Becoming Your Own Abuser

This episode is a caution towards easy ways to slip into being abusive to yourself without even realizing it. 

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Transcript

0:12

Hey my friends! My friends, I really can't stand the objectification of women. It is so prevalent and normalized in our culture and in our media; it's like everywhere! And it drives me crazy. Like ranging from irritated to full out triggered. Like, I was reading this book, The Mothman Prophecies. And the author kept making excessive commentary on all of the female interviewees' bodies. It was so unnecessary and off topic and it irritated the ever living crap out of me. Like who the fuck cares about what the breast size of the woman who had a Mothman sighting is? Like what the actual fuck? But shit like that is everywhere. And it pisses me off. And I found myself every time I got irritated or triggered by something like that, telling myself that it shouldn't bother me. Like it doesn't bother anyone else; it shouldn't bother you. It's not a big deal. Why are you getting so worked up? That kind of thing. You're so sensitive, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I would make myself endure whatever it is that was bothering me all the while telling myself that I shouldn't be bothered. Like I finished that goddamn Mothman book. It was not worth it. It had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Do not recommend. But I made myself finish it while telling myself it shouldn't bother me. And this has been a pattern with me like, this is what I do all the time, stuff like that. And I had that happen too a few weeks ago with a music video. And I just made myself watch the whole thing and kept telling myself that I shouldn't be bothered. And then I absolutely raged out like I just blew up and went on this wild rant about everything that was wrong with society. This level of rage is out of character for me. So when it happens, I'm like, Okay, this is something I need to pay attention to. Something is going on here. And I realized that, while I find the objectification of women irritating, what really sets me off is me gaslighting myself and telling myself I shouldn't be bothered by it. What really makes me angry is when I invalidate my own feelings and almost like shame myself for the way that I feel. I spent years in a marriage where I was gaslighted and invalidated about all sorts of things. I imagine that was your experience as well. Like, how

many times have we heard: 2:46

"Well, it wasn't that bad." "You're exaggerating." "I never said that." Even though you totally know the truth. They just sit there and blatantly lie about it and it's awful. It's considered abusive behavior. So of course It enrages me when I do that to myself. Because that's what I was doing. I was denying the reality of my own experience, telling myself that this isn't something that is upsetting when I am clearly bothered by it. That's being abusive to myself. What I've come to see is that it would be so much more productive in general to just own the reality of my experience. Even if maybe I want to change that reality and not be bothered so much by something, in order to change that reality, I would first have to own where I was starting from. I can't change anything while I'm denying that it exists in the first place. There is a power and being able to say, This bothers me. What am I going to do about that? Owning it let's me make empowered decisions about how I want to handle it instead of just doing the ostrich burying its head in the sand. It lets me address the root cause of what is bothering me. Maybe I put the Mothman Prophecies book down instead of making myself finish it. Maybe I don't. But at least owning the reality of where I'm at, let's me make informed decisions. It lets me make decisions that will actually do me the most good. Just owning the truth of where I'm at and what I'm experiencing does bring so much more peace. I don't get enraged when I can own my reality. It's the invalidation of my own experience that produces the rage for me. Because I don't want to live with abuse anymore, not even from myself. I don't want to be shitty to myself like that. And so I want to put this caution out there for you: it can be real easy to kind of do the same kind of behaviors to yourself that your abuser used to do to you. And I would encourage you to be mindful of that and watch out for that. Make sure you are treating yourself right. Because what I know for sure is that you can't feel better while you are experiencing abuse. And sometimes you can inadvertently become your own abuser. So watch out for that my friends. All right, my friends. Until next time, be well.