Did you ever wonder why your relationships seem to end up the same way again and again? Why is it that the names and faces change - but it's really the same person packaged differently? Why do you draw people to you that always treat you the same way - no matter how good or bad things start out? Why are you drawn to those people? A lot of it has to do with poor self-image. The vast majority of abuse survivors think poorly of themselves. They think they have no value, that they're disposable, dirty, and deserving of mistreatment. Those are just a few of the lies that feel like truth - pressed deeply into your heart and mind by your abusers and the circumstances that surrounded the abuse. It was during your early developmental years that you discovered relationships are terrifying, and that is a lesson deeply ingrained in your psyche. As you moved from being a child into an adult, you most likely were unable to successfully make the role transition from dependent child to equal adult with your parents or caregivers.
Poor self-image cripples your autonomy and individuality, leaving you to expend a great deal of energy to hide that fact. Even if you exude confidence to the world, there's still a voice screaming inside "I don't belong . . . I can't do better than this . . . I'm damaged goods that have little value." These lies are where poor self-image comes from and it is an active ingredient in how you relate to other people - how you find them and they find you. How you treat them and how they treat you.
Poor self-image creates anxiety and uncertainty about how you see yourself. It is based on what YOU think that OTHERS think of YOU. If you could somehow broadcast the underpinning of your thinking as you walk down the street or sit in a restaurant or ride on the subway it would sound something like this: "He thinks I'm fat and ugly . . . she thinks I'm a threat . . . they think I shouldn't be here . . . if I just adjust this, they'll notice . . . if I say this, they won't like me . . ." and on and on it goes. It's very noisy inside your head as you go about the task of day-to-day living. So your first filter through which you see and are seen is your self-image and what you think others are thinking of you.
When you are in relationships, you have high hopes about what you can expect from them - but you also have great fear. In fact, that fear is so huge that you already expect disappointment and distrust. When you seek out relationships, you seek people that "seem" to fit your high hopes, but you do so with blinders AND with your OWN defensive cover-up in motion. This is because you seek people who will corroborate your fears of disappointment or mistrust - they will eventually confirm what you think about YOURSELF!
After a relationship wears on, the disguises dissolve and you are both left with frustration, disappointment, anger, and the realization that the OTHER is not as strong or kind or wonderful as you had hoped. This is because poor self-image prevents you from being honest in the EARLY stages of a relationship. You cannot and will not risk exposing your beliefs about yourself - your beliefs that you are NOTHING. Another variation on this same disguise is that you believe YOU are the one who can make your partner believe he/she IS something. This eventually drives your relationships into a perpetual guessing game.
With poor self-image, it is difficult to communicate because your ability to negotiate is minimal. At first, because of the insecurity and dishonesty, you develop relationships in which you believe you should be fused together, rather than function as independent individuals. You enter relationships to GET - to find qualities in others that you lack OR find qualities that are actually an extension of yourself and your self-image.
Your relationships quickly dissolve into power struggles - with a winner and a looser, rather than a partnership of individuals who respect each other's strengths and are sensitive to each other's weaknesses. Your relationship may most often be characterized by the "it's me OR you!" mentality - which is extremely dysfunctional and immature. Functional and maturing relationships are most often characterized by the "it's me AND you!" foundation of equal partnership with ample give-and-take as its bedrock.
The poor self-image disguise can cause you to communicate in a covert way. The more covert the communications, the more dysfunctional the relationship is. When unacknowledged, ignored problems are finally exposed, then the myth of happily-ever-after explodes.
At the core of how you draw or are drawn to people is a self-image built around false beliefs, desperately wondering if you are loved or wanted. As long as your facade is firmly in place, your communications will remain covert, you will live your life based on what you think others think about you, and your expectations will be a toxic mixture of unrealistic expectations and paralyzing fear.
Good relationships - functional relationships - are built on YOU loving yourself, first. No one is going to love you enough to make you feel good about yourself. No one is going to give you all that you need to make the past okay. If you think poorly of yourself - because the lies feels like the truth - then the most perfect child, partner, friend or colleague will never be able to convince you that you're wanted. You will place expectations on them that no one can fill and will set out to prove that they can and will fail you.
Your healing journey can expose lies which will be replaced by truth - truth that you have value, that you deserve respect and dignity, and that you can form collaborative, mature partnerships with people. As those truths occupy more and more of your interior thoughts and exterior actions, you will discover you have the ability to embrace functional relationships. You'll not be afraid to have personal boundaries. You'll not be a score keeper. You'll not discard yourself or others. You'll not lose yourself trying to fill a need that no mere mortal can completely fill - and subsequently - you'll be drawn to others who confirm your beliefs and respect you.
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