Emotional abuse, manipulative communication, and lies and deception are so prevalent in the world today that it’s almost impossible to go through life without meeting at least ten people that are capable of making you into their victim.
You do not have to fall prey to someone else’s bad behavior and should not be subject to toxic communication without first arming yourself with knowledge.
This show is about helping you identify the poisonous behavior of people that don’t have your best interest in mind. Learn to spot bad behavior so that you can make healthy decisions about the relationships in your life.
Love and Abuse is the official podcast of The M.E.A.N. Workbook: An Assessment and Healing Guide to Difficult Relationships.
Transcript Follows.
Welcome to the very first episode of Love and Abuse. This episode is all about introducing you to the concept behind the show and what to expect going forward. I want you to be able to get the most information you possibly can about how your world works, the people in it and how they treat you, and to learn just what is healthy treatment.
This show will teach you healthy communication. It’s not necessarily about how you treat others (you’re going to learn a lot about how you treat others), it’s really about how they treat you.
Once you learn how someone treats you, especially when they treat you in a way that deceives you or makes you feel bad or guilty, or when they make you feel responsible for the problems they’re creating… That kind of behavior needs to be highlighted for you. It needs to be addressed so that you understand what’s going on and don’t fall victim to toxic behavior or any type of manipulation, lies, deception, or emotional abuse.
If you go through the assessment in the workbook, you’ll start to understand what behaviors and communication you’re being exposed to in a relationship that are unhealthy and destructive.
This introductory show is just to familiarize you with what’s to come. My plan is to define all the terms of unhealthy communication, of toxic communication, so that you are able to identify it when it happens to you.
I get emails and letters all the time from my other show The Overwhelmed Brain where people write into me and ask me about relationship issues all the time. And, I hate to say it, most of the emails I receive are about emotional abuse. It is so prevalent in our world today.
At the same time, it’s so unknown to so many. It’s also hard to define. And it’s especially hard to pinpoint in relationships.
Love and Abuse is not only about emotional abuse, it is about all forms of abuse of our language and behavior that causes people to feel bad. That doesn’t mean when someone comes along and calls you a jerk. We’ll cover that in some way, shape, or form too. But emotional abuse and toxic behavior isn’t always that simple. And it’s not usually obvious.
Most of the emotional abuse issues I hear about are under the radar; They are not seen by the outside world. You can be in a relationship with someone, or know someone that is using language and doing behavior in a way that is systematically picking away at your spirit – at your very being. And you don’t even realize it’s happening.
You get into a conversation with someone, and then you leave the conversation feeling bad about yourself and you don’t know why. When you leave conversations feeling this way, sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what happened. This is especially true in emotionally abusive relationships, where emotional abuse is the long term effect of toxic communication that disintegrates a relationship.
Emotional abuse disintegrates bonding and creates a control model where one person has control of the other. And the abusive person is usually the one who wants you to be submissive and do whatever they ask.
Even when you do what they want, it’s never good enough.
Love and Abuse is about helping you identify all of this behavior so that you don’t get stuck in a situation or a relationship where it starts to happen but you’re not sure what’s going on.
I wish emotional abuse was overt name calling, even though that’s hurtful. The reason is because name calling would be a lot easier to deal with. But it’s not. Emotional abuse, manipulation, deception, are all purposefully hidden away from your perception so that you can’t tell what’s going on. And because you are so jaded by the psychological manipulation, you can’t easily identify the behavior to tell the abuser what they’re doing is wrong or hurtful.
If you’re in a relationship where you just can’t pinpoint what’s going on, or you know something’s wrong but aren’t sure what it is or how to identify it, listen to this show. Also, get The M.E.A.N. Workbook so that you can assess your relationship and figure out if you’re in an emotionally abusive situation that you may or may not even know you’re in.
If you’re not in a relationship, this show is still going to educate you to the point where you will be able to identify the red flags and don’t get stuck in something that might be difficult to get out of. This show will help make sure you don’t get deceived and become a victim to someone else’s bad behavior.
I’m here to promote healthy communication. That’s when two people listen to each other, give each other space to express themselves, show each other sympathy and compassion, and allow each other to be themselves.
But remember, this works both ways…
If only one of you is doing your part and the other isn’t, you both lose.
If you’re interested in this kind of information, and want to learn more about how people can manipulate you and how people can unethically influence you and slowly chip away at who you are (and take advantage of you in ways you probably don’t even recognize) keep coming back.
The episodes will be short, digestible and very informative. And I want you to be able to have the healthiest, happiest relationships that you can with all the people in your life. I never want you to feel isolated or confused, or even responsible for other people’s bad behavior.
If you are in any type of relationship that you believe might be emotionally abusive, you are not alone. There are people out there going through what you’re going through. And I understand what you’re going through too.
