Self-Esteem In DV Relationships
PERCEPTIONS AND REFLECTIONS
The relationships we foster in our lives should prove to be supportive, loving and mutually beneficial in that, as a team, we help each other thrive and survive in the world.
However, in the fog of abusive, defunct or otherwise dysfunctional pairings, or when our intimate relations prove unhealthy for us, it isn’t only imperative that we seek to disentangle ourselves from them, but likewise that we introspectively reflect on our own behaviors and the deeply held beliefs that we may hold about ourselves that might require revising, so that we don’t procure the same attributes of dysfunctionality in other relationships.
One of the key tenets of healing the fragile vestiges within ourselves that might prove as a vulnerability when dealing with narcissistic or otherwise exploitative people, involves assessing how well we communicate and enforce both our boundaries and needs. This helps us maintain the line of demarcation with regards to the behaviors from others that we are going to allow and likewise disallow in our interactions with them.
How well we regard and value ourselves as human beings, sets the stage for every other relationship we engage in, both intimate and platonic friendships alike.
Healthy levels of Self-esteem or self-definition not only help us to develop and foster the interdependent affirmative relationships with others that help support both our individual and collective aim of cultivating the very best of who we are, but when we hold high regard for ourselves, we typically shun and disconnect from those things and people that are adversarial to our sense of well-being in the world.
The good news is that even if we haven’t developed the tools to foster the types of affirmative relationships that help us in our survival efforts, we can always develop them as we learn new ways of socializing to strengthen our resolve in building healthy relationships for ourselves. Those that will nourish and love us in ways that help us self actualize.
BREAKING PATTERNS
In navigating away from Domestic Violence and narcissistic relationships to foster supportive and healthy ones, there is certainly work to be done in building the characteristics necessary to shun those who prove detrimental to our well-being, so that we give ourselves the chance to congregate with and build communities of relations that are good for us and that mean us well.
Thing is, most human behavior is known to be habitual, and we develop standardized behavioral patterns largely based on several factors. Namely:
Familial And Historical Behavioral Patterns
The families we are born into shape our early developmental idiosyncrasies. We learn what definitive baseline socializations and relationship structural standards of behavior are. We likewise learn what it means to develop the affirmative tenets of love and care within our close and intimate partner relationships.
When our familial relationships affirm and nurture our humanness without condition and encompass the tenets of respect for each other’s boundaries, healthy communication and protection and care, we learn that those close to us provide safe vestiges where we can expect to receive the loving care and dependability from them to thrive and survive in the world.
Likewise, if we come from dysfunctional family structures, where the definitions of concepts such as love and care or intimacy have been skewed with the tenets of betrayal, violence, and disrespect or apathy for each other, this becomes our love language, a truth for most victims and perpetrators of Domestic Violence alike.
Socializations And Interactions With Others
As we age and develop relationships independent from familial structures, we are more than likely to seek out the FAMILIARity of those similar in fashion to those of our early childhood developmental stage.
Imbued with the tenets of healthy familial attributes, we tend to foster affirmative relationships with others.
However, when we learn that the people in our world can’t be trusted, or that it’s normal for our loved ones to hurt us. We also learn that disrespect, hitting or screaming and other types of malevolent or abusive behavior is normal. So those relationships that we enter in our adult lives typically mimic these behaviors as they are normalized.
Limiting Beliefs And Negative Self-Perceptions
Our View Relative To How We Integrate With Our Environs And Stimuli
How we see ourselves in the world relative to those around us is so important, in that it is the gateway to how we respond to everyone and everything around us.
If we believe in our ability to develop healthy or affirmative relationships, then we respond to others with the gall of audacity and self-respect necessary to connect with the people, places and things that will support our deepest desires to engage in the benevolent things that support our wellness in the world.
Likewise, if our deeply held beliefs are contradictory to an aim of self-preservation, or tied to dysfunction, then we have a higher proclivity to interact with the world around us and function in dysfunctional ways that might prove self-destructive.
WHO AM I
Most Domestic Violence and Intimate Partner Dysfunctional Relationships are shroud in unhealthy behavioral patterns that, like a moth to a flame, have the tendency to repeat themselves in a cyclical manner until such patterns are broken. Good thing is, we can always unlearn both the unhealthy ways most of us have adopted to survive within toxic or abusive relationships, and likewise those deeply held beliefs most survivors hold, that we are somehow unworthy of the good natured, nurturing and healthy relationships that help us maintain our wellbeing in the world.
Likewise, in uncovering the vestiges of our deeply held convictions that contribute to unhealthy behavior traits, we allow ourselves the chance to discover those ways that aren’t necessarily healthy for us, so that we can learn new ways to commune, socialize, and relate to others, both in our intimate and platonic relationships alike.
Further, as we start our journey of healing and self-discovery journey from victim to victor, we endow ourselves with the self-defining attributes necessary to live in our authenticity, without the strain of dysfunctional people and relationships, so as to rediscover who we are, and likewise who and what we aren’t.
SELF LOVE IS THE BEST LOVE
They say we accept and invite socializations at the level of our self-esteem, and with an urgence of conviction, I must agree.
When we believe ourselves deserving of healthy socializations, we typically behave in ways that foster these types of relationships. Likewise, in freeing ourselves from volatile or otherwise unhealthy people and circumstances, to allow an influx of healthy ones in their place, we allow ourselves the chance to be well yoked with those who share our values, instead of the tug of war scenarios that occur within most volatile relations.
As we strengthen our resolve in making way for healthy relationships, we develop those affirmative attributes that, both keep us from harm and likewise, allow us to congregate with people of virtue and value opposed to dysfunction.
We honor ourselves when we speak and behave in authentic ways that allow for the integrity of our relationships to be built on the foundations of trust and mutual benevolence. And while learning new ways to socialize can be difficult, it certainly isn’t impossible. Like all things, it is a process that should be nurtured with brevity and consistency.
Healthy relationships are possible and of all the folks in this world, there are tribes of them who hold the same values and attributes as you do. May you have the courage to let go of those who don’t, so that you can soar with those who do.