LOVE VS ABUSE: ONE DEGREE OFF

{TRIGGER ALERT: Today’s post is about Abuse in all forms}
Continued from: What is Abuse?, Grounds for Divorce, Divorcing the Church

Recap:  I started this series talking about why I felt the need to “divorce” the Church and It’s current Operating System – Hierarchy/Patriarchy.  This was leading into a post about Spiritual Abuse, but I realized that I needed to address my theory and take on what abuse is before I could talk about the Spiritual aspect.  Abuse is NOT an easy to understand problem.  Abuse is not about an abuser and a victim.  Abuse is NOT only in intimate relationships…and is NOT only in 1 out of 3 relationships at that.  Abuse is a way that we currently relate to each other I would argue in most of our interactions.  It is a Societal Norm to try to control others for we are all narcissists to begin with …for many reasons that would take many posts to work through…many books at that.  This Societal Norm to try to control others is what creates abuse in epidemic proportions.  It is my theory that this Norm is a by-product of the havoc that Patriarchy creates both in the external world of relationships – but even more as a by-product of what Patriarchy creates INSIDE our own soul.  This is for BOTH men and women alike.  None of us are free from the havocs of Patriarchy.  I would even say this if we were a strictly Matriarchal society as well…for both are out of balance….both keep us from being whole, Embodied Souls.

Today I will give some concrete examples of what abuse can and does look like.  I highly encourage you to use the text below to not only look for this language in your outside world (how others talk to you)…but to tune into what you hear inside your OWN head.  For I bet if you listen closely enough, you will hear that “critical parent”,  the “judge”, the “Censor”…or whatever label you want to put on it saying these same things INSIDE.


EXAMPLES OF ABUSE INTENDED TO CONTROL YOU
Abuse comes in any attempts to control another person BY explicitly or implicitly telling them their own inner world is NOT true for them.  Control comes when you and I try to disregard another person’s point of view as invalid in attempts to get them to doubt themselves and their own internal messaging system of who they are and what is right for them.
We do this if for no other reason because we cannot see that their reality is valid from where we sit.
Or at the very most, because if I were to validate that person’s point of view it would force me to realize that person is not me…that I really have no control over them and this would make me feel very alone, scared and vulnerable to say the least.
How do we – and yes I believe most of us do this – disregard other’s?
The following are simply a few examples of how we look to disregard another, to shut them down, deflect their reality…all in attempts to control them.  The more subliminal ones come first, followed by more blatant ones.
  • “That’s so not true.”  “That’s so off base.”  “You’re so off base.” “You’re clueless.” “That’s crazy.”  “You’re crazy.” “You have no idea what you are talking about.”
  • “Is that really what you were thinking/feeling?” “What were you thinking?” (Both questions said with complete disbelief or abhorrence in the tone that implies “you’re crazy.”) 
  • “That cannot be what you were feeling.”  “That’s not what you were thinking.”  “That’s not what you were feeling.”
  • “You are PMSing again.”  “You’re being too emotional/dramatic/over-the-top.” “Your hormones are getting away with you.” 
  • “That’s not what happened at all.” “You’re blowing it out of proportion.” “You don’t know what you are talking about.”
  • “Get over it.” “Stop over-reacting.” “You’re reading into things too much.” 
  • “You shouldn’t __________.” Fill in the blank: feel that way, think that way, do that, be that, etc.
  • “Just admit that I am right, won’t you?”  “You know I’m right….” “You know I am better at _____.”
  • “You cannot trust your feelings.”  “Your feelings lie to you, they are of the body which is deceitful and decaying and not to be trusted.”
  • How about this one that we say to kids all the time after they fall down and they look at us for they don’t know whether or not it is okay for them to define their own reality so we instantly say, “You’re okay!”…even if they are bleeding and crying bloody murder.
The sad thing is, I have seen, heard and said many of these messages either directly or not so directly a thousand times.  I see it on the playground, I see it in the office.  I see it in the Church.  We do it because we live subconsciously most of our days.  We do it because it was and is done to us.  I would argue that very few of us are free of guilt from trying to define other people’s realities for them…for it is very hard to remember where I end and you begin.
EXAMPLES OF ABUSE INTENDED TO MANIPULATE YOU
Control also comes in the form of trying to manipulate another’s point of view so that they doubt their own reality (feelings and thoughts combined) and thus are more likely to see reality from your point of view.  This can be done with statements much like those already listed….but usually is much more subtly than with outright specific words. Below are a few examples of what other’s (and we ourselves) can use in order to try to lay on the guilt to get others to act/do/say what we really want them to act/do/say in order to confirm our own reality of who we think we are:
  • Remind you of all they have done for you – out of love – with the idea that they do not expect anything in return (except they keep mentioning all they have done for you and wish to continue to do for you if you allow them too…).
  • Subtly threaten to remove aspects of their friendship/relationship with you/from you that have helped you get to where you have gotten or that they insist will carry you to where you want to go
  • To play on your feelings of importance by reminding you of how wonderful you are and how they wouldn’t be able to be where they are without your love and support…but always followed up with a request of their own.  This request doesn’t have to come immediately following the flattery…and if the person making the request sees you hesitate, they might refer back to reminding you of all they have done for you.
HOW WE ABUSE OURSELVES

In reality, I would bet that most of us – as teenagers and adults – abuse ourselves.  I would argue this is especially true if we have spent anytime in any major religious institutions in the Western World….or listen to the most of the messages at large in our society.  

As I started with above, we abuse ourselves with that critical parent/judge/censor  – even that voice from our Cultural System and/or that voice from our “god” that goes off in our head every time we do something contrary to what this parent/judge/censor/god says we “should” be doing/saying/thinking.  All of the above phrases I am pretty sure that at one time or another I have heard go off in my internal world.

These are “external” voices have gotten lodged into our internal world through “muscle memory” so to speak.  They keep us “on track” with what the parent/judge/censor/society/god want from us to keep us “part of the clan”…

These voices drown out that “still small voice” that is uniquely ours because it is uniquely our body…which we have been taught to shame, ignore, use to what we think is our liking – but in the end this is all to serve “IT”.  These voices, even for those of us inside the Church, form the IT and IT teaches us to listen to IT over our own.  

As a result we suffer from obesity, chronic diseases, anxiety, depression, PMS on the surface.  Underneath we suffer from what masks itself as self-love and which the System of the Church calls selfishness.  Yet, if you were talking with a friend and a friend told you this following list was how they were so absorbed in self-love, what would you say to that friend?  Would you really call this list “love”?  If not, why in the world would you call it “self-love”?

  • lack of connection with others
  • fears
  • commitment phobias
  • doubts about oneself 
  • obsessions with trying to control external factors
This list is the exact opposite of love, let alone self-love.  
This is really self-abuse, all of which leads to self-rejection.  
We are actually suffering from the acute and chronic inability to truly love ourselves.  


If we cannot truly love ourselves then how the hell can we ever truly love another?

WHO IS THIS VOICE INSIDE US
This Voice, this IT does this to keep us all looking the same so that we cannot tell where one ends and the other begins, posing as real connection, yet is one degree off.  This Voice, this IT does this to keep the homeostasis within the group…within the Cultural or Church System so IT can keep ITs place of power and control.  This Voice, this IT does this to keep us all “asleep” so to speak so that none of us really knows what the hell is going on…to keep us all in ITs grip to use all of us to ITs liking.  This Voice, this IT does this to keep us all at odds with people who are both in and not in our “group”…getting us to the point the finger at anyone but IT so we are always grasping for inner and outer peace.  This Voice, this IT keeps us looking at everyone but ourselves…where IT really resides.


This Voice, this IT does this by keeping us slaves not to ourselves…but to It. Loving yourself is not our problem.  The lack of loving ourselves is the problem…and this is caused by IT…that Voice that has permeated our world both in and outside our religious institutions.  

That Voice is what some would call “Satan” or the “Devil” or “the Accuser”…I call it the Voice of Patriarchy.  Whatever you call it, do not be fooled – it is the same thing.  This Voice is not an external force we fight in the “spiritual” realm; IT is one we fight on the internal realm. The very voice we have internalized as our “god”… the very voice we think that is “loving” us has disguised Itself as the Truth.  IT has disguised ITself as an Angel of Life…yet is the very Angel of Death that we are warned against. 

This Voice wrecks havoc in all of our souls, men and women alike.  IT keeps us from integrating ourselves, from balancing ourselves, from being whole images of the Divine…from being Embodied Souls.  IT does this so cunningly, slyly and deceitfully it is not visible to most of us…for it only takes one degree of difference to make what could be love, abuse.

ONE DEGREE OF DIFFERENCE
I’m that eternal optimist.  I can remember thinking when I first started to wake up from my abusive past that my mission in this world was to find a way to educate and set others free.  My mission was to work towards finding a real way to end abuse in ALL forms, in ALL relationships, in ALL of the world.  A lofty goal I had no idea how to proceed with.
The thing is, as I’ve read, researched, observed, asked questions and the like, I think I am actually seeing how we as a society can end this cycle of abuse.  I see a pathway into a new future where peace can be a choice we consciously make…I am developing a theory of why abuse is an epidemic in our society and what we can do to overcome it…to evolve out of Its need to run us.  As I continue down this path, as I continue my own research into trying to make sense of abuse, the abuse cycle and how gender roles and patriarchy all play into abuse in our society, I have been continually reminded of one thing: One Degree of difference can make all the difference.
One degree more and water will boil.  One degree less and it will melt.  One degree more and the basketball would have gone in the hoop.  A little more effort, a little longer reach and the race would have been won.
What does this have to do with abuse?
Abuse is just one degree off from the real thing all of us crave, need and want: Love.  Our perceptions of gender are so close they can feel and look right, yet somehow leave us in a battle of the sexes.  
These things look so similar to the real thing, that we accept them as the real and immutable truth of the way things just are, ordained for us by the Creator.  
The manipulation could be just a way of negotiating right?  Telling someone they are off-base is just a way of communicating that they are not seeing or hearing you correctly, right?
In the end, though, the outcome is not what either the abuser or the abused desires, wants or needs.  In the end, it becomes hard to even see which person is being abused versus abusing the other.  In the end, though, the male and female both realize that their genders – while looking so right – are not quite fitting into these predefined gender roles over here…again leaving both feeling lost, hurt, disconnected and out of control.  In the end, while looking for a way to be in control, both parties end up hurting the other while really being out-of-control.
One degree off means a power struggle for control instead of unconditional love.

One degree off means abuse versus harmony.

One degree off means living at war versus living in peace.