Expectations

There's an expression you've probably heard before: "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water." This colloquialism must have been developed with abuse survivors in mind! Often times, we can be all-or-nothing kinds of people. That "either/or" thinking is sometimes responsible for doing terrible damage to your relationships, your work, and yourself!

Thinking or acting in "either/or" terms is a form of self-protection. Your life experiences taught you to expect betrayal. Expect broken trust. Expect a catastrophe. That's understandable. These expectations are not based on a fantasy, they're based on facts. You were betrayed. Trust was broken. Catastrophes pepper your personal history.

These facts, however, often become a template that you use to measure everything and everyone. A dilemma is created for you because you know how wretched it is to be exploited or hurt. These are lessons that you learned early in life and have possibly been reinforced as you aged. So you become like Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. You activate the force field around you and do everything possible to become impervious to these painful disappointments.

A hyper-vigilant tendency takes over. You're always on guard. Always on patrol. Always expecting things to fall apart, people to abandon you, or life to kick you down. Don't get me wrong. Life - on a good day - is challenging and overwhelming, but if the way you approach that reality is filtered through "either/or" thinking, you could set yourself up for a very difficult existence.

A friend forgets to call or write - you end the friendship. Your children don't quite live up to their potential - you only see their flaws. Your partner doesn't meet all your wants and needs - tenderness and joy leaves you. In fact, many abuse survivors have histories of many, many chaotic, dysfunctional relationships - leaving one person for another then another then another. Leaving one job for another, then another. Walking away from things or people that are important to you because that feels safer than remaining and navigating through the hard (and often uncomfortable) process of working and living together.

I want to clarify that I am not addressing abusive relationships or jobs or schools - you absolutely MUST put up a force field and reconfigure how you function if there's abuse going on. What I am pointing out, however, is that abuse survivors sometimes have a tendency to look at everything as all-or-nothing, either/or, yes/no, or black/white - when it's just not that way. The bathwater may need to be thrown out, the precious things contained in that water might be worth keeping and drying off.