Breaking Bonds, page 11
SELF ESTEEM IS AN INSIDE JOB
“I find that when we really love and accept and approve of ourselves exactly as we are, then everything in life works.”
―LOUISE HAY
I know that I would never have married my ex-husband, much less stayed with him for so many years, if I had better self-esteem. Having had your self-esteem badly eroded by an abusive marriage, and possibly by abuse in your childhood as well, it is important to remember that what happened to you does not define you. It neither defines who you are now nor does it define your capacity for joy and love in the future. What your parents or husband did to you, and what they didn’t give you that you needed, is not your fault. Those events do not make you unworthy of love and respect. Your soul is whole and untouched by human events.
Abuse is a pattern of behavior that can travel from one generation to the next unless we decide to break the cycle. It does not define you if you decide to change the way that you look at it. The past can be used like decayed mulch to fertilize a garden of compassion. You must change how you look at yourself and increase your self-esteem to avoid having similar experiences in your other relationships. The way to improve your self-esteem is to accept and love yourself just as you are right now. Your self-acceptance will also help your children to feel more secure. They pattern their self-esteem after yours.
There are two components of self-esteem: competence and relationships. In each of us, there is a balance between the need to feel competent and the need to feel lovable. A feeling of being unworthy or having a negative self-view could cause you to place more emphasis on your weaknesses than on your strengths. If you do, over time you will be more likely to remember comments that tend to validate your negative self-view. You may even discount or disagree with compliments or appreciative remarks because they don’t validate your low opinion of yourself. This is how you might create a false reality through self-limiting beliefs.
By contrast, a person with high self-esteem focuses on her strengths, not her weaknesses, and still believes that she is lovable, despite her imperfections. Having imperfections is what makes us truly human. If you had very critical parents as well as a critical spouse, you will have to actively work to change your self-talk when you make a mistake. Look at every mistake as an opportunity to learn. Forgive yourself for it immediately. Apologize for it if appropriate. Learn from the mistake so that you do not repeat it.
That’s it. Don’t dwell on a mistake or denigrate yourself by saying things like “I never do anything right,” “I’m such a klutz,” or “I’m so stupid,” that would allow your old negative thought patterns to take over. You must choose not to believe everything that you think, especially when it diminishes you. When a negative thought appears, recognize it for what it is. It is not a helpful thought, so purposefully stop to tell yourself that you don’t have to be perfect since the rest of humanity isn’t. After this, distract yourself with something positive or by repeating affirmations. Then give the mistake over to God.
My therapist, Jerry Campbell, told me that self-esteem is dynamic and therefore subject to change. It can diminish if you fail to succeed at goals, have setbacks, make mistakes, or take actions that are not in line with your intrinsic values. But your self-esteem also improves when you accomplish something difficult, do something for someone else, have compassion for yourself and others, or set appropriate boundaries with someone who is trying to violate them. Isn’t that great?
Self-esteem that is based exclusively on appearance, approval from others, academics, sports, or other accomplishments is subject to big up and down swings from feeling worthy to feeling worthless because it is based on transient outer-generated sources of happiness. A more effective strategy to maintain self-esteem long term comes from having compassion for yourself and others, and setting goals like being connected and supportive to others. According to an article in Scientific American Mind, this is a more effective strategy to maintain self-esteem long term.13 The authors of the article describe a technique called self-distancing. If you try to see yourself from the perspective of a third-party observer, the proverbial “fly on the wall,” during emotional situations, the mental distance it gives you will serve as a buffer to assist you in more rapid recovery from your negative feelings.
Although it is difficult to improve self-esteem, it is not impossible. It takes time and effort. I had used positive affirmations to help bolster my esteem without much success until I saw a Wayne Dyer video in which he mentioned two very important things to do while using affirmations. First, you must say them with emotion—as if you believe them to be true now, not in some future time, but in the present. Second, you must visualize what it would be like if what you were affirming was already true, and then act as if it were already true. When I applied Dyer’s two tips, affirmations had more of an impact on my psyche.
Have faith. Your mind is a powerful tool that you have been given to create what you want in this life. This method of assuming what you want to create already exists is very effective. Assume that your prayers and affirmation have already been answered and give thanks. That is demonstrating faith.
A third, spiritual step added to the first two given by Dyer could make your affirmations even more powerful self-esteem boosters for you. Express gratitude to God for what you have already received and for what you are now receiving each day. God’s grace can be a constant source of esteem.
I was doing these things and still having issues with my progress, so I suspected that I had a subconscious block. I found a wonderful exercise to remove blocks in Tantra for the West by Marc Allen. Here’s how it works.14
On one sheet of paper, write your affirmation over and over. For example: “I love and accept myself exactly as I am now.”
Write “Thank you” of another sheet of paper that you put side by side with the first page. On this page, write down whatever pops into your mind that disagrees with your affirmation each time you write the affirmation. Use this technique to identify your blockages.
After you know what your blocks are, allow yourself to be thankful for the insight, and then go back and write your affirmation ten to twenty times more to counteract the formerly subconscious blockages to it.
Use this technique daily until you get to the core of your resistance and then create an affirmation to counteract it so that you can release it once and for all.
Check in with yourself periodically throughout the day. Ask: How am I feeling? What is the emotion? Why? What caused it?
Notice how often you are self-critical and tell yourself to stop doing that to yourself when it happens. Stop exaggerating your flaws and start giving yourself more credit and praise. Treat yourself as you would a good friend who is not perfect, but has many fine qualities.
Make a list of your positive qualities. From this list, create five or six affirmations that you can repeat out loud and with conviction whenever a negative thought about yourself arises.
Our spoken words reverberate with power and are self-realizing. What you say about yourself to yourself and others matters. So, watch your words as well as your thoughts.
GREAT FULL
“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
―MELODY BEATTIE
Keep a gratitude journal and writing implement on your nightstand. As a practice, every morning when you wake up write five things in it for which you are thankful. Your list might include things such as, “I am grateful for my children,” “I am grateful for my health,” “I am grateful for my job,” and “I am grateful for my friends who support me.” We always have things to be grateful for. They can be simple things. Doing this will set the tone for the day.
Even in this time of crisis, maintaining a perspective of gratitude will make your life a lot easier. It will help to ease the pain and is a great practice to maintain throughout your life. You may want to discuss the fact that you are actively practicing gratitude with your children and ask them to do the same thing. It will make a great discussion over the dinner table every night if each of you describes something for which you are grateful.
A complementary process is to do something thoughtful or generous for someone else every day who may not be as lucky as you are. This could be as simple as holding the door open for someone or giving a dollar to a homeless person and telling that individual that you hope his or her luck changes. It will make all of you feel better to help someone, and it will make that person feel better, too. It is empowering and raises our self-esteem when we realize that what we do and say matters to other people.
I was affected by the commencement speech that actor Denzel Washington gave at Dillard University in 2015, in which he told the graduates to put their slippers under the bed at night so that they would have to get on their knees to retrieve them the next morning. He said that this would be a good time to give thanks to God. “Say thank you in advance for what is already yours. . . . True desire in the heart for anything good is God’s proof to you sent beforehand that it is already yours. When you get it, reach back; pull someone else up. Each one, teach one. Don’t just aspire to make a living, aspire to make a difference.”15
Hearing this, I started putting my slippers under the bed at night shortly after that, and have maintained this beautiful practice ever since.
CHAPTER SIX
IT TAKES A VILLAGE
HELP, I NEED SOMEBODY
“Friendship is a wildly underrated medication.”
―ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
After my mother passed away in 1994, I suffered from sleepless nights and depression. I got counseling for the first time and went to a psychiatrist, who prescribed Ambien, a sedative, for insomnia and Zoloft, a mood stabilizer, for depression. Despite taking medication, I remained unable to sleep and talked with my psychiatrist repeatedly about it over a period of many months, but he was dismissive of my request to switch medications. I should have changed my psychiatrist when he wasn’t responsive, but I viewed him as the expert.
It also didn’t help that my husband kept waking me up in the middle of the night, night after night, to yell at me. I don’t remember now why he was yelling. The fact that he chose to wake me from a sound sleep to berate me was abusive and cruel, especially since I had a full-time job and got no help from him in taking care of our two children or running the household.
It was then that I was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder. Many years later my diagnosis was changed to PTSD by my current psychiatrist, whom I have seen since 1997.
I went for about six months without sleeping soundly, partly because my husband interrupted my sleep and partly due to my grief over my mother’s death. It was extremely difficult under these circumstances to function at work and be at my best for my children. Although he had done it once before, I completely snapped one morning after he screamed at me and threw a cup of coffee directly into my face. I had a complete nervous breakdown and ended up in a psychiatric hospital. While I was there, I was injected with a massive dose of Depakote to break the psychosis. I still remember having difficulty lifting my feet when I tried to walk. I shuffled my feet as if they were glued to the floor, like the Chief in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey.
It was painful for me to be institutionalized. I felt ashamed and like a failure. But I was determined to quickly recover as I had two young children to take care of, an unreliable husband, clients to service, and bills to pay. Twelve days after my breakdown, on Good Thursday, the hospital released me. I went back to work the following Monday, right after Easter. It was extremely difficult for me to put back together my Humpty Dumpty self, but I was in survival mode.
My husband resumed yelling at me to make home-cooked meals every night for dinner shortly after I returned home. He wanted things to go right back to the way they were before my hospitalization. The fact that I was in such a weakened state and needed time to recover was of no consequence to him. Being a narcissist, he was incapable of empathy. I did what I could to take care of the family, but from then on, I cut back on making elaborate meals and ordered takeout more often.
The lack of compassion my husband showed me with his continued demands and criticism during this period in my life was the worst abuse of a human being that I could imagine from someone who was supposed to love me. At the time, I was in no position to leave him.
I have not had another breakdown since, and believe that if I had not been so badly traumatized by my husband it would never have happened in the first place. If I had taken responsibility to leave him many years earlier, before the abuse got so bad, I am certain that I could have avoided falling apart. So that is on me. The reason that I am telling you this very personal story is so that you will take responsibility for your own life, and so that you know that you can survive almost anything. I did, and I am not any better or stronger than you are.
I continued to see my therapist and waited to file for divorce for over a year after the breakdown, as my children were both still young. Frankly, I was afraid that he would try to get custody even though he had not been involved in their care up to that point. This was a reasonable fear, as my husband did threaten to try to get sole custody once I did file for divorce, shouting that I was this crazy and irresponsible person. He followed me from room to room, screaming, and refused to leave the house or to stop sleeping in the master bedroom when I filed.
Unfortunately, you can’t make a spouse leave the house just because you have filed for divorce. If your spouse escalates the abuse because you have filed for divorce, which is quite likely to happen, you can have him removed for your safety and that of your children. I then made the mistake of dropping the divorce petition due to my husband’s refusal to move out and waiting thirteen years to refile it because the attorney I had at the time told me that I had no other option than to stay in the house with him. That decision cost me thirteen years of my life.
If your husband doesn’t move out, there are other options, like leaving with the children and getting a cheap apartment, staying with friends or family, or going to a shelter. Please do not sacrifice your life for the sake of your children. It is a mistake and not the selfless act that you think it is at all. They suffer, knowing that you are in pain, and they learn some very bad lessons if you stay and accept mistreatment. It is not just what they see and hear. They also know what you feel. From my misguided choice, my children learned that I did not respect myself, as I was willing to continue to be abused. In allowing myself to remain a victim, I showed them that I had not accepted responsibility for my life.
Your husband will not change unless he wants to change. If he is unwilling to go to counseling or if he tells you that the troubles in your marriage and your unhappiness with his behavior are your problems, not his, he is right. These are your problems. You will have to decide what are you going to do about it.
Whatever you do, if you do decide to leave your home, make sure that you take the children with you or you could lose custody of them to your husband. The courts may consider your leaving them behind to be abandonment, either a sign that you are an unfit mother willing to leave them in danger or that you are lying about the domestic abuse. Your children are not safe in your husband’s care, so you shouldn’t ever leave them with him. Period.
Your husband may refuse to leave and try to intimidate you to leave without the children once he knows you have filed for divorce. Do not let him force you to leave the house without them under any circumstances. Call the police if you must. There are plenty of resources listed at the back of this book and online to help you. To access these, you just need to ask for help.
If you are concerned about your husband disappearing with the children, you must act first, and quickly take them to a safe place or shelter. Don’t tip him off that you have plans to leave. If he has shown himself capable of abusing you, then he is capable of almost anything.
LEAN ON ME
“Friends and good manners will carry you where money
won’t go.”
―MARGARET WALKER
Lean on me, just not on everyone. Do not, for example, confide in your husband’s relatives. Blood is thicker than water, and they won’t believe you, anyway. Or they will believe you and then still repeat what you said to your husband, which might prove to be dangerous.
Some of your relatives may not be safe, either—particularly if they have enjoyed decent relationships with your husband—so don’t be surprised if a few of them judge you.
Some of your well-meaning friends, people you have confided in, might act unfriendly toward your husband out of loyalty to you, unintentionally tipping him off, which may also be unsafe. It is best to confide only in friends who don’t see or interact with your husband. Confide mostly in your therapist.
If you have one or two friends with common sense and discretion, it’s OK to confide in them on occasion. But do not overdo it if you want to keep them as your friends. Remember that other people have their own problems and yours might be too heavy a burden for them. You need to be considerate of them so that they do not come to dread your phone calls or visits.
Do your best to avoid being around people who say hurtful things or bring you down while you are going through this difficult time. At least limit your contact with them. Don’t confide in them at all to avoid more emotional damage. You need to be around people who are nonjudgmental, supportive, and discreet. It is up to you to protect yourself.
If you work outside the home, remember that in most situations it is best not to confide that you are having marital problems. Restrain yourself from telling your coworkers, even if they are friends, or your boss. It is not considered professional to share details of your marriage or to bring personal issues to work. If you have a falling out with your coworkers, they might tell other colleagues your secrets, or even your boss, out of spite. Even if you don’t, spilling the beans on juicy gossip is hard for most people to resist. So, don’t tempt them. It is bad enough that your marriage is ending, you don’t want to risk creating financial problems, too. You need to keep your job. To do so means continuing to get good reviews at work.
