You have to learn to respect you first.
SA

I have the exact same problem. I am constantly worried about how other people are feeling. I have neglected myself to try to make someone feel better. It was how I coped with the abuse. I even found myself protecting the abuser. I am still not oveer it. The only people that I can really be strong with are my husband and children. They help empower me. I guess I don't really know the answer but I wish I did. I need to find this out to. Good luck.

I have the same issue, but I just cut some slack on myserlf and tell them to be careful next time or something. Now when it's a man, I look at him straight in the eye and tell him to look out next time, all give me appology but it's to hard to believe an appology.

I am not saying it is easy. In fact, I am also still working on this, but I do think it is possible and that we are all capable of getting there.

I wish all of you luck.

SA

It's hard to say this, but...you have to Un-learn things that happend during the abuse. To do that, means having to remember things that you don't want to remember. Best thing to do is try this when no one is around. Listen to music, or not, but my counselor...and it sounds weird, I know, had me talk to an empty chair...while recalling things that happend so that I could "dialogue" with the abuser. Things that I wanted to say, but couldn't. I don't know that this would help. I hope it does. But StarrAngel is RIGHT, it all begins with you.

I think before you can set the boundaries, you have to feel worthy of being treated with respect. How we treat ourselves and how we allow others to treat us is related to how worthy wesee ourselves as being. Being abused teaches us to think that we are really just there for other people to do whatever they want to us. Man, is that tough to unlearn. And when we let others treat us badly, we have taught them that it's ok. And it isn't. Before you can get rid of that, you have to understand that what was done to you was someone else's crap, and that you are worth being treated well, and you will accept nothing less. Onthe other side of the coin, I think it's important to understand that the other person also has some rights. So it's a fine line between taking care of ourselves without abusing the other person. For me, the beginning was to give myself little treats when I was feeling really down. Whatever made me feel better. Also, I started trying to get enough rest and eat as best I could.(still a challenge for me) When I started to take care of myself, I just kind of naturally started to see myself differently- that I was WORTH taking care of. Then I decided that I would no longer let anyone treat me badly. Fortunately, I still had a lot of anger that helped me stand up for myself. Eventually I had to learn that I could stand up for myself without attacking the other person. Which really made me feel good, because when I did it right, I not only stood up for myself but felt good about how I had done it. But you don't build Rome in a day. It was terrifying to start doing it. So I started very small, and just accepted that I would probably make a huge mess of it (and I did), but could at least take pride that I had done something instead of saying nothing, like I usually did. And I did start small- even just not lending money to someone who never paid me back, but lying and saying I didn't have any spare cash. If you can take pride that you even TRIED to do it, it makes you feel good and makes you more willing to risk it again. And then you can choose to do it on more difficult issues. Anyways, there you go, that's my thoughts, for what they're worth. Hope it helps.

See i'm the other end of the septrum I'm a real bitch. I say whatever runs through my head it also has to do with my BP but after all the yrs of abuse I became cold and hard it has taken me alongggggg time to get better but I do have times I slip back into the FU mode(when I feel threatened)I instancly go back to that. It will take awhile but you'll get on even footing with your emotions.