I'm back on my BS 🤪

I’m back on my bullshit.

  • 4 Posts
  • 17 Comments
Joined 1 month ago
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Cake day: May 28th, 2024

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  • I think it’s because we are designed with a somewhat blank idea of what love is. We are born with a system that will become love, but we are born with it undefined. It’s similar to how we are born with a need for food, but not our culinary culture. It is during our formative years that we learn what love is just like we learn what delicious food is. Btw, in Spanish, when a kid doesn’t like to eat a specific food, it’s said that they haven’t learned to eat it yet. Back to the topic, the part that does come predefined is that we are to attach to our caregivers. Thus, we don’t leave them because we are designed to not leave them and have them teach us love.

    Another issue is that as children, we don’t know we are being abused. What we’ve experienced in our families is all we know. From the perspective at this age, that’s just how life is. There’s no reason to leave.

    Once we start realizing that not everyone goes through our experiences and that there are much nicer ways of relating to family, we can start recognizing that our familial situation is terrible and we want it to be different. The issue here is that there are only two options. Either you suffer the bad parts of the abuse while surviving on the breadcrumbs, or you lose any possibility of ever having a childhood family. The person basically has to decide to lose a major part of life. That is an immense amount of grief to endure, and they have to do it without the support of family. In these situations, the victim usually just kind of learns to manage the relationship unless there is a major catastrophic event that forces a decision. Otherwise, they’re learning how to overcome the frequent but comparatively tolerable difficulties. You’ll hear them say things like, “My dad is cool as long as you don’t expect him to…” or, “I love my mom, but I know not to…” They’re consolations to salvage their one opportunity. The decision is then to either (a) take a humongous hit by losing childhood family or (b) learn to deal with the most recent difficulty. The latter is much easier to brunt.

    tl;dr: We don’t know it’s abuse. Instead, we are taught abuse is love. We are designed by birth to attach to our parents. And once we figure out it’s abuse, it’s a terribly difficult lose-lose decision to make where one option is addressing a recent issue and the other is nuclear.


  • I’d argue that your mind is learning what love it at that age. However you are treated by your caretakers is what you believe is love because we are born with no definition so that we can adapt to whatever circumstances. Adopting your family’s schema on love, when you age out of that family, you’ll find yourself in a similar situation.

    As evidence, most adults in abusive relationships were abused as children. People often ask why adults stay in abusive relationships that are clearly terrible from the outside expecting practical reasons, like finances or kids. In reality, the victim will likely fall into another abusive relationship if they left because that’s what they think love is. Adults that were raised in non-abusive households would have left at the first red flags, whereas the adults raised in abusive households would find those red flags as signs they are loved. To them, they’re not red flags; they’re green flags. It isn’t after a string of these relationships or a really bad one that they seek help to change this pattern. The path is hard and burdensome because they have to tear down what they unconsciously learned and re-raise themselves without the guidance of a parent.

    Same thing happens with the abusers, but they took on the identity of the abusive parent. They feel that love is allowing them to control and devalue their partner by whatever means. These people have much less chance of recovery because they don’t see a reason to change. If their relationships fail, then in their mind, it’s the victim’s fault. The abuser’s only lessons are how to change their abuse strategies so that victims don’t leave.

    In conclusion, it’s not only that the child can’t leave. It’s that they’re completing a major developmental stage: learning what love is. They have no other options because we are designed that way.






  • Same! I looked into it myself, and it’s nearly impossible to pull off. Since I have no experience sailing, it would take me at least 2 yrs of training. I’d have to start off by volunteering as a hand on someone else’s sailboat. I’d also have to get a dingy to practice on.

    Eventually, I’d need to find a reliable person that would also like to try this adventure out, is dedicated enough to develop the skills necessary, has the financial means to pull it off, and isn’t tied down by other responsibilities (eg house, family, etc.). We’d also need to get along extraordinarily well since we’ll be together for ~2 yrs in a small space and deciding where to go and what to do jointly.

    Then, we’d need to drop ~$80k on a sailboat and another ~$20k on renovating it. Once that’s completed, we’d have to take a few shorter trips to test it out, such as sailing around the Caribbean.

    Lastly, once underway, things could still get pretty bad. Mechanical issues aside, we’d have to worry about safety out in the open ocean. There could be violent assailants or storms. There could also be political unrest of unwelcoming area where we dock and resupply.

    Basically, this adventure is really difficult to pull off because it’s not just sailing and living on a boat. There’s a lot more to consider.








  • Ugh, heartache is literally painful. I’m sorry you are going through that.

    For me, getting iver someone has been a multi-pronged approach.

    1. Accept that I’m going to feel grief for a while…at least a few months. That’s okay and normal. Don’t fight it, don’t get mad at it. Just notice it and ride it out. Your brain has to severe the neural networks that were dedicated to him, while rebuilding new ones. This is a process that takes a while.

    2. Start connecting with friends that are healthy. They can be a nice source of validation, connection, and support.

    3. Work on a new project to have a focus. This can help in those moments where I’m sitting around ruminating with nothing to do or no desire to do anything. Even if I’m ruminating while doing the project, at least I’ll something to show for it when it’s over.

    4. Start a new hobby to define myself apart from the relationship. I’m going to be a new person.

    5. When ready, start throwing out all of their stuff. I even get rid of gifts. If it reminds me of then when I look at it, it’s gone.

    Things will get easier as you stop thinking about them slowly over the next dew weeks to months. Eventually, they become someone that you used to know with no real meaning other than the lessons you learned from that experience.