Life As You Make It

Gaining the confidence and skills to discourage predators

I realized something interesting today and something that should help me avoid being disappointed in the future. Many of us trust certain groups of people simply because of what we expect from them instead of what we know them to be. For example, we naturally trust that teachers, pastors, mothers, therapists, nurses, and others like that are going to be good, safe people that we can trust. And quite often they are, but sometimes they are not. In fact, sometimes terrible predators will join those groups or careers specifically to get access to people who will blindly trust them. Those people are very dangerous!

In my life, I was raised in a so-called Christian home. It was pretty abusive, but I was still raised to believe that “Christian” was synonymous with good. I attended church from time to time and I went to Christian schools for a while. I did indeed meet some good people–including a friend I’ve had for over 25 years! But, I also met a lot of jerks and snobs and bullies–including my abusive mother who would threaten to kill me and beat me, but looked so wonderful teaching Sunday School at church. I should know darn well that not all Christians are good people, but I still have this naive hope in my mind that they are safe. I want them to be. I want to feel like I can turn to people. Much in the same way, I wanted to believe my mother could be a loving mother despite all proof that she wasn’t.

Sometimes we get so caught up believing what we want to be true, that we miss the reality that it isn’t true at all. And so, for years, when I have needed support in my life, I have turned to Christians or Christian support groups. I have been sorely disappointed every single time. I keep finding people with no empathy, people who are self-righteous and people who are judgmental. Why do I keep trying? Because I have this idea/hope in my head that a Christian group should be a place of safety. And that naive belief misleads me.

Now some of the best friends I have are Christians, and they are the type I expect to find, but some of the nastiest people I’ve met are also self-proclaimed Christians. I don’t blame the religion or God. I blame the meanies who join the religion! But I need to learn the lesson that even disappointingly cruel people can end up in positions of people we/I have assumed are trustworthy. Since I have a history of being a doormat, I need to remember that just because someone carries a label that I trust doesn’t mean that person is trustworthy. Today I had a good reminder that I still need to watch and wait to really know what kind of person I’m dealing with, because actions speak louder than words.

The best route with a bully is escape!

I have a narcissistic mother who has absolutely zero respect for boundaries or my choices for my life. She runs right over them. If I try to resist, she pushes harder, and sometimes becomes enraged or even violent because she’s not getting her way. In early 2013, she had an especially bad episode that involved her triangulating with her sister and stirring up trouble until her sister, (who is emotionally unstable,) was beating on my door screaming that she was going to hurt me after my mom riled her up and told her to come to my home. I hadn’t even talked with her sister, but my mother had created a fight with lies and gossip. Again. When my aunt arrived, I asked my mom not to open the door because I could hear her sister going insane. My mom pushed me out of the way to let my aunt in and my aunt started trying to physically attack me.

I go to therapy to try to cope with my mother’s behavior because she enjoys creating drama and crazy-making. When I talked to my therapist, she told me I shouldn’t have resisted. Huh? That threw me off. I asked her why should I put up with my mom picking fights and inviting people into my home against my wishes? She pointed out that if I had just said “yes” because I knew my mom was going to do what she wanted to do anyway, I could have smiled and nodded, let these two wackos do their thing, then nicely ushered them from the home after playing along. I said to her, why should I have to do this? Shouldn’t they just respect my wishes in the first place and leave me alone? She agreed that I shouldn’t have to parent these two, but that’s the way it was. Yesterday, I woke up and really understood what she meant by not resisting. Obviously, my situation could have been worse, but it hit me: following the advice to “resist” would have saved me a lot of hassle and retaliation. Because I tried to stand up for myself, I went through a lot of crap from those two in the following days. I finally understand the point of not resisting. When people are trying to control you, despite the injustice of it, you sometimes have to play along to avoid their rage and escalated behavior.

It reminds me of the “turn the other cheek” verse in the Bible. That verse used to annoy me! Why should I let someone abuse me and then invite more abuse?! Shouldn’t the bully be held accountable? Well, in a perfect world, yes. But, abusive and bullying people do not want to be held accountable, nor do they feel sorry. If you try to hold them accountable or try to stand your ground in the heat of their moment, they will make you pay for it. I also discovered this when dealing with an abusive husband. When he was determined to rage and scream and attack me, if I tried to plead with him and defend myself, he got more mad. I finally learned to diffuse and escape when it was safe. If I’d gotten in his face and acted the way he did, he probably would have killed me. Sometimes pride isn’t worth it. You can achieve more peace in the long run by not playing their games. Let them get their crazy behavior out of their systems, then get out when the coast is clear. But here’s the important part: once someone has revealed themselves to be that kind of person, never, ever let them come back for another chance to attack! You can still be strong and maintain the boundary to keep them from returning, but you have to keep yourself safe until you can get away from them.