Life After Prison, Part 1: Confusion
The world is a disorienting place for people after they emerge from abusive relationships. For years, they've been lied to and manipulated, cut off from all meaningful, healthy social connections and forced to cater to the demands and unpredictable moods of their abuser. By doing this, abusers masterfully throw their victims off balance; they systematically trample on each elemental happiness, causing instability in every aspect of their victims’ lives.
The details of the abuse victims suffer vary widely, as do the individual circumstances of their escape. But no matter what each person’s specific experiences were, they will go through a common set of emotions that are typical for all survivors of abuse. In order to regain balance in the elements of their lives, survivors have to learn how to have healthy relationships not only with others, but also with themselves.
The struggle to acclimate to a life without abuse is real. Much like the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), people who escape the prison of abuse also go through a set of emotional stages on their way to stepping into their power: confusion, pain, fear, isolation, and anger. Grappling with these emotions is not a linear process; the road to normalcy can be long and windy, filled with fits and starts, but it can be helpful for those going through the process to know what they might face, and that they’re not the only ones.
But before we go on, we must make sure that we’re all on the same page: someone who survives abuse is allowed to feel however they feel. Of course we want to cheer them on and encourage them as they get out of a horrible situation, but most victims of abuse don’t emerge feeling victorious, or grateful, or just happy to be alive, as some might expect. “You should feel so lucky to have gotten out of there!” might seem like a reasonable sentiment, but the last thing a victim of abuse feels like is lucky. So we’d like to establish this ground rule:
A survivor of abuse gets to feel however they feel at any time. Full stop.
Actually, this is true for everyone! But it’s particularly important to keep at the top of mind when talking about emerging from an abusive relationship. In our “Life After Prison” series, we shed light on some of the more difficult or unexpected emotional ground survivors of abuse are likely to traverse on their road to a better life.
Confusion
I don’t know who I am.
When survivors emerge from abusive situations, it's not that they’ve lost a part of themselves, it’s that they haven’t had the opportunity to access who they are.
Abusers have a way of hijacking your life and making it all about them and what they want. Abusive parents try to control their children by molding them into an image of a child that reflects well on the parents, not what allows the child to be fully actualized. Abusive partners want someone who will be completely at their disposal, hopping to attention to meet their own needs and desires rather than allowing their partner the freedom to set their own goals. Abusive employers want you to keep doing the job you already reliably do for them, or fill the gaps they need filled, rather than allowing you to direct your own career and professional development.
It is not a character failure that survivors of abuse don’t know who they are, it is a direct consequence of abuse: the abuser has not allowed them to develop their abilities or even to be aware of them. People who come out of abuse don’t know how they fit into the world because they can’t define themselves anymore as dutiful child, supportive partner, or worker bee.
How do you discover who you are if abusers have actively blocked you from discovering your true self?
The first thing to do is actually to do nothing; take a beat. Yes, it’s exciting to finally break free from the abuser, but everyone has a natural tendency to gravitate towards the familiar. And when what’s familiar is abuse, well, that can land survivors right back in a ditch again. This is why children of alcoholics often end up with alcoholic spouses, or people end up dating someone just like the horrible ex they just broke up with: same abuse, different packaging. By pausing and letting survivors adjust to life without abusive forces pressuring them, they can finally decompress before seeking their own path.
(Funny-not-funny)
Imagine our sense of self as being a membrane that defines us, kind of like our skin. When an abuser punctures this membrane by violating our boundaries, our energy bleeds out of us. If the violation is only a small infraction, then we can heal. But abuse is often like death by a thousand cuts, and all of a sudden you don’t recognize yourself anymore, nor do you have the energy to defend yourself against yet another cut.
Regaining our sense of self is a healing process of repairing where our boundaries have been violated. When we allow ourselves to be surrounded by people who accept us for who we are, and who do not define us by our injuries, we start to see ourselves reflected in the decency and humanity with which they treat us. Compassionate people will not impose their ideas of who we should be on us. By seeing past the damage and treating us with unconditional acceptance, they create an environment in which we can discover who we truly are.
I don’t know how proper social interactions work.
Abuse is not normal. Let me say it again, because it bears repeating: Abuse is not normal. When someone is immersed in an abusive environment, they do whatever they need to do to survive, which constantly leaves them in fight, flee, freeze, or fawn mode because they feel threatened (fawning is mostly how victims respond to their long-term abusers).
Living in survival mode makes people hyper-vigilant and afraid of the possible dangers that lurk around them. They are constantly on guard even when they engage with non-abusive people. This attitude becomes a major stumbling block because others do not understand why they are so cagey, even in neutral, non-threatening environments; they come off as strange (at best) or mistrustful (at worst) to the people around them.
I’ve exhibited my share of behavioral oddities at work that came from surviving in a hostile environment: I was so used to navigating around the rules and social norms of an abusive workplace that when I then went to work at a “regular” company, my hyper-vigilant behavior was perplexing to my bosses and my peers.
“What do you mean, we’re all going out to a birthday lunch?” I asked the other analysts. “We can’t leave until we’re done with what our boss asked for! Maybe we should push the lunch off until next week.” (Who enjoys celebrating their birthday a week late???) “You took a sick day and didn’t log in from home and keep working? And your manager didn’t get mad at you? But now your timeline is shot….” “You told the Vice President that what they wanted couldn’t be done????” The audacity!
While the productivity that resulted from my extreme “conscientiousness” at work was appreciated by my new managers, even they found my reactions troubling. I remember one manager asking me for a meeting, then immediately saying, “No, you’re not in any kind of trouble!” after they saw the look on my face.
If you react to normal people like you would towards an abuser, you come off, well, like you’re unwell. Others sense that something is off because they don’t understand the actions and reactions of someone who has been abused and is therefore perpetually defensive. Luckily, I paid attention to my peers and started to internalize the non-abusive operating norms of my environment, so I learned not to be so defensive and scared. This allowed me to fit in more seamlessly into a healthy workplace (eventually).
Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen for everyone.
I can’t find common ground or harmony with the people around me, they live according to different rules.
I knew a brilliant programmer who was such a technical genius, he easily solved problems that entire teams took cracks at for weeks without making any progress. He rose through the ranks at his company quickly, until he just… stopped. Then the people who worked for him began to be promoted over him, and he didn’t understand why. His clients valued his work and would request him by name, but he never got promoted to the more prominent leadership roles that he aspired to; he was seen as a lone wolf.
His lone wolf syndrome was inherited from his equally genius father who taught him not to trust anyone or they would take advantage of him and take credit for his work; collaboration was out of the question. His father learned this as an immigrant in the 1960s while working as an engineer for the government, when racial discrimination in the workplace was far more rampant. Instead of recognizing his circumstances as abusive, and rather than see himself as a victim, he normalized his experiences and chose to believe this is just how the world worked for “people like him” (though not for everyone).
Most victims do not want to admit that they are suffering injustice because, if they do, in their mind, they’re admitting that they are weak, that they are being taken advantage of, and they can’t do anything about it. So instead they buy into the abuser’s lie that this is normal and will never change. The abuser will never acknowledge that they are violent and what they’re doing is wrong. Only after the victim is able to acknowledge that they have been mistreated can they gain consciousness and begin to adopt a more constructive way of engaging with the people around them.
Overcoming Confusion
Clearing up the cloud of confusion that surrounds victims of abuse takes time. It takes time to decompress from the form your abuser squeezed you into, and time to heal from the wounds you suffered; time to learn the rules of engagement in non-abusive environments, and time to learn who you are.
While many people assume that healing has to happen in solitude, you will find that healing comes much more quickly and easily when you are surrounded by compassionate people, people who do not tolerate abuse and who participate in healthy Care Cycles. These people serve as models of what normal, non-abusive interactions are like, and reflect back to you your true self. Slowly and gently, your perception of reality will become clearer as you acclimate to an environment without abuse.
In Part 2 of our Life After Prison series, learn about the pain that survivors of abuse must grapple with, even after they’ve left their abuser.
