want a parent substitute to tell me I'm alright, doing a good job, appreciated, whatever. I think we all do to some extent. But my therapist told me that I should be able to validate and soothe myself. I am an adult. I have a balanced view of the world. Well, that's true, but I have to remind myself a lot.
I just wanted to say, that everybody is different and I do expect people to not agree with me all the time, and that is fine. There are hundreds at of times that friends and I have agreed to disagree and dropped the subject.
I am telling you if you ever disagree with me, that is OK. Just please do not ever apologize to me as your opinion is important to you as mine is to me and they are both right.
One of the major 'legs' that an abuser set on making us dependant has to be on breaking that ability to self-validate - that way they control one of the major sources of joy in our lives. They break it repeatedly, and break it again when it looks like it might be healing properly. They have to, or else they lose that powerful control.
It's repairable, but not so long as they're still breaking it, and even then, that's some major trauma. It's likely going to leave scars, and definately at least act up in rough times - if not leave us with a permanent limp.
It was never a choice and if not given than all was the fault of the other person for not validating it.While I think we suffer from more of like begging for validation..Like it is not something we deserve..Your response really helps as even I thing it is the after effect of emotional abuse and since we are aware now, we can definitely improve on it.
Thanks Gem...People like you help me in understanding that your views may differ but that doesn't mean that one has to be wrong.
Thanks Bax..Yes..Dealing with the aftermath of emotional abuse is not easy but since we now know why was this need of validation put in you through daily training by your abuser, you can learn to slowly slowly unlearn the pattern..I hope we all do :-)
Thanks for all your support...It has helped me a lot....