How Can You Free Yourself And Heal From Physical Abuse? Part I
A few years ago, after I walked into the classroom to do my class, I asked a student who was crying, what happened. She replied that she was wronged by a teacher to some object and she was very upset. Then he asked me what it was like when I was a student.
“When I was a student, I answer, if I didn’t know the lesson, I’d take a very bad grade and I would be beaten. The teachers had a stick as thick as two fingers and we would get 20 slaps, so they swelled up like buns and they were red. I couldn’t take any more pain. I kept my palms on the bench iron to ease the pain.”
“Oh, my God, that’s terrible! “ said the student who stopped crying while she was listening to my answers. “And what were your parents saying?
“Who had the guts to tell them? Otherwise, we’d take another round of fights at home. Do you know what the parents would say? The teacher didn’t beat you for anything. Why did you get beat up? So more often, we would swallow in us the pain of school beatings so we wouldn’t have to take another one at home.”
As an adult, I have been aggressed and I also assaulted others. I’m not proud of that.
Luckily, I found the solutions, or God put them in my way. I began to be aware of my emotions, of the triggers, and of my acts.
Why am I telling you all this?
In the last article, How can someone tell you that they love you and the next minute abuse you? I presented you with 7 answers. Why and how is it possible to love and assault someone at the same time?
In this material and in the next I will present you some solutions. I present them one or two at a time so you have time to integrate and apply them.
I would also like you to understand that those solutions I give you is not just because I read about them in books, but because, after reading them, I experienced them and they worked.
In the following, I will refer to the aggressor as him and to the assaulted as her, although it is possible otherwise.
Awareness
Awareness is the first step towards healing, but it is not enough. You also need to know the right methods and last but not least, apply them.
If you are constantly bullied, the first thing you can do is go with him to a mediator, psychologist, or other therapists to listen to you and try to help him.
It is possible that he would be aware that what he is doing is monstrous and he might be willing to heal.
It means that from this moment on you can go together either to psychological counseling or to other therapists to heal together.
But it is equally possible for him to be in denial, to make it seem like he is doing nothing out of the ordinary.
In the last article I was telling you that if he lived in a violent environment, aggression became his second nature. It’s become natural for him.
Imagine that maybe he was bullied by his parents. Or, as a teenager, if he felt ignored by his parents and joined in some gang, he saw and did things that seemed normal to him.
He assaulted others and, those around him, friends in the gang congratulated him and he felt strong and fulfilled.
His subconscious took the pattern of aggression as something normal that brings satisfaction.
If he says he has no problem with violence, your work on him stops. You can’t force him to go to therapy, because that’ll make him worse, that will make him even angrier.
Do Therapy
Instead, it’s time to heal YOU, the one you’re being bullied for.
You’re probably wondering. What do you mean? I’m being bullied and I still have to heal?
YES.
If you are now being abused as an adult, you were most likely assaulted as a child.
Back then, as a child, you had no solutions. You thought your parents or abusers, the older being, were right, and you’re the one who got everything wrong. Your subconscious has taken over the pattern of being assaulted as natural.
That aggressor didn’t appear in your life by chance. You attracted him with the vibration of your unhealed childhood wounds.
At the present moment, being an adult, you can distinguish between right and wrong and who is the one who is wrong. But your subconscious, accustomed to the pain of aggression, has attracted the one who is currently abusing you.
Running away from him is not a solution. If your wounds go unhealed, you’ll attract someone else who’s going to treat you just as badly.
That’s why you need to heal yourself FIRST.
Write him a love letter
You may find this subtitle strange. How’s that coming?
He’s bullying you. You are the one who suffers from his aggressive acts and I ask you to write him a love letter? Well, yes.
I know it’s a difficult thing to do, especially when you’re suffering.
However, there is something in your being that feeds its aggression. You have to figure out what makes him react so badly.
It could be the tone
You have no idea how many times I’ve heard a family fight. She would yell at him and had a hysterical voice, and eventually, he’d sit at her and beat her to death.
It may be your habit of nagging him.
Dale Carnegie, in his book “How to Win Friends & Influence People” said about people’s habit of criticizing:
“If you want to get the honey, don’t flip the hive!”
Nobody likes to be criticized. No one takes action and says, “I hope this time to be seriously criticized!” Not. Everyone acts with a positive intention and wants to be appreciated.
And the nagging is worse than the criticism because it’s repeated over and over again. If you have this habit, try to register yourself, hear yourself what you say to him and how many times you do that. Then ask yourself if you were in his place, would you like it?
It could be a reaction he reads on your face.
From all I know, both from books and experience, the man reacts very badly to read contempt and scorn on the face of the woman in his life.
If you have such feelings for him, don’t be surprised that he treats you like that.
In those moments of suffering, when you feel hatred for him when you want revenge, you need to calm down. Go back in time and try to remember what MADE YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH HIM? What makes him so special? What qualities did you admire about him? Because he still has them, but you don’t see them anymore because you’re blinded by the pain he’s causing you.
Do you know how powerful such a love letter is? For him, it’s a shock, for sure. It’s like a cold-water shower that wakes him up. He expects you to bring him even more reproach, and instead, you write him a love letter telling him what qualities he has, which you admire.
That tames him. And if he’s sensitive, he might keep that letter, read it slyly, and start wanting to change, for you, just for the sake of that letter.
As St. Paul says, “If your enemy is hungry, give him to eat, if he is thirsty, give him a drink, for doing so, you will pile burning coals on his head” (Romans, 12, 20). It is revenge through kindness that opens the eyes of the heart to accept the change.
Next time, I will write another two solutions to try on. Until then, try to be aware of what you feel, react to him. and, don’t forget to write him a love letter!
I wait for your opinion on how it worked for you.
Best regards,
Blogger at Fanutodidact, author of Patronel and Soriela a fantasy and self-help book for children, and more; Eliberează-te de rănile trecutului și redescoperă fericirea!, Mica Stea Portocalie — a fantasy novel with emotional education for YA and adults
