Women enmeshed with verbally and emotionally abusive partners suffer deep wounds. Because our injuries aren't readily visible to the eye, we endure our private agony in silence. Mistrusting our perceptions, we often deny to ourselves and to others the existence of our very real pain.
This is changing as psychologists and domestic violence specialists recognize verbal and emotional abuse as a problem with severe psychological and physical consequences for those of us who serve as targets. With the publication of Robin Norwood's best selling book, Women Who Love Too Much, and Dr. Susan Forward's book, Men who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them, our silent shame is a secret no longer. We know without a doubt that we are not alone. Millions of women came forward to buy these books, enough women to put Norwood's book on the New York Times Bestseller List.
Today in every major city, self-help groups exist for those of us struggling to regain our self-esteem and extricate ourselves from emotionally poisonous relationships with men, relationships every bit as dangerously addictive as alcohol or drugs. Finally we have validation for our feelings, help in coping with them and hope for recovery.
Out of intense emotional pain springs the desire to change. Because we have learned to serve as psychic targets for the negative feelings of others, we can now begin to learn how not to be psychological scapegoats, can learn to be the strong, capable and loving women we were born to be. Out of our distress we learn to mend first ourselves, then our relationships with others and with the Sacred.
Our healing process takes place on at least three levels. Obviously verbal and emotional violence cause psychological wounds. In the midst of a one-down relationship our thoughts swirl in negative spirals, and our feelings chaotically writhe and twist so it’s often impossible for us to make sense out of them, let alone give name to them.
Just as obviously, our external reality, including our relationship to other people, is deformed into a grim parody of meaningful rewarding interaction.
Not so obviously, emotional abuse leaves severe spiritual scars as well. When we disconnect from ourselves, we in turn sever our relationship with the Divine. We no longer sense the caring presence of our Higher Power and forget that we are part of a much larger scheme of things than is apparent from our day to day existence. As John Bradshaw, a nationally noted expert on dysfunctional families, so aptly puts it – we have a hole in our soul.
The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous speak directly to the three kinds of healing that we so desperately need. They help us reclaim ourselves and reconnect with others and our Higher Power one step at a time. The Steps gently guide us from the hurting through the healing to emotional, relational and spiritual health. In time we fill the holes in our souls and become truly whole, some of us for the first time in our lives. For women who were emotionally, physically or sexually abused as children, the process isn’t one of recovery – how can we take back something we never can recall having? It’s a process of discovery, finding out for the first time who we are and who we want to be.
Because the Twelve Steps are so effective, and because they are a powerful method or healing our emotional, interpersonal and spiritual wounds, this book is based upon them. It can be both a guide and a source of support as you direct your energies to the self-healing process. The important thing to remember is that there is no universal timetable for recuperating from verbal or emotional violence. Your healing journey will happen at your own rate.
Some days you'll be amazed and overjoyed with your progress, and at other times you’ll feel stuck. Just because you don't happen to be aware of the healing that is occurring at any given moment, doesn’t mean that it isn’t happening. Important changes transpire beneath your level of consciousness as long as you continue to read and work the Steps. Our conscious minds sometimes have a difficult time adjusting to change, and that's just what healing is – a transformation. Even when our conscious thought process takes a breather, at a deeper level we're still getting better.
As you practice the Steps, you may find yourself struggling and, in your impatience, psychologically abusing yourself for not being smart enough or fast enough or strong enough. When this happens, be aware that you’ve absorbed the negative messages you've heard about yourself in the past and accepted them as the truth about who you are, no matter how wrong those messages were. Recognize this negative habit when it rears its head, then let the feeling go and replace the denial of your self-worth with its opposite affirmation.
I am as intelligent and strong as I need to be at this moment, and I’m starting to heal at a pace that is right for me.
