Dear Shve:

No need to apologize for a late reply, no such thing as a late reply, and thank you for expressing empathy for me.

“And after all these years to clearly describe what you felt, it must have cut so deep through you to be able to remember such details clearly” – I forgot the great majority of details, I remember only a few examples of how my mother repeatedly shamed and humiliated me. When I shared it with you, the memories did not hurt me. I felt sad, that’s all. Thing is, there is a voice in my brain that speaks for her in her absence. For example, when I wrote a few sentences ago that she repeatedly shamed and humiliated me, I heard her voice saying: and you forgot all the positive things I told you???, an angry, accusatory voice, blaming me for remembering only the bad and in so, being a bad person. It is her voice in her absence (her mental representative in my brain) that destroyed so much of my life in her absence.

But confronting this voice, lowering its volume and eventually hushing it, I got to a point where I am experiencing more quietude in my brain than I ever did, a much-appreciated peace of mind

“How to detect abuse while its happening? Sometimes I am not able to distinguish between the small voice at the back of my head that says, ‘no this is wrong’ and… I am also scared of confrontation… of making them think I am ‘bad’” – sounds like you too have a voice that accuses you of being a bad person. So, two voices: one is your own, a small voice that detects abuse, telling you no, this is wrong! and a louder voice that tells you: you are a bad person!

I re-read your posts looking for these two voices, particularly the louder one:

About your parents: “My parents have a very traditional relationship which my father being dominant over my mother… I grew up thinking that is how I am supposed to be… That they were superior in some way to women“.

About the guy: “I did not even know what boundaries meant… I just thought he would take care of me since he said he would keep me very happy… I knew something was wrong but could not put a finger to it. Because he acted as if he had done everything right and everything was going right for him in his life… Depending on another person to do right by us, take decisions etc. can work out sometimes for us positively, but most times they have their own personal agendas to achieve through us” –

– the loud voice is your fathers dominant voice (magnified by your mother’s submission to him and her insistence that you will submit as well). Your father’s voice says, in the context of your family (using your words in the quote above, with minor adjustments): I know what is right and I am doing everything right, everything is going right. I am here to take care of you. I make the decisions. You must depend on me to do right by you, to take care of you and keep you very happy. You must submit, you must not have boundaries!

Your father’s dominant voice seemed to positively work out for your family: your mother and you were physically taken care of, and your father made some decisions that were right for the two of you. Fast forward, this guy, another man, shows up in your adult life, and you expect him (and he promises you) to do what is right, to make decisions for you, to take care of you and keep you very happy… for as long as you submit to his male superiority.

Only that unlike your father, he had his own personal agenda that was sexual.

Assuming that before marrying your mother, your father did not pursue her for sex, doing what is indeed right in the context of a traditional family, he should have taught you (directly or have your mother, or another dependable adult teach you) that there are men out there who will not do what is right. And that you should not submit to those men.

Your father made sure that you were defenseless (unable to form boundaries, and so, unable to protect yourself) in the context of his family, but he should have not sent you defenseless into the world.

What this means is that you really are entirely not responsible for what happened with this guy. Think of this imagery: two birds have a baby bird. Wanting the baby bird to stay in the nest where it is safe and where the bird is being fed and kept safe from predators, the parents take away the baby’s wings. The baby bird grows up and is sent into the world… isn’t it time to give her wings back, so that she can fly away from the predators out there???

The three question marks above express my anger and frustration at the impossible situation you were placed in. After all, your parents knew, as every adult knows, that there are men out there who are interested in pre-marital sex, men who will lie about their intent, make promises or for whatever other reasons, will not honor the traditional family value of not having pre-marital sex.

And now, back to your question: “How to detect abuse while its happening? Sometimes I am not able to distinguish between the small voice at the back of my head that says, ‘no this is wrong’ and… I am also scared of confrontation… of making them think I am ‘bad’” –

Back to the imagery, should the wingless bird blame herself for failing to fly away when approached by a predator?

It is time for you to clear yourself from blame that does not belong to you, to assign it to where it does belong, and to claim back your wings. Claiming back your wings means to be able to remove yourself from harmful people and situations and when that’s not possible, to confront people and situations.

It is time for you to do what I am successfully practicing every day: (1) lower the volume of that dominant voice and move it to the back of your head, (2) increase the volume of that small, independent voice of yours and move it from the back of your head to the center.

You wrote earlier: “I’ve also come to realise this about myself in other relationships that I have, professional or personal. I look to someone else to take decisions or do the right thing for me as opposed to me taking charge of my life” – your independence is about placing your independent voice in the center of your attention and making your own decisions for your benefit, as opposed to placing others’ voices in the center of your attention and submitting to them.

You wrote yesterday: “It’s like others can clearly see from my general attitude, behavior and talk that I am someone who can be taken advantage of or be bossed over. I guess I don’t know how to be assertive. What happens is when I try to be assertive, I try to be empathetic too and then it leads to blurring of my boundaries” – changing your general attitude and becoming assertive is a gradual process that must start small. Next time you come across an opportunity to assert yourself, be it as small as it may be, plan what to say and do beforehand, put it in writing, see that it’s right before you carry on your plan. If you need my help with it, let me know.

anita