Of course there area couple affects of abuse but here I'll target intimacy, attachment, PTSD, and toxic shame.
Intimacy and Attachment:
As an adult those who were abused tend to have intimacy problems. They may marry a narcissist, abuser, someone cold, critical, or emotionally unavailable. They may have a difficult time opening up because they are scared of getting hurt. They may choose someone who is incapable to love because they are not capable of loving others fully or loving themselves fully. They have never experienced pure unconditional love so they do not know how to give it nor do they know how to receive it.
Dealing with neglect, abuse, or an absence of intimacy can make a child question how safe they are with people. How they deal with this can take several forms. Here are four examples:
Avoidant Attachment: An effect of the neglect is that the child is so scared of getting hurt that they manage their fears by shutting people out. They push people away and they won’t let them get close. They avoid getting hurt by never getting attached. They resist any form of attachment completely. They strive for fierce independence. They abandon even the thought of emotional intimacy. They believe that no one can be trusted and that they can’t rely on anyone.
Anxious Attachment: On the other end of the spectrum, the child manages their void of love by constantly pursuing it. They get attached easily believing that love will fill the void of what they did not receive from a parent. They will do anything they can to receive love even if that means getting angry, people pleasing, or compromising who they are (codependency). They become compulsively selfless caretakers. They are nurturing, warm, and caring. They give endlessly to others because it is something they never got to enjoy themselves. However, often they have lost touch with their own needs.
Combinations of anxious and avoidant: Often there is both a push and pull effect that happens in relationships. They yearn to feel love but are also equally, if not more, petrified to get hurt. With a combination, the person pushes to find and feel love, but then they pull away once they receive it. They pull back in fear because even receiving the love feels uncomfortable. They may have never received love as a child and if they did, they most likely always lost it. In abusive families, love is turbulent and often shown in dysfunctional ways, while also being lost abruptly due to the emotional instability of the parents. So when a child of narcissistic abuse feels love, it may feel scary because they feel it may leave. In response, to feel in control, they push love away BEFORE they can get hurt.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Those who are or were abused often live in a constant state of fight or flight. They feel they need to stay constantly alert to protect themselves, their self-worth, self image, mental sanity, or emotional state. This typically leads to chronic anxiety or sudden fearful memories popping up when a trigger occurs. Often the one with PTSD will attempt to numb their emotions, fear, and pain through alcohol, drugs, food, and other addictive substances that help feel a sense of relief for a short period of time.
Toxic shame
Shame is a feeling that happens when a parent rejects the child’s authentic self. They are told they are inadequate. They are told that they are a burden or that they are unwanted. They feel like they are a burden to their parents and others. They feel constantly condemned, criticized and subconsciously start to believe the criticisms about them must be true. Overall, the child internalizes toxic shame and doesn’t feel accepted for just being themselves. They believe they are unlovable, so they reject themselves. They feel insecure and that everything they do will be judged.
The child feels forced to choose between sacrificing themselves and losing their parent’s love. This is a pattern of self-denial that sparks people-pleasing (codependency). Often these children become very gifted empaths because at a very young age they learned how to laser-focus on their parents' needs. They gear their lives around creating happiness for their parents. Their parents are always so unhappy that they feel they need to help their parents find happiness. It becomes their personal responsibility. They also feel that if they do certain things to please their parents, then they may be loved. Often the parents only show love to their child in certain situations such as through achievements so a belief forms that love must be earned and that one can only be loved if they achieve or do certain things. When a child feels they’ve failed, a belief begins to form that they deserve the abuse because they did not do something “good enough”. The shame of not feeling accomplished or good enough is compounded by anger or hatred toward their mother/father. It is cyclical, the child never feels good enough because the parent is naturally critical of the child. The child constantly strives to please, yet the parent is never pleased, so the child never feels fulfilled, and the resentment toward the parent and starts to grow.
Often this cycle repeats in adult relationships. They often end up in situations where they feel abandoned no matter how hard they try.
Realization :
These patterns get repeated in adult abusive relationships because the universe is trying to get their attention. This is brought into their world so that they can HEAL and move PAST the scars and the pain. Source will do things in certain areas of our lives to get our attention, so that we finally SEE, LEARN, and GROW. If we look at the pain of current situations as a chance to heal what has hurt us, and we look at it as an opportunity shift, we will see that all of the pain we have endured in our lives is for our soul’s benefit. These challenges are truly opportunities that shift our human selves into being an enlightened being that leans more towards soulful authenticity versus humanness. This pain literally leads us to enlightenment; it is just our opportunity to see it.
Next article: Healing & Recovery from Abuse
Article: Narcissistic Abuse
Love & Light,
Cara Deptula - Intuitive Energy Healer & Detox Coach
https://awakenyourbliss.wixsite.com/love
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