Hurt People Hurt People

[Goldeneagle]

Hello Everyone,

I'm new to this forum and I feel like it's going to be the group environment I always needed. I come from a background of domestic violence. My parents were extremely emotionally abusive. However, I realized that a lot of the coping mechanisms I put in place turned me into someone who hurt others when I finally got away from them. My first relationship when I was 19 was unhealthy for us both. We both were trying to solve our past traumas through the relationship which made the hurt we both felt even worse. The breakup was horrible though the beginning of the relationship was incredibly loving. I carried on repeating the same relationship pattern for most of my 20s. I don't think I was evil or intentionally hurting other people. The people I hurt, tore me down in ways I couldn't even imagine were possible as well. Am I a bad person? Am I the villain in these stories? I'm really upset when I think about all of this. Thank you for your thoughts.

[Harmony]

Dear Goldeneagle,

Welcome to isurvive. This is a place for we hurt people to come together and heal. I think one of the truest things I have seen along the way is an old saying: "Children learn what they live". There is always a reason for people being and acting the way they do. You learned to hurt by being hurt.

So you might ask are we just doomed? Heck no! If I believed that I would have never found my way here and on to healing. The truth is: when we know better, we do better.

You are not doomed to the cycle of violence and hurt. You are not just past behavior. You can choose. You can do and be what you want to be. Glad you found us here.

Harmony

[Jonesy]

Hi Goldeneagle

Welcome from me too, I'm glad you found us - and I really like what Harmony wrote you

[Xanthia]

Welcome Goldeneagle to a friendly part of the Web.

Very happy you are here, although sad about the reason you chose to become a member.

May you find the positives you seek.

With care,

[earthhorse]

I am definitely in the category of a hurt person who hurts people.

My unacknowledged needs and silent history make me prone to acting compulsively, using unhealthy coping strategies. The rage I feel. I don't know what to do with it except fear it. So it can just explode, and the emotion behind things becomes too intense.

I find the times when I fare best, when I am centered, are when I am in touch with my past,and in full acceptance of all of my feelings. Totally easier said than done.

The way I am abusive is not intentionally setting out to harm others, playing with their feelings or controlling them. It's more coming from a place of deep distrust, I test relationships to death or over-manage things,, centering myself. And it's not really what I say or do, it's just that I overreact or project - bringing things up at an inappropriate moment. ie something is political but it is informed by an intense disproportionate personal emotion that allows me no personal distance. Conflicts escalate, i feel hot or cold about people, no in between. can't stand them or see a bridge back to feeling okay again with them. The resentment just keeps mounting. I expect them to meet my need for affirmation.

In the past when I was still in touch with my family I was violent sometimes. I hit my sister one time I remember when I was 17 ( 23 years ago). I even jumped on her and hit her. It was explosive rage, totally out of control, I was under tons of pressure. There was a lot of domestic violence in my family all the time. But thinking back on this, a friend from outside the family was there, this freaked them out naturally, they cowered in a corner... I remember this moment And i know I was a total monster. With the potential to be again when under stress.

It will never be right what I did. Ever.

The rage it comes up, sometimes I smash things or throw things across the room. I am terrifying. Being a survivor the focus for me has been on recognizing some things weren't my fault, and not blaming myself, accepting what happened - which has been very, very difficult to do... but what about the times when things are my fault? Accountability for my behavior that can only come ironically from deep and total self acceptance. From being safe enough to be in touch with myself. And dare to love, accept and understand an abusive person, me...

Luckily I have a very loyal partner of the last 15 years, and some friends. I am amazed they are still with me.

You are worth feeling safe with, and getting to know Goldeneagle. The whole sheebang.

Take loving care,
EH

[SpiritTornApart]

I'm really glad that you posted this topic because I've been thinking and struggling with something similar to this myself the past few days. As I reflect upon the people in my life who I've learned been sexually abused, I have seen how some of their behaviors that came from that has affected in hurt others in their lives. Some become hungry for control, some become desperate for feeling like they need to be loved, others have become so depressed that they develop unhealthy eating and dietary habits.

Even myself, I have seen that my desire to find that what I thought at the time was loving attention, has really made me blind to see the real beauty in friendships that were around me. And that craving unhealthy connection that I got, led me to hurting and abusing others without even knowing it. One of the worst realizations, was as I was sorting through my corrupted thoughts, memories, and really learning more about my feelings on it pure sense, I came to realize that the last person that I hurt is someone that I really truly deeply love more than anyone or anything else on this Earth.

And as I've learned more about her family in the aftermath of what I did to her. I've come to see even greater the effects of damage and pain that I have incurred on them. You see when I acted out because of the mental corruption and damage that was done to me when I was abused, and not only sexually abused my victim, but because of her mother's past experiences from her childhood which were never resolved or confronted properly, I indirectly believe that the triggered memories effectively made it so that I at the same time sexually abused her as well.

Now I've been sitting here this night right before I logged onto this forum, which I did because I was hoping for some help with this struggle. I was just thinking you know, with all the hate and anger that I've created from my experience as an offender, combining with my own personal feelings and beliefs about what the guy who sexually abused me was hoping for. I've come to the conclusion that not just me, but the ones who hold such animosity towards me have helped my original offender and possibly the one who originally abused my victim's mother to win. I say that because I believe in a way the people who abused us wanted to try and ruin us for anyone else so they can have us all to themselves.

I don't know if this intention was conscious on their behalf, but I believe in some way they're selfish desire let them to acting like this. Although I have identified the calls between me abusing someone else as damage done when I was abused that was never counseled, and that I was not aware of what I was doing when it was occurring. I can honestly say after all the self-examination analysis and therapy that I've done, that's somewhere on a deep unconscious level, I wanted my victim all to myself. I didn't want her to be with her friends, because I wanted that positive caring attention that I was getting all the time Non-Stop. because of this corruption I failed to see how truly important she was to me and how good she was for me. I don't know about any others out there who have committed sexual abuse, or any information behind what anyone else here has gone through. I just know I genuinely want to do whatever I can to erase the victory from the ones that abused me, to try and help heal the damage that I've done to others into myself.

I even had an argument this past week with my parole officer. He told me the most important thing in my life right now has to be parole. I told him that's bull crap. The most important thing in my life right now is doing what I can to heal myself, and making sure that what I did is never repeated again, as far as prunes condition, they don't mean it darn thing to me compared to me breaking the cycle and trying to repair damaged that I've caused.

I hope this can give you some strength to try and overcome. The road to recovery and getting our lives back is long and difficult. We have to be strong and no longer let or abusers win.

[Harbor]

Welcome Goldeneagle

I think it's true that people who have been hurt by others as children may have a tendency to hurt others - because that was their normal. Once I was aware that my upbringing was not normal, I began to see that I had choices other than repeating the pattern. I wouldn't accept "because it happened to me" as an excuse for someone abusing me, nor can I use it as an excuse to abuse others. I'm always on the lookout for my parents' words or actions to come out of me. A strong negative example can be as good of a compass as a strong positive, just do the opposite!

[timjake]

I can totally relate to this. I was raised by 2 miserable people who only stayed together because of ignorance and insecurity. They took their misery out on their children so now we all are dysfunctional. I had the same experiance when I was about that age and destroyed a wonderful relationship with a wonderful woman. I turned into the miserable people who raised me just caring about myself and being inconsiderate,insecure, ignorant, jealous you get the idea. Even after I destroyed that relationship I continued doing it with the next. for whatever reason she stuck it out and we were married and 35 yrs and 2 sons later I am in therapy struggling with my past. No, you arent alone, the world is full of Monsters disguised as parents. I was told "abuse is the gift that keeps giving" it takes work and time,Good Luck

[there]

Hi, Goldeagle,
Others have said a lot of great personal things.

To see it in yourself, that you have hurt people, is probably the biggest awareness. From there, we we’re able to begin finding ways to love ourselves and others, and share the compassion we learn to give ourselves.

I’m learning that being compassionate to oneself and to others is a human capacity. This capacity can be accessed regardless of our earlier ‘training’. Maybe I’m starting from scratch in some things, but I’m starting, and following through. Not perfectly, but with progress.

Brene Brown, vulnerability researcher and author, said that compassionate people seem to also be the ones with good boundaries. Boundaries are tough to build for me, but the effort, even struggle, is worthwhile.