When Conflict and Toxic Relationships get confused with Abuse

Anita Bentata

I ask every woman who has left an abusive relationship one question. Were there any warning signs about abuse? Every single woman says, yes. Each woman noticed and was silent or immobilised about what was important. Why?

Stay with me as I begin to unpack the first of four important, yet unspoken reasons ‘why’:

The first reason for Immbolisation:

1. Confusion and Overwhelm 

Despite so much ‘awareness’, people become overwhelmed and confused. When we are overwhelmed and confused we don’t take action. If we don’t identify what a pen is in all the objects in our home, we can’t write something down.

The inevitable response when we can’t identify, or we mis-identify, is confusion and overwhelm. We feel lost and are blocked from taking action.

People do not understand the specific definition of abuse. Even women who have lived through abuse. When I ask people for their definition, they usually list the types of abuse. Uh oh. Big mistake. There are seventeen types of domestic violence!

Most people don’t know half of them, so you are at risk of being abused if you only identify abuse by it’s types… unless you know the specific definition. Then you can see it in whatever form it takes. 

The other problem with knowing the types and not the definition, is that there are so many behaviours used within each type. So if you only know some types, and then only some of the behaviours in that type, your capacity to recognise abuse becomes narrower and smaller. You miss heaps of tactics which are manipulative or unspoken.

Plus, our conscious mind has absorbed limiting beliefs, which minimise threats to our sense of connection with our family, religious, social and cultural ‘rules’ and ‘expectations’.

We all want to belong. Often we began receiving these limiting beliefs and messages early on, when we were dependent and not fully developed. When we had no choice but to follow the group, and when we were encouraged non-verbally to not rock the boat.

Humans are habit forming creatures. We involuntarily seek to maintain the least demanding, energy and life efficient ways of navigating how much change we need to make. We fall into the grooves of the same neural pathways and behaviours, again and again.

We have become confused, and overwhelmed to avoid confrontation of what we have implicitly learnt not to confront. We don’t rock the boat. We don’t want to threaten other peoples ‘ideal sense of self’, so we collude with them to deny their worst face, all because we are social creatures and our paramount need is to belong.

There are 7 key areas inside this first reason.

1. My definition of domestic violence: a “pattern of force, to extinguish another person’s reality, feelings, needs, opinions and rights to have their own response, using tactics of denial, control, threats and punishment which involve acts of commission or ommission". 
2. Violence takes many forms. Violence is not just physical or sexual. Violence is also non physical. All abuse is violating. We have all experienced someone’s tone of voice, a look in their eye, someone standing too close, which cuts through our body, stabs us in the back, breaks our heart, shakes us to the core. We are physical and energetic beings. Our body is the container for our energy system, all working together to keep us alive. When an intimate person in our life directs any form of abuse towards us, our brain registers pain as if it is physical. 
3. There is conflict within abuse, but not all conflict is abusive. Know the difference. We are all human, and at times we all deny someone’s feelings, needs or reality. The difference between abuse and conflict is that with conflict, our wellbeing and safety to be ourselves is not threatened. There is not a pattern of force with an intention to control another. Conflict is still rotten to experience, but we have choices on how to respond. Conflict is clearly a red flag to learn more about stress triggers, how to respond and how to take care of ourselves.
4. When someone uses abuse against you, nothing you do justifies abuse. No matter if what you are saying or doing is unfair, unrealistic or lazy. Even if you are not clear on your boundaries. No one has the right or reason to punish or control you. They have choices to express how they are affected and walk away and take care of their own disappointment and frustration if you are not willing to change. They have choices. Abuse is a choice. 
5. No one who uses abuse is ‘out of control’. Family, neighbours and the media are often so surprised how such a ‘wonderful’ man …. Abuse is not acts of being out of control. Abuse happens in secret and behind closed doors because the person using abuse is controlling who sees, and whether they care if it is witnessed. This is obvious when you ask a woman if his belongings were ever damaged during his explosions. The answer is, never.
6. Every abusive relationship is toxic, but not every toxic relationship is abusive. The difference, is that a toxic relationship involves abusive tendencies, but neither person has an intention to control, deny or force another, even if their behaviours appear to. e.g. a couple where he is going to work, but has a mental illness. When he returns home, he collapses and is unable to help with the children, house or connect to his partner or children. She fills the gaps. Over the years, her  exhaustion, grief and rage about the loss of life choices, the lack of fathering, lack of intimacy leaves her yelling, threatening, and trying to force him to step up. It becomes crazy making as she denies his limitations. Her system breaks down to bullying, rejection and threats. This has abusive tendencies, but it’s essence is very toxic. She needs to accept his limitations as the years of over-extending to fill his gaps, has destroyed her health, moods and sense of self. Name calling your partner as abusive, just deepens the toxic harm and does not help identify or address the real cause where the toxic’ gaps live within each person.
7. Trauma is any experience which is overwhelming and we don’t have the safety, resources or skills to integrate and respond to our experience. Involuntary trauma responses can be involved in either abusive, toxic or conflictual relationships. Being able to check, can I feel, say or do what I need or want, or am I inhibiting myself because the other person will control, punish or reject me, or is it that I have thoughts or feelings which leave me inhibited, even if my partner would accept me. Someone may be hyper-sensitive to rejection from past abuse or neglect. When their partner says no or disagrees, they can feel rejected and punished from the experience of someone disagreeing or not liking something. The past unresolved trauma makes it difficult to see that they won’t punish or force you, and that there is space to push back and have a different feeling or opinion. The unresolved trauma leaves an imprint of threat and that feeling uncomfortable is dangerous. Our internal protector wants to be extremely effective and removes any opportunity or risk that could lead to further trauma.

In the next article Anita speaks about the 2nd reason for Immobilisation: the unconscious and how it intersects with and limits our clarity in our new recognition of the true definition of abuse.

ANITA can be booked TO SPEAK or PROVIDE SKILL BASED WORKSHOPS at your workplace, community group, or to REGISTER TO ATTEND RELATIONSHIP GAMECHANGER 1/2 DAY or TWO DAY WORKSHOP IN MELBOURNE OR QUEENSLAND, based on Anita's work on abuse, love and stress/trauma.

Anita Bentata is a Survivor, Author, Professional Speaker, Trauma Psychotherapist, retreat, workshop, Women Starting Again group facilitator, and trainer. Anita’s books and contact details can be found on https://www.thewolfinasuit.com as well as https://www.anitabentata.com/crazymakingverbalemotionalabuseexplained She can be found on FB The Wolf in a Suit and IG Anita Bentata You can contact her on [email protected]