Meaning and Reality

You are a unique person and your perspective about things is as valid as anyone else’s. Others will try to force their interpretion of things upon you, but you are a sovereign individual.

People have their own belief systems and their own agenda. Being sleep deprived, and tired from the daily struggle to survive can take its toll on your will power.

When your will power is depleted, it is easier for people to persuade you towards their interpretations. Even the media, and society can influence us to go against our true feelings about what we see and hear.

You can pretend to have a “hold button”  like one you would find on an office telephone. Deciding what meaning to attach to things can wait until your will power is higher.

Low blood sugar and sleep deprivation are two main things that can keep you from thinking clearly. Feelings in the body are always telling you something. Intuition is felt in the body. Bad feelings about something are felt in a physical way.

Things like being tired , stressed and uncomfortable are likely to interfere with your ability to feel your true feelings about something. This is why sleep deprivation and withholding food are common tactics of brainwashers like cult leaders.

Don’t allow others to form your feelings and thoughts. Put things on hold, by pressing your hold button. Wait until a bet time, when you can be introspective, to create your personal meanings for things that occur.

All things are not as they seem, and they often are not what others present to you. Truth and meaning can become convoluted.

Believe in yourself, and your higher consciousness to guide you. Rest, eat, and think for yourself. The meanings and perspective of your personal reality are yours, and should support your mental , physical , emotional, and spiritual well being.

Namaste,

Annie💕

Believe in Yourself

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Emotophobia and Being Manipulated by Others

Emotophobia is the fear of unpleasant emotions, not to be confused with emetophobia, the fear of vomiting.

There is little online about emotophobia.

The few articles I found offered the suggestion to “stop treating negative emotions as if they are your enemies and can harm you.”

This is somewhat condescending and implies that emotions themselves cannot harm you.

The person offering this advice clearly has never been in a situation where showing negative emotions could harm them.

So, they think it is rather ridiculous that someone would associate their negative emotions with danger.

The problem with this thinking is that there are situations where someone’s emotions can cause them harm.

This advise shows a complete misunderstanding of emotophobia and its root causes.

People with emotophobia are not “treating” emotions as if they are the enemy.

For people that have emotophobia, emotions were the enemy and they were followed by consequences.

People that grew up in mentally abusive childhoods were not permitted to have emotions like other people are.

The expression of emotion, which represents being an individual, is often punished by abusive parents.

Even children who were not physically abused, could have had their right to individual ideas and feelings violated.

Narcissistic parents and other overbearing, maniplulative parents do not want their children to develop independent thoughts and ideas.

They do not want their children thinking in terms of their own needs at all. When their children expressed feelings, the parents retaliated.

Punishments from the silent treatment to aggressive verbal abuse of the child are used.

Physical consequences may also follow as a matter of course, when a child showed anything resembling disobedience, including not feeling what they were told to feel.

These mentally abusive parents, want the focus on themselves and their needs. They demand for the child to cater to their ever changing desires and demands.

In order to survive in this type of environment, the child must learn to constantly read the parent’s body language and tone of voice.

They must anticipate the desires and moods of the parent. If they fail to do so, it is met with negative consequences.

If the child expresses disagreement, or unhappiness with the parent, they will likely invoke the anger and wrath of the parent.

Even a facial expression of disagreement with the parent can bring out their anger.

For their own protection, these children and teenagers learn to disguise their feelings and push them down.

They do not want the parent to see their feelings because it will be used against them.

If you grew up in this type of environment, then feeling negative emotions was the enemy. It is not something we have suddenly developed an irrational fear of as adults.

This environment causes C-PTSD, which is Complex Post Traumatic Stess Disorder, in many people. This is carried over into adulthood.

So, the advice to “stop treating emotions as if they were the enemy” and to tell people that feeling emotions is safe, does not make sense to someone with C-PTSD from childhood mental abuse.

Adults can also develop emotophobia from ongoing abusive relationships with a partner. Women become afraid to disagree with their partner because they fear his anger.

Abusive people do not tolerate independence from their partner. When the partner asserts the fact that they are an individual person, it is met with extreme resistance or anger from the narcissist.

Again, the brain rewires the neural connections to avoid showing negative feelings. This is a necessary survival tactic at the time.

It is not easily undone. The brain considers it necessary in order to protect the safety of the person.

It takes years to develop this survival tactic and to detach from and avoid negative emotions. The brain becomes wired to discourage entering into situations that may cause negative emotions.

To undo what was a learned survival skill takes a lot of work in re-wiring the brain.

Telling someone “emotions are your friends” does not work, especially without any idea why the person feels such anxiety about emotions like anger and sadness.

 

 

The problem with emotophobia is that having it makes you easier for people to manipulate. People that want their way all the time, can use emotional manipulation to make you want to comply, rather than experiencing the pain of the emotophobia symptoms. 

Realizing that you allow people to have their way, in order to avoid upsetting them is the first step to healing. Then you can understand that people get upset sometimes and unless you are in danger from them in some way, you can endure the feelings you will go through when they react to you. 

You can begin to recognize when someone is trying to emotionally manipulate you. They will not take no for an answer. They use shame and guilt to get you to do things. Another sign is that their reactions to things will be far out of proportion to the “slight” they should be perceiving. 

You have just as much of a right to your boundaries as anyone else does. People should not get their way just because they play on your fear of upsetting them. 

**for information about coaching, hypnosis, and NLP for people with C-PTSD and emotophobia see my web site HERE or follow the gentlekindness facebook page HERE

Saying NO to Emotional Manipulators

image from Pinterest link HERE

Saying “no” to people comes very easily to some and is nearly impossible for others.

I have found that many people with  C-PTSD have trouble saying no.  If you were brought up in a mentally or otherwise abusive childhood, saying “NO,” may be associated with severe consequences to you.

If you lived with a parent that had narcissistic personality disorder or borderline personality disorder, then they probably used confusion tactics on you, to the point where there was “no” way to say no to them.

Gaslighting can confuse our ability to trust ourselves and our perceptions.

It may be difficult to tell what situations that “NO,” would be perfectly okay, and what situations where saying no, would really cause a problem.

If you grew up in an environment where your feelings and thoughts were not considered relevant, then you probably feel that your feeling of wanting to say no, just does not count. Even though the same person may say “No” to you all the time, you do not feel that you have the same right to say no, that they do.

If you were even in an abusive situation where disobeying meant punishment , then you probably have a fear of retaliation from others.  There is an anxiety response triggered by saying no and  refusing to comply with another person’s request.

THE ACT OF SAYING NO, CAN TRIGGER A VERY UNCOMFORTABLE PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSE. IN ORDER TO AVOID FEELING  SEVERELY UNCOMFORTABLE, WE JUST SAY “YES” WHEN WE REALLY WANT TO SAY “NO.”

Triggers are very real and the tendency is to want to avoid feeling the bodily sensations  associated with them. Ignoring triggers and going against our conditioned responses, is a very difficult thing to do.

IT IS PERFECTLY NORMAL AND ACCEPTABLE FOR YOU TO SAY “NO” TO PEOPLE WHEN THEY ARE ASKING YOU TO DO SOMETHING THAT YOU DO NOT WANT TO DO OR SOMETHING WHICH CROSSES YOUR BOUNDARIES.

You are allowed to set personal boundaries for yourself. You can also set boundaries for certain people that you do not want crossed.

You can set boundaries in regards to your emotions, your time, your energy, your work and your social interactions. You can set boundaries in regards to dating, doing work for people and doing favors for people.

You can set boundaries about your personal space and your personal items. 

 Any situation where someone is trying to get you to do something by using your emotions against you, is a situation where your boundaries need to come into play.  

Sometimes people do not accept your simple NO or your reasons for saying NO. They try to convince you be making you feel guilty or by shaming you. 

They are trying to use your good and caring personality against you.

image from mylovestory.me and Pinterest

They want you to feel bad and they do this by intentionally pushing whatever buttons they know you have. If they know that you want to feel like you are cooperative they will call you uncooperative.

If they know that you have helped them many times in the past, they will lie and tell you that they do not remember the last time you did them any favors.

Don’t fall for these manipulative behaviors. If someone feels the need to make you feel guilty in order to do them a favor, then they really do not deserve the favor.

People should accept No, especially if you have perfectly good reasons for saying no, even if the reason is that you just do not feel comfortable doing it or do not want to do it.

Here is a list of ways to say NO…

No.

No, thank you.

No, I really cannot do that.

No, I do not want to do that.

No, I am not interested in that.

No, I cannot find time in my schedule to do that.

 No, I am just too overloaded right now, to do that.

No, I am not interested in doing that.  

No, you go ahead without me.

No, please ask someone else.

No, I do not have to think about it.  I would rather tell you NO right now.

I said no. Please respect my answer

If you have a history with this person that tells you that they will counter any reasons you give them for saying No, then you can try something like this..

“In the past my giving reasons for my No, seems to have just been an opening for someone to tell me the reasons are not good enough or to dispute my reasons in some way. So this time I am going to say simply No without going over my reasons with you. “

If they refuse to accept your “no”, then you still do not have to do what they want just to make them stop complaining.

 Just because they are going to upset that you told them “no”,  does not mean that you are responsible for their feelings. As long as you were not intentionally trying to hurt their feelings, then you did not cause for them to feel bad.

If someone  is an adult then they are responsible for their own feelings. Much of the time, manipulative people are acting when they get dramatic with you. They can be very dramatic about how disappointed they are in you or about how selfish they think you are.

These are more reasons not to tell them  “yes”  every time they demand something from you. The more times they are able to manipulate you, the more they will resort to the same tactics over and over again. 

**Please note that this article is not talking about partner relationships where the person will physically abuse you or will otherwise punish you for saying no. Those relationships are volatile and should be escaped as soon as possible but I never recommend to ignite retaliation in a severely abusive person.

It is designed more for situations where you are in no immediate danger  or impending danger.

This article is also not a recommendation to tell your boss no to doing work, thus risking your job. If your boss is abusive it is a different topic and must be handled with a different strategy that is not discussed in this post.

Setting Boundaries with Manipulative People

1. Other people do not get to decide what upsets you and what does not.
2. Other people have no frame of reference about your life, to be able to decide if you are being “too sensitive” or “hyper sensitive” . No…they just don’t get to!
3. Shaming someone is not love or support in any way, no matter how they attempt to twist things around to convince you. No shaming! Don’t accept it!
4. People do not have the right to tell you how to perceive reality or to question you perception of reality. No they don’t! Just say NO !
5. You are completely entitled to your feelings and to feel hurt when someone is….. mean, disrespectful, inconsiderate, selfish, sarcastic, deceitful, dishonest, disappointing, exploitative, condescending or minimizing to your reality. (image from Pinterest link HERE)
6. Someone insisting you perceive things the way they tell you to all the time is gaslighting you.
7. You have the right to a conversation with a loved one about abusive or hurtful behavior. You are not being abusive to them when you point out behavior that hurts you and express your feelings about that behavior!!!
8. Conversations about your feelings that always turn around somehow to be about their feelings, is a red flag of narcissistic abuse.
9. No demeaning behavior, embarrassing you, disrespectful behavior or condescending attitudes have to be tolerated. It does not prove that you love them…it is just evidence that you have been desensitized to that kind of treatment.
10. Excuses for their behavior that make you the cause of it, are UNACCEPTABE !

 

*PLEASE NOTE **If you are in an abusive relationship with someone that you fear may become violent, then please do not provoke them ! …. Get help, and carefully plan your escape from them. …..Do not risk violence to yourself or your children….. Pathological people can suddenly become much more violent when confronted by a partner. 

Is Your Partner Abusive?

image from the back of a pamphlet displayed on facebook

Please know that the behaviors on this list are not normal. If your partner is displaying any combination of these behaviors you need to get out. It is not always easy, but you can get advice and help from local sources like a women’s shelter. your primary care doctor, social services organizations and your police. 

Abusers become more abusive with time. The abuse always escalates. Be safe and leave in a way that does not anger them. Do not confront them. Remove important documents from your home and keep them in a safe place, along with other necessities. You can leave them at a house of someone you trust. 

Take every safety precaution that the women’s shelter tells you to. You do not have to stay with an abuser. You do not deserve the abuse. It is a lie they tell you, to make you put up with it.

Visit my web site for more information and healing methods – gentlekindnesscoaching.com  

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Feeling Safe and Deflecting Shame from Others

The people that try to make you feel guilt or shame over not doing what they want you to do, are just serving their own agenda.

If they continue to try to emotionally manipulate you, they have no concern for your reality. They do not respect your right to see things from your own point of view.

People will claim to know what you should start doing…or stop doing..that will make you a better person. But take a closer look and see that they are trying to get you to fit into their own agenda.

You do not have to change your core beliefs to make someone else’s reality more comfortable. They are clearly not changing their beliefs to suit you.

If you are not trying to guilt and shame them, then what right do they have to do it to you. What gives one person, or one group of people, exclusive rights to know everything that everyone “should” and “should not” be doing?

Shaming people is not loving. Any group or individual that is making you feel bad about yourself, or trying to make you question your own truth to support theirs, is more concerned with serving their own agenda than wanting you to be your authentic self.

People that claim to care about your best interest, but try to shame and guilt you into changing for them, do not have your best interest at heart….but they have their own best interest at heart.

So let them continue to follow their own path and do what they feel best supports them…..while you follow your own path and do what best supports you.

Why is it okay for them to want an environment they feel safe and supported in….but you are selfish because you also want to feel safe and supported?

It Was Just the Caress of the Breeze

image from Pinterest credit here

I felt the gentle caress of

your hand against my cheek

And then I realized

it was just the playful breeze…

I heard the familiar sound

of your voice in my head

But then I realized…

You were miles away and

I no longer had to

  listen to you lie

image from Pinerest credit here 

Depression Related to Childhood Mental Abuse

Depression can feel like some outer dark force is trying to destroy you. People with severe depression have differences in MRI scans than other people. But even though it shows up as a physiological illness, it often feels like something else.

It can feel as though your mind is being darkened by an outside, malevolent  force. Many people with severe depression have experienced mental abuse, even if it was acvompanied by other manifestations of abuse.

Mental abuse is an intentional manipulation of another person’s mind and perceptions of reality. It is an interferance with a person’s perception of themselves, their identity, and even their mental state.

People can be abused for years and never know it was abuse, because they were too young to understand, or the abuser caused a “shared psychosis” that made them perceive the abuse as something else.

Depression can feel like a malevolent force trying to manipulate and destroy you. This can be a result of past abuse that is still affecting the brain. When someone’s core reality, and identity is interfered with it does not just go away, once the abuser is no longer around to continue the abuse.

Adults who are mentally abusee by a partner can have PTSD for months or even years after the abuser has left. The abuser does this intentionally. They want control over the victim to last long after they are gone.

They engineer this in order to maintain a hold over the victim after they are gone. There are a few reasons for this, including reserving the victim on the back burner in case the abuser decides to hoover you back into their luves again, later on.

It also gives the narcissist a feeling of grandios power to have such a hold  over another human being. It makes them feel godlike.

Not all people with depression were abused, but many of them were and are not attributing it to the abuse.

But this sensation that the depression is sufgocating a darkness around you from the outside, could possibly be a clue that there was some severe manipulation to your mind, by a narcissist or a psychopathic narcissist that you do not remember.