"I can’t believe they did this to me again! “. As a therapist for 26 years, I’ve heard this statement many times. However, when I ask the client, “ How long have they been doing this to you?'" They usually respond with something along the lines of, “They’ve always done this”, or “Several years”. My response to this is “If that’s the case, why is it surprising to you?” Being surprised by something normally indicates that this behavior is unexpected and perhaps out of the ordinary, however, for many of us, we continue to be surprised over and over again by a repeated behavior. Why is this? What I’ve discovered over the years is several reasons that we might be shocked/ surprised and end up staying in toxic situations:
We believe that if we just tell them enough times how this hurts us, they will eventually “get it”, or if we take them “the right way” they will get it and change--
However, this presumes that they think/react the same why you do to redirection/correction. It also presumes that they have normal empathy for others, which they may not have. Sometimes people completely shut us out, or immediately go into defense mode because their psyche can’t handle being “wrong”. Sometimes they repeat bad behavior because they have impulse control problems or are simply not motivated by the same things we are motivated by.
We believe that it’s our fault that the other person doesn’t change--
We believe we have more power/control over the situation than we actually do.Especially if we’ve been raised in an out of control/alcoholic/or traumatic situation, as a child we come to believe that we have to “take charge” and control the environment in order to survive.For example, we may try to be extra quiet when a parent gets home from work so that they don’t “go off” on us.Of course, what we often discover is that this may work sometimes, but oftentimes the parent takes out their anger on you anyways because the anger has nothing to do with you. As a child, to believe that you have no control could cause complete despair and terror, which keeps us from being able to function and survive in an environment that we can’t get out of.Therefore, we learn to have false hope as a way to survive and try to function in a dysfunctional situation.
We have learned to cut off/ numb our feelings about how much that person has hurt us—
This also can be a “carryover” from past trauma or a dysfunctional relationship in our past.When we learn to numb, it’s like turning off the alarm system in our house—if someone breaks in, you’re not alerted to the problem and therefore you don’t respond to remove yourself from the situation.
Fear of overwhelm—
We are afraid that if we’re really honest with how bad it is, we might have to leave the relationship and this feels overwhelming to us.False hope at least keeps us in a “somewhat tolerable”situation. Of course, this also keeps us stuck.
We believe that we can’t upset the other person by setting a boundary with them or leaving them—
Confronting them feels “not nice” or hurting their feelings feels wrong.We may have been taught in our culture or family that we always have to make people feel good, even at our own expense.The truth is that sometimes we need to “hurt” someone with our honesty or say no to them in order to encourage them to grow.It is not nice or kind to let someone continue in a harmful behavior with no consequences.This just feeds into their problem.Proverbs 27:6 says “ the wounds of a friend are better than the kisses of an enemy”.
Its easier to complain about the other person than to look at our own issues-- When we complain about others, we are not looking at the uncomfortable things in our own life that we don’t want to deal with. For example, we don’t want to see that we are stuffing our feelings and overeating – instead we focus on how mad that person made me, therefore I “deserve” that ice cream right now. Often times I’ll get mad at my husband for something and stew over this for hours, then later see that I’ve done the same exact thing multiple times to him – e.g. not listening to him or forgetting to do something that was important to him.
This leads us to the question of “so how do I get out of this cycle? “ Knowing what’s going on is the first step, but stopping the pattern altogether is more complicated and depends on the individual person and where the root is coming from. Many times our brain can know what we need to do, but our emotions override our brain and keep us stuck. At Lighted Paths Counseling, we can help you find the way out of this pattern and into healthy life patterns. Call us at 916-600-7887 to schedule an appointment.
by Julie Grant, LCSW