From the outside it's often quite easy to judge a situation. You are not there, you have nothing to lose and you can keep your head cool. From Costa Rica it's very easy to be smart and talk about what should and shouldn't do the Governments of Greece and Spain. From the bleachers it's very easy to strategize a game of football and say what should or shouldn't do the players or the coach. This however, doesn't mean that the only who are right are those who are neck-deep in the given situation, because theere were the spectator is lost in generalities and partial information, the player is often short sighted and concentrates only on the details instead of trying to see the whole picture. Well, as you can imagine, it's the same with abusive relationships. I can't say that everybody has been in at least one abusive relationship - at I hope from the bottom of my heart that the number of people in abusive relationships is smaller and smaller day after day - but the fact is that there's many people in this sort of situation.
Now, an abusive relationship isn't only between a couple, but can also happen at work, among friends or family members. Some cases might be harder to identify, we might be prone to invent excuses for the abuser (they are just children, they are the boss and have a lot of pressure, they are very old and every old person is cranky, they are sick and are suffering enough as it is, they aren't as lucky as we are and they need our help, they are teachers and very smart, and that's why the demand so much from us...) but this doesn't erase the fact that there is abuse. Whatever the case is, the healthy thing is to look for a way to end the abuse, yb either mending the relationship properly and cutting up every way for the abuse to perpetuate, or by ending the relationship. However either way requieres huge amounts of strenght, confidence and endurance, which many people don't have. It requires clarity to recognize the abuse, and calm to realize that the abuse doesn't come from real power, but from the fear of the abuser.
To deal with an abusive relationship you'll need a clear head to think about the best course of action, and it is advised to have support. Friends, family, and even professional help if you can afford it or contact non-profit organizations who aim to help people like you, or to make use of the professional services that are often available for free at your work place or study center. From my personal experience, I had once an abusive relationship with a boss of mine, who tried to cloak his insecurities and lack of vision or knowledge about what should he do, by turning life at the office into hell. To break the abuse started first by approaching him looking to mend the relationship. Seven times I met him with a clear proposal, solutions for the existing problem, specific issues, and yet nothing happened, so with the aid of a work psychologist (and a psychiatrist, so don't let things go that far) and LOADS of good advise from my friends, I requested a transfer and got it.
Breaking a cycle of abuse or an abusive relatioship isn't an easy deal, and it happens that the people in that relationship get beaten into a state of vulnerability where they truly believe that there's no way out of it. In times of crisis, with unemployment hitting the fan an abusive workplace seems better than no job at all. When you have no degree, you are often made feel like your job worths nothing, and that you have a job because someone took pity on you, so that you must take all abuse bestowed on you and still be grateful. Sentimental and familiar relationships are even worse, because in those the abuser don't play (only) with income, but with feelings as well. In those they manipulate a particular knot of love where they make you feel worthless, take away your self esteem and make you believe that the only love that counts and gives you value is theirs. But they don't give it, they with holding and force you to try and get it.
Such "games" can scar a person deeply, and it's even worse, because there's hardly a place to seek haven from this abuse, because, where could you turn? When your parents, your partner, your children are beating you down and abusing you, who's there to hold your hand, who's strong enough, who can sneak in bed with you, hold you tight and kiss your hair while murmurring reassuring words into your ear? "You don't believe that for a second, Honey. You are strong and beautiful and the world loves you just the way you are."
Disheartening as it is, if you reach out, you will find a thousand hands reaching for you, millions of shoulders for you to cry on, and gozillion smiles there for you, ready to chear for you en encourage you. But when you don't reach out, when you keep your head bowed, you remain in your chains taking the undeserved punishment, you are also prone to become an abuser. It's not unheard of the case where someone who has been taking abuse from someone, at one point turn against others to discharge their anger and frustration. The abused partner takes it out on the children or other family members, or even friends who have been supporting them. They often try to divert their attention from the abuse they receive, and by abusing someone else, exploding at the first available chance and making the matter much bigger than what it was in the first place, and then seeking the alliance through this crisis with no other than the abuser.
This is widening the circle, this is giving more space for the abuse, and no, the abuser won't drop the earlier victim to fall upon the new one. Abusers don't drop their victim for as long as they are vulnerable and alive. This is making the mess bigger. Remember that the abuser is taking it on you because they don't have a real hold of power, because they are desperately seeking to pretend being someone or something they are not. When you are being abused by someone and then you explode on someone else, isn't exactly this what's going on with you? You feel weak, powerless, taken advantage of, hurt, and so, you take on someone vulnerable to you to pretend that you are determinated, strong and powerful? All you really feel you are not? You try to pretend that you are in control of the situation, when in reality you don't feel in control of anything, and actually you aren't in control of yourself and your own feelings?
Yes, the abused can become so accustomed to the abuse that they'll spread it on their own as well. It's like that's the way life goes and that's what you pay instead of love or recognition.
And this goes around also at offices and schools. The coworker abused by the boss, takes it out on the rest of the team, or on someone in particular. If the boss screams at them or demand them some irrational job, then they take it out on the newby, the peagent or the receptionist. The kid abused by the teacher bullies their classmates. When does it stop? When someone stands up and does something about it.
If you are in a situation like this, or you know someone in such a situation, do something about it. Abuse isn't a natural state, and when you are spreading it around you, or you see someone spreading it around, think real hard about it, because it means that things have just gone much further than you think.
Abuse isn't just beating up someone. Abuse is controlling too. Jealousy, trespassing personal spaces, interfeering in personal decisions such as what to study, where to work, what to wear, what kind of hairdo to have, which friends to have, whom to see or not to see, what to read or not, and so on. It goes from outspoken orders to belittling, disrespectful comments. You don't have to take them, nor you need to reply in kind. You need to keep your cool, or either calmly retire or request the person to leave, then you need to decide what to do. Stop it before you start hurting in response to the harm you receive. But if you've gone that far, the next time the mean comment tickles your tongue, or the shout bubbles in your throat, maybe your fist raises above your head, stop yourself, think if you want to become what you hate the most. There's time, revert it, stop it and break the cycle. Don't spread the pain, spread the love. Spread the happiness.
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