Breaking The Cycle - Getting Out Of Abusive Relationships

Support, By paul martin, 18th April, 2008

This month on Same Same we’re taking a look at the ways people protect themselves. This week we put abusive relationships under the microscope and find out how to break the patterns of behaviour.

Abuse takes many forms – many of us have probably experienced a good old bitch slappin’ at a gay club on $2 drinks night or perhaps you’ve unwrapped a birthday gift from your partner only to find that it’s a country style patchwork quilt cover.

Of course, real abuse within relationships is no laughing matter. When it comes to abuse at a deeper level, it’s important to know how to not only protect yourself, but also how to make positive changes in your life, so you don’t find yourself in the same predicament over and over again.

Meet Madelaine. She’s a warm, caring and loving woman who came to in to see us at the Centre For Human Potential for a counselling session. She says that every time she is in a new relationship with a girlfriend it all seems great at first – the partner is caring, giving and loving. But inevitably they end up being emotionally abusive to her.

This had been happening to her over so many years that she’d virtually given up on the thought of ever having a healthy relationship. The last arrangement she was in was particularly distressing, as her girlfriend actually hit her one night after an argument, leaving her feeling so depressed that she had to take time off work to recover.

During counselling, Madelaine came to realise that she’d been seeing this pattern of behaviour ever since she was a little girl. Whilst she had a reasonable relationship with her parents, she’d been badly bullied by her brother and at school she suffered at the hands of friends who would always turn on her when she felt close to them. She’d even been physically attacked by various people at school for not fitting in.

When we are growing up, we are learning about who we are in the world, and what other people and the world are about. If you have been emotionally or physically abused by people you feel close to at important times of your development, you develop what’s called a ‘core belief’ or ‘life-trap’. These are deeply held ways of seeing yourself, others and the world, resulting from experiences you’ve had and the way you perceive things.

The end result – even though one hates the feeling of being abused, they have such a deep belief that ‘this is what my life is about.’ It makes it really easy to put up with abuse and end up feeling like the victim again. This can lead to hopelessness, depression, anxiety and bad patterns of behaviour. Like Madelaine we can find ourselves in relationships over and over again that are emotionally and/or physically abusive.

One of the most tragic things about this core belief is that you’ll usually feel so sexually attracted to abusive people, that you’ll want to dry hump them like a deranged dalmatian on heat at every opportunity! If you do end up in a relationship that is based on kindness, warmth, consistency, emotional connection and love, it can feel quite boring and lacklustre.

When Madelaine worked out that her patterns were based on the past and that she’s not a victim in life, she instantly felt a sense of relief. It also meant the beginning of the journey to repair the damage that was done to her. No-one can change the past, but you can change how you look at it – you can work on it in such a way that it doesn’t keep affecting your life as an adult.

There were also some changes that Madelaine had to start making. I asked her not to walk away from any relationship that felt even mildly abusive, but to run! Her unconscious – the part of her mind that really controls her – would keep her attracted to abusive people. She also worked on changing some automatic ways of thinking.

It was important for Madelaine to develop some assertiveness. After some weeks she managed to get herself to a point where she felt she could not only see abuse coming and avoid it. After some time she wrote back to us saying she’d found a girlfriend who didn’t have the same level of intensity, but was safe, fulfilling and after some adjustment she’d found a deeper feeling of love, one that she’d never dreamt possible.

Everyone has some damage from growing up, and for most of us this creates unconscious patterns that can really get in the way of having a great life. To be able to identify these patterns, find out where they started and make some tough decisions, ones that put you back behind the steering wheel. After all, who else should be driving your life but you?

If you, or someone you know, is in an abusive relationship and needs help, ACON have developed Another Closet – a domestic violence resource for gay and lesbian relationships. You can find out more about it by clicking here.

Madelaine’s name has been changed to protect her privacy.

Read other articles in the Self Protection series:
Pick On Someone Your Own Calibre.
What’s Mine Is Yours, Right?
Be Prepared.

Your Thoughts

Hey there, you need to be logged in to get involved with SameSame, click here to login if you're already a member, or here if you need to become a new member.