low self-esteem

Our life reflects the way we feel inside

FontCandy (59)

How strongly do you believe this to be true?

I believe it is extremely important to treat ourselves with compassion, patience and love.

It is extremely important to replace negative thinking with more positive, constructive thinking.

I believe we must at all times acknowledge our mistakes, acknowledge our emotions and accept that we will attract what we believe about ourselves.

If we believe we are worthless, we will attract people that will treat us badly.

If we believe that we don’t deserve love, then we will attract people who will abandon us.

We have to notice our thoughts, notice our emotions and slowly make changes.

Change can be uncomfortable at the beginning, but it gets easier in time.

Start creating new positive habits in your life, to replace the old destructive ones.

Accept that you are flawed, as all humans have flaws. If your flaws are something that you can change, then change them. If you hurt someone, then make sure you tell them you are genuinely sorry.

If you do find that there are people in your life that treat you badly, then let them go.

Look after yourself first and the rest will fall into place.

Much Love Athina ♥

Narcissistic abuse survivors

FontCandy (58)

As some of you already know, I have great insight into narcissistic abuse, after a tumultuous life with 2 narcissistic parents, many narcissistic ex-partners and narcissistic ex friends. Before my father discarded my mother in 2000 and filed for divorce, he had already met his second narcissistic wife. He had already lined her up to fill his emptiness and later had a child with her. The cycle of abuse unfortunately continued and there was nothing I could do to prevent it.He has been married to her for 16 years now and it has been the most destructive, soul destroying relationship I have ever witnessed.

My histrionic/covert narcissistic mother, on the other hand, luckily didn’t re-marry. She just had 2 relationships which didn’t work out.She has remained irritable, negative and critical. She still blames everything & everyone else for her misery and struggles to cope with her own depression.

My childhood in general was always hot & cold.One minute things were relatively normal and my parents would be kind & thoughtful and the next they would be extremely hurtful & abusive. This almost made coping with the abuse harder, as the kind moments would give me hope as a child and then when the abusive moments would come around, I was utterly devastated and confused. I then learnt that whenever my parents were kind, there were always strings attached to this kindness. I was told many times as a child ‘After everything I have done for you, this is how you treat me?’. I felt guilty and ashamed. I felt worthless and no good.

The one thing I know for certain is that for those of you who have also been affected by narcissistic abuse, you have developed a deep sense of self-awareness, a sense of gratefulness for the tiny moments of kindness that others have shown you and a high level of empathy from a young age. Most of you sought out therapy and have always helped and be-friended the shy or needy. Yes you have made many mistakes along the way, by getting involved with people who resembled your family of origin, however this is a logical result of growing up in an abusive or neglectful home.

The thing that helped me the most in my recovery was forgiving myself for struggling so much in my life. Self-compassion is the best gift you can give yourself as an abuse survivor.Recovering from narcissistic abuse means that you have to dig deep to reveal the many layers of trauma. You have to acknowledge that it isn’t going to be easy to go through all the painful realisations of your past but that is extremely important to work through each layer and grieve your losses. Trusting that others won’t hurt you is a huge struggle for those who have been abused. If your primary caregivers let you down so badly, why on earth would you trust complete strangers?

The most important thing to remember is that there is no time frame on healing and that everyone copes and heals differently.

My advice will always be to ask yourself ‘What do I need’? ‘What am I scared of’? ‘How can I look after myself’?

For those of you who can relate and understand, just remind yourselves daily that you survived an unfair childhood and that from now on you can give yourself the unconditional love your parents weren’t able to give you. In every low moment, remind yourself that you are brave and resilient.

Now in my 30’s I have already been through the darkest moments of despair and have healed extensively through many years of trauma therapy. I am now armed with knowledge,coping skills and the most important thing: the knowledge that healing is possible and that you ARE able to live a more fulfilling life. If you had asked me this same question 2 years ago, I wouldn’t be feeling so optimistic.

Now I am putting all my knowledge into helping others and it feels good! It feels good to see that others feel validated & comforted, because this is a feeling I missed out on a lot! It feels good to be there and pass on information, even if it only helps one other person. Free advice is so valuable and we can all do it! So many of us are already doing it!

Love Athina ♥

Complicated grief for adult survivors of abuse

Societal mandates assert that loss is accompanied by a conventional paradigm of grief, replete with ceremonial rituals and a finite process of mourning. Yet when the loss pertains to more intangible sources of grief such as prolonged abuse and trauma, one size does not fit all.

Adult survivors of child abuse, beset by complex post-traumatic stress disorder often grapple with persistent complicated bereavement disorder. They are plagued by persistent yearnings for the love and normalcy they never had. They are weighed down by innumerable intangible losses such as safety, dignity, belonging and a cohesive sense of self.

Family as Sacrosanct

For adult survivors of chronic child abuse the notion of ‘family as sacrosanct’ is a principle that fosters confusion, alienation, shame and outrage. Within the context of familial sacredness doctrines are explicit. Love thy mother and father and honor their function and authority.

However, when that mother or father robbed that child of his/her birthright, their innocence, their childhood, even their Self, who gets to determine how that child should ‘appropriately’ respond to sundry losses or the most glaringly pivotal loss of a parent’s passing? How is the survivor to measure up to a proclamation that has no bearing on her history or her reality?

Anecdotal Forgiveness

Anecdotal forgiveness seems to be the standard advice handed out to survivors of abuse. Survivors are advised to offer absolution to the abusive parent regardless of whether the abuser has attempted any sort of restitution. Ostensibly, this will set the abuse survivor free and concomitantly confer them the designation of good son/daughter. With religious zeal, this approach is considered a crowning achievement.

As you can see from everything written in this article http://pro.psychcentral.com/complicated-bereavement-for-adult-survivors-of-abuse/0011089.html# asking someone to forgive their abusive parent, is like throwing salt into an already extremely painful wound, especially when that parent never apologised or felt remorse.

Recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International society for Traumatic Stress Studies, Dr. Judith Herman, refers to the aforementioned construct as the forgiveness fantasy. Dr. Herman states:

“Forgiveness is a relational process. “‘I forgive you’ is the response to a heartfelt apology and request for forgiveness. If the apology is never made, the process of forgiveness cannot take place. And “genuine contrition in a perpetrator is a rare miracle.”

I completely agree with Dr Herman’s words!

Those of you who feel that you have to forgive, don’t!

Inspired by https://bodyelectricweb.wordpress.com/ on expressing anger and the topic of forgiveness. If I were her, I don’t think a perpetrator deserves forgiveness if there is no remorse.

How to be assertive-Steps to healthy self-assertion

This post is the last one on assertion and hopefully the most useful to those of you who struggle with being a people-pleaser and/or are quite passive in your relationships with others.There is also a YouTube video attached for those of you who are auditory & visual learners.

Here is a quick guide on how to be assertive:

Firstly get the person’s full attention when you are trying to make an important point. This may seem like a given however it is important to ensure there are no distractions.
Describe in an objective way, what you are having difficulty with in regards to the other person’s behaviour. EXAMPLE: ” I said I wanted to speak to you and you have just turned on the tv”.
Express constructive feelings using ”I” statements. Don’t say ”You completely ignored me”.Instead, choose to say ” I feel upset that you are not listening to me”. It is ok to state feelings of disappointment & annoyance, as these are constructive feelings.
Check your statements & make sure the other person gives you a response. This will hopefully enable some sort of resolution later on. EXAMPLE: ”I feel that you are hiding something from me. What do you think about this”?
Listen to the other person’s response with an open mind and give feedback in a controlled manner. Avoid dismissing the reply as soon as it is given.
State your preferences clearly. EXAMPLE: ”I would like if you could always be honest with me”.
Request agreement from the other person.If they don’t agree or try to avoid the subject, clearly state ”Are you willing to make any changes?”
Communicate any relevant information concerning future occurences.State what you will do if the same problem re-occurs.

10 tips – How to choose a healthy partner after an emotionally abusive relationship

Blocks to healthy self-assertion

Being assertive can come very easily to many of us whilst some of us might have an extreme difficulty in this area, due to many of the following blocks as stated by Hauck (1981b):

FontCandy (49)

1.Fear of injury -Physical violence may be threatened or unleashed in order to keep you in line. This might be the case in an abusive relationship.

2. Fear of failure

3. Fear of hurting other people’s feelings-For example, if I tell him that ‘his gift wrapping is not very good, I might hurt his feelings’

4. Fear of rejection– For example: I couldn’t cope if they criticised me or abandoned me

5.Fear of financial insecurity- For example, you stay in a job you hate because you are worried about financial instability if you leave.

According to Trower et al (2011)there are these 2 blocks:

1.Guilt – You believe it is wrong to assert your own wishes because you believe this is selfish behaviour or you don’t feel worthy enough.

2.Damning anger– You end up blaming others for frustrating you by insulting or hurting them. For example, you might say ‘You are such a lazy and slow worker’ rather than saying ‘I would like to talk about how we could equally distribute the work load between yourself and Adam’

According to Gilbert (2000) there are these blocks to being assertive:

1.Loss of control– Assertion can involve high psychological arousal which might lead to shouting at your partner.

2.Fear of counter attack– After you have asserted your complaints, you fear being overwhelmed by the other person’s response. You fear blushing, you mind going blank or maybe even getting tongue tied. You fear looking worse off after asserting your wishes.

3.Self-blame– You might blame yourself for causing tension or conflict by asserting your needs.

4.Positive self– You view lack of assertiveness as having positive qualities of being kind and caring.

Assertiveness in general will help you get more of what you want and less of what you don’t want but there is the possiblity that it might not always work out in the way that you hope. If you have been someone who isn’t assertive and suddenly start asserting yourself with familiar people in your life, things may become increasingly uncomfortable with those people, as they aren’t used to you being assertive. People don’t like change!

Which of these blocks do you struggle with? If not, feel free to share your experience of being self-assertive.

Thanks for reading

Much love Athina ♥

Being assertive

For those of you who struggle with people pleaser syndrome, who are passive, depressed, are experiencing conflict with someone or are having anger issues, assertiveness training can be very beneficial.

When someone is unassertive, this involves violating their own rights by failing to express honest feelings, thoughts or beliefs.It also means that someone might try to express their thoughts and feelings but do it in a very apologetic, modest way and others just disregard them.

Unassertiveness has a lot to do with a lack of self-esteem or due to a threat to one’s self-esteem.

In order to understand what being assertive means, here is a list of some assertive rights. This list was compiled by Palmer & Dryden, (1995).

The right to say ‘no’
The right to consider my needs important
The right to make mistakes
The right to express my feelings in an appropriate manner without violating anybody else’s rights
The right to take responsibility for my actions
The right not to be understood
The right to respect myself
The right to be me
The right to be assertive without feeling guilty
The right to set my own priorities

Assertiveness training uses methods such as role-play, modelling and rehearsal before actually trying it out in real life situations.It is something that can be very helpful. Something that is important before the training is for the coach to make sure that the coachee doesn’t have any emotional blocks. If there are emotional blocks then these must be resolved first in coaching and then the coachee can move on to the training.

Love Athina ♥

Fear of negative emotions & being a People pleaser

If you are afraid of experiencing other peoples’ negative responses or emotions, then you will do everything you can to avoid this.This fear will make it hard for you to say NO to someone and you end up doing things you really don’t want to do.You feel compelled to always do as they say and become completely submissive to their needs. This is the core of being a people pleaser.

These fears usually stem from childhood abuse, where you had an overbearing, manipulative parent or parents. If your parents would punish you severely if you didn’t do what they wanted, then you will have been conditioned to be obedient at all times.

Some really important characteristics of being a people pleaser is when you have low self-esteem, are addicted to others’ approval and are always dependent on them for your self-worth and validation. This happens especially when you might have had a narcissistic/psychopathic parent that criticised you negatively all the time and made you feel excessively guilty and shameful when you didn’t do as they said. With extremely self-centered parents, everything is always about their needs and your needs take a back seat. Every time you want to take a step forward and be more independent in your thinking & behaviour, they will always find a way to pull you back and make you feel dependent on them and their way of thinking.(codependent).It is a very strong type of conditioning that happens in abusive homes and as a young child you aren’t able to escape this environment.

Something that is very common when you are people pleaser is always rationalising peoples’ abusive behaviour to the point of always forgiving it. You always make excuses for others’ bad behaviour and say things like ‘Yes my father beat me but at least he provided a roof over my head’ or ‘I know my mother is very manipulative but deep down she has a good heart’.This has a lot to do with ‘toxic bonding’ or stockholm syndrome’, where you are extremely attached to your abuser in a very emotionally damaging way. You aren’t able to accept the reality of how bad something actually is, because it is extremely painful.

Another couple of traits that make someone a people pleaser and also make them more susceptible to emotional abuse is the fact that they may be emotionally immature and have very weak boundaries. They don’t know what is theirs and what is others’. If they grew up in a home with a parent that would constantly go through their things as a teenager, always invade their space whilst at the same time parentifying them and giving them things to do that weren’t their responsibiliy, this has a detrimental effect on how they view others and how they view themselves. They grow up thinking that it is ok for someone to use them, to take advantage of their lack of assertiveness and self-respect.

A very important part of dealing with manipulative or pushy people is developing self- assertiveness. This is something very useful for people that are constantly submissive to others in an unhealthy way. Assertiveness can be taught and this is something I offer in Coaching.

If you think you might need assertiveness training, then please let me know.

Best Wishes

Athina