This site is an archive of the OneSpace Forums. Return to forum index.
This site is an archive of the OneSpace Forums. Return to forum index.
I am writing this because I am extrememly angry now. I have come so far Yesterday I saw my therapist in 2009 i took a overdose this has been put down to the level of abuse i suffered
All through the domestic violence i was told it is not my fault he did this not me however after seeing my therapist she comes out with. "who chose to be with him You Sam so stop burying your head in the sand only you to blame"
Yes i did choose him but did i choose his behavior no i didnt I wanted a happy family now i am confused by this. Everyone tells me its his problem. So here is the question was the abuse my fault cause i chose him are we all at fault for a partner who sexually physically mentally and financially abuse us. Do i challenge her belief or not ?
Hi Sammie, I am very angry by what your therapist said to you and unfortunately it matches a conversation a counsellor once had with me when she spoke about 'choice' and how it was my choice to continue to stay with my ex after the first assault and then after all the rest. I left that session feeling almost suicidal and never went back.
I later spoke to Womens Aid who clarified things for me a bit and I am much clearer now. NO it is not YOUR fault somebody else laid their hands on you. That is it full stop. We do have choices in our lives and yes there is a choice to walk away from somebody who is abusing us but what yours and my counsellor failed to see is that this so called 'choice' is limited by so many things such as FEAR, CONTROL, MANIPULATION etc. People are too easy to say "you could have just left, it was your choice to stay" but they have no clue just how hard that 'choice' is when you have been beaten in to submission or your family is being threatened etc.
Please DO NOT blame yourself and if you see that therapist again be sure to tell her how she has made you feel with her ignorant comment.
Good Luck hun x
Thank you Louise and little Angel
I do take responsibility for my actions to stay but the abuse still continues....
My mother was beating up by my father. I recognise that i could become a abuser if i find someone who is to passive i spoke wuth the refuge
i dont doubt that sometimes i may have said things that where in correct but i refuse to take the blame for his actions now
I chose to go back to therapy cbt cause i want to deal with my past and why people see me as a damsel in distress as my son calls it. I dont fight back i dont argue i become submissive and allow people to carry on gossiping
But that has allowed me to move on
A paranoid personality developed in my why because I was told by my manager she was going to take him off me he carried on flirting with her then at a colleagues wedding decided to kiss her in front of me. I did not react he did started smashing things up and groping pregnant women this was not my actions it was his. They know all of it and they still said that yes i have found it difficult to go to therapy because of how people will see me but that is because the abuse was so strong and letting people see you weak is something i have never been able to see yes thats pride
little angel I m sorry it never went well in court. But i think telling your side may help you heal. You never know maybe one day it will make him see what he did.
Just tell it as you lived it thats all we can ask hun
Aha, I am not excusing the therapist in any way whatsoever but it sounds as if what you are wanting to achieve in the therapy is to NOT be seen as a victim so I wonder if what she was doing was deliberate, to go to the very heart of your core beliefs? Yes, definitely challenge her, it might move the therapy forward enormously.
Thanks Sammie, Its so awful your ex would try to humiliate you publicly like that. My ex was all charm and smiles in front of others so I kept my weakness well hidden but I am paying for it now with my extreme anxiety & depression. I am sorry you grew up with violence in your home, the effects of that really are far reaching and could explain your journey to your ex. But what you need to focus on is the fact you took a journey right out of there too, and that takes strength and courage. Yes in both our cases (and many more) the abuse has continued but with every blow we take we will become stronger - good luck!
Hi sammie, I too still find it hard to challenge people, however please try and find it in your heart to say something to your counsellor.
I agree with what everyone has said above, however I do want to point out that after years of blaming my ex for all the hideous things he did, it wasn't until I looked to myself and say 'but I chose to stay with him' that I began to 'own' my life again.
Exactly as littleangel said, one of the reasons we stay is because we have been battled down often over many years, BUT once we admit to the fact that we did stay, then we can move forward and ask ourselves why, therefore not ending up in that situation again.
Your therapist does sound like she was insensitive with this line of questioning and I am hoping her reason being is as Louise said.
And finally, NO, the abuse was not your fault. Staying was your choice, but your judgement was so deliberately clouded by the abuser that you couldnt see it.
What do you think?
Louise I can agree with that but I am not feeling like a victim in a sense. I will clarify it Every time he manipulates a situation or uses something he knows i have not dealt with I go straight back to that person who was controlled the feelings that will always make me a victim . But i know its his actions after i walk away i will speak to my friend who will laugh at how i am ranting and then say how many times have we been here and how many times does he try this
He believes that he can move on with another woman but yet no one can have me he has told me in texts
little angel we all have journeys I believe that everything in my life has given me the strength to battle on and learn from those experiences i may not have dealt with them all and hid. But I need to stop allowing him to use my teenage years for his humiliation and deal with the past correctly and yes if cbt will help me have better judgement when it comes to attracting men and that type then bring it on As i say to people when they ask me why are you doing cbt. My response Is so I can learn how to attract a decent men with the morals of a prince.
Your right Anna We do have to take ownership for our mistakes. I will never claim to be Snow white. Fact I made mistakes i will admit to them and try hard not to do them again. We can only take so much ownership. I have always stated that even after seeing him kiss another woman i chose to stay i asked friends and colleagues to support me with the decision they did i made that decision on a low. being a single mum when he arrived " I was so lucky to have him as no other man would take on my son " My eldest was not a issue he had no behaviorial problem. Personally I now turn round and say he was lucky to have a step son who was happy to allow him into our lives and show him a happiness he never had and unconditional love that a child gives
Hear hear sammie, he was lucky to be allowed into your fold and loved by you all.
I notice that you saw your therapist last Monday, as yesterday was a Bank Holiday, when do you see her next? Are you ready to say something to her about her comment?
I think what your therapist said was horrible! The dynamics of abuse are such that in a sense you can be robbed of the ability to choose - everything gets skew-wiff and you don't know whether you're coming or going. In a way, we all KNOW that we could have left at any time and that knowledge is something that still traumatises me from time to time - "i let this happen to me, maybe it's what i wanted, maybe i'm as bad/evil/wrong as he said i was" - but then in calmer times i realise that it was a systematic manipulation of a lot of different aspects of my personality (seriously, how can anyone be so skilled at that without lessons???) and that whatever I did do wrong, i didn't deserve what i got. Yes, I allowed it to happen, but I thought if I suffered enough, he'd see that i really loved him and could be trusted. I guess I thought I was earning something.
However, I think the issue of personal responsibility of the victim can be useful when you're out of the relationship and ready to move into another relationship in the sense that putting up with unacceptable behaviour is something that generally starts early on and you can make the choice in the beginning about what you're gonna put up with and how you're going to handle it. As you said, learning from your mistakes is a good thing to do and a lot of women do end up back in abusive relationships.
That said, I would be firm with your therapist - it was an unkind thing to say and sounds like it was handled a bit haphazardly - if she was trying to make that point then I feel like it could have been handled with more sensitivity.
Very true EmmaJ. It takes a lot of strength to leave But it also takes alot of strength afterwards to reassess ourselves we have to take a certain amount of blame.
But not for there wrong doing we as indidviduals from abusive relationships. will blame ourselves because thats what was expected in that relationship its trying to pull ourselves away from that belief. Everybody has a responsibility and duty of care to themselves its how we deal with the aftermarth that counts. We can go onto be the abusers ourselves. But its giving ourselves time to heal emotionally that i have found best
Anna I start theraphy on the 10th September so i will talk to the support workers. before hand I am still concerned but I know I have to make a massive change in my life. For myself and my children I need to recognise people who are harmful. rather than live with there chaos
Well done you sammie 
Onwards and upwards. Good point about taking the time to heal ourselves emotionally. Often women do go straight into the next relationship carrying on with their same pattern. When we do 'single' by choice, then we learn what our boundaries are and what we will and won't accept.
Have you had a look at the Freedom Programme online course? You may find it interesting. At the end of the course there is a section about Warning Signs, that can give you food for thought.
EmmaJ - excellent post! Especially when you wrote "but I thought if I suffered enough, he'd see that i really loved him and could be trusted. I guess I thought I was earning something."
Very good way to describe something that I have never put into words, thanks.
I have done the freedom programme on line completed in June I am glad i did it has prepared me for the face to face I was so emotional and tend to hide it in front of people i dont know. But my best mate is really supportive and has watched all she knows when i am falling and when she just needs to call to kick my backside.
Emma J Anna is right you put it in a way we all understand.
Hi there, I came accross this article recently, I'd be intersted to see what people's views were on it, the title is: "DOMESTIC ABUSE: GET OVER IT?"
Here is the link:
GabrielleAntonia
its talking aboout rhianna and chris brown did she go back yes like many of us it took courage to speak out the title says get over it. its that they see that rhianna is not setting a good example to those who are her fans or helping women insituation who are we to judge we have all been through short term and long term violence mental you cant say it was worse sfor you it scares dont heal quickly they take time
Hi there, I have been really frustrated with the Rhianna situation, as she is an influential figure and what seems to be missing, is any learning on her part.
She speaks like many of us who have been emotionally and mentally abused. She still loves him, she still cares about him, his reputation and his emotional state.
No one seems to be saying to her - you need to learn about what happened here. Perhaps she should do the Freedom Programme.
I think Rhianna has to go down her own path. I don't think it's fair to expect any more of her than we would of anyone else in an abusive relationship. I don't like the idea of famous people being role models - it's not realistic or human - they're just people and we can learn from their mistakes and successes as we can from our own and those of our friends.
I'm sure many of us have had friends or family tell us someone isn't any good for us and why do we keep putting up with it, and although we listen, we just do what we want anyway - and for many of us that was staying with some abusive xxxxxx.
What annoys me about Rhianna are her songs - which admitedly she doesn't ususlly write herself - but they're all about this romantic bullshit that reinforces other messages from "the culture" that make women submissive and tolerant of bad behaviour. But then maybe that's part of her path and hopefully one day she'll wise up and be a bit more genuinely empowered. Like Madonna!
Somehow, she's all about "empowerment through her own suffering"... i think she's very young and she doesn't really understand the dynamics of adult S&M relationships, so situations where one actually can experience empowerment through pain are muddled with situations where her power is actually taken away from her.
I feel sorry for her really, she's a good example of how young women are screwed up by media definitions and depictions of women. I think she just doesn't get it yet. And in a sense, why should she? I didn't at her age.
NO IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT! Id changed therapists, what a terrible thing to say. He wouldve kept you in that situation using his tactics and made it difficult to leave. Yes, you would have had your reasons for staying, which may have come from your past but a better question might have been,'why do you think you stayed so long?' not something that makes you feel judged!
hi this is not your fault never was or will be it is their choice to hit you so it is their fault like wise my ex he had the choice but he chose to hit me . i took mine to court yet he also chose to take it further and went to crown court but it was his doing not mine . yes i chose my ex too but wasnt expecting his behaviour to turn out like it did that is all their own doing
Oh sammie what a shock for you.
You know deep inside you that the abuse is not your fault. As for it being your fault because you chose him, the partners we choose are often the result of childhood experiences and subconscious messages and not many of us aware of those!
There does come a time in abusive relationships when the person who is being abused "may" be perpetuating the abuse because they stay...but as every person who has been abused and every worker who supports these people will tell you, there are multiple reasons for this and it is not as simple as that assumption. If it was that easy to walk away then women would do so!!
I feel puzzled that the therapist said this to you. It sounds like what she wants you to do is to accept some responsibility somehow, and I agree, we all need to accept responsibility for our feelings and indeed how we move on with our lives. But we can never be responsibile for the abusive actions of another adult person towards us.
Yes I think you should speak to her about this, and preferably in a calm way. Do you feel Ok doing this?