While abuse is never to be taken lightly, if we’re not careful, we can easily become a tool of the abuser.
A betrayal of trust, especially if repeated often, changes the lenses through which we view the behaviour of others.
If we’re not careful, the bitterness of such betrayal wears down our tolerance or patience to deal with any disagreement or challenge resulting in an intensified response to innocent mistakes.
It’s like the irritability that sets in when we experience chronic or sustained pain or discomfort.
Eventually, we snap at anyone asking us questions about petty issues, or demanding responses to things we have no interest in.
All we want at that point is relief from our discomfort or pain, leaving us with little tolerance to deal with anything else.
When that source of pain is because of how we’re treated by someone we love, or someone that we have rights over, we feel abused each time we fulfil their rights while they dismiss ours.
That’s when, despite having good reason to feel that way, we falsely accuse them of being deliberately abusive, while they were simply behaving selfishly for reasons that have nothing to do with us.
The moment you have to demand your rights to be fulfilled in a relationship, understand that you are in the wrong relationship.
And if it’s with blood ties, accept that you cannot change them, but don’t let it taint how you live up to your values and principles.
When you return the favour by abusing the rights of others because your rights have been abused, you lose yourself to the very bitterness that drove them to deny you the rights that you have over them.
That’s how you lose yourself, and that’s how you cause pain for others, because of the pain you receive from another.
Reclaim your dignity.
It always starts with you.
#hope #expectation #sincerity #selfworth #selfawareness #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #theegosystem #ownyourlife
Are you abused, or an abuser?
2 responses to “Are you abused, or an abuser?”
I think we all have the ability to be abusive . Thinkingoutloud…. can the smallest act of minapulation be seen as a starting point.
Yes. Abuse is not about what was intended. It is about how it is received. That’s what complicates it. How someone’s behaviour is experienced is a combination of what they’re doing and what it resonates with inside us about our life experiences. That’s why I’m hesitant to jump on the bandwagon that passes judgement about what is abusive and who is abusive. If we don’t consider context and circumstances on both sides of the argument, we easily become pawns for the abuser.