Avoid this 4/20 in your Relationships

Avoiding a toxic relationship is much simpler than leaving one. We are naturally drawn to nourish our dependency needs by emotional bonding through skin and eye contact. This need can make anyone overlook the "too much" in relationships with one’s boyfriend, girlfriend, mom, dad, brother, sister, grandparent, uncle, aunt, cousin, husband, wife, adult child, friend, in-laws, pastor, boss, co-worker, mentor or any other title.  

The threat lies in bonding with people whose prior histories and personalities make them ripe for spewing the venom of their incurable – or at least untreated – mental illnesses. In this post, you are encouraged to scan your relationships for the following 4 patterns that represent a rising intensity of toxicity in relationships with 20 associated examples.     

1.     The fast-moving pattern

People who seem “too good to be true” likely are. The pace for developing emotional intimacy is important because the desire to care and be cared for can speed up our seeking for attachments. A fast moving relationship is a red flagged pattern as it can be used as a tool to hook you emotionally before the cracks in one’s mask begin to show. When one’s love is real, they won’t insist on meeting up every other – if not every – day. They’ll take their time to get to know you, rather than pushing you for a commitment. It’s not healthy to be begged for your time.

2.     The meaning-confused pattern

When in this type of relationship, your search for genuine respect and love is met by something seemingly similar but ultimately depleting. There is a fine but firm line between experiencing chaos and passion; finding yourself infatuated and or feeling love; and receiving apologies while needing empathy. The intensity is the compelling but destructive force in these relationships. Narcissists and sociopaths, for example, do not enter or stay in relationships for love. They are there simply to have specific needs met. You’re entrenched in it and completely confused at the end.

Illustration by Nasim Golkar 

3.     The never-winning pattern

The masters of manipulation use unfair tactics in arguments that shift the focus from the topic at hand to you. If they commit a wrongdoing, you will unexpectedly find the talk turned around on your own “sensitivity” or “jealousy”. If they do something hurtful, it’ll be followed by emotional descriptions of their own hurtful past, so you end up feeling bad for them not realizing how your own hurt feeling remained unnoticed. The purpose is the same: to control the dialogue and ensure that one’s bad behavior is never addressed.

4.     The “gaslighting” pattern

The most manipulative relationship pattern that often exists in relationship with narcissists and sociopaths is gaslighting – a tactic of manipulation used to obstruct and distort their victim’s understanding of reality. As a victim, you feel crushed and minimized, constantly second-guessing yourself wondering whether you’re going crazy. So much like rewriting history when used, gaslighting involves blatantly denying that the event ever took place by first provoking negative feelings in their victims, then rejecting the victim’s genuine concerns by labeling him or her with labels like “crazy”, “bipolar”, and “sensitive”. Gaslighting fails to manipulate healthy individuals because feelings of insanity and states of chaos must first be produced.

Here are some examples of reported abusive tendencies to me in my work as a therapist:

1.     Telling the victim “You can’t ever do anything right”

2.     Getting jealous of victim’s friends, family, time spent away

3.     Laying blame on victim for cheating

4.     Shaming or embarrassing the victim with put-downs

5.     Micro-managing every penny spent in the household

6.     Refusing to give money for expenses

7.     Looking at or acting in ways that scare the person they’re abusing

8.     Controlling where the victim goes, who they see and what they do

9.     Dictating how the victim dresses or wears their hair

10.  Stalking the victim

11.  Preventing the victim from making their own decisions

12.  Telling the victim they are a bad parent

13.  Controlling the victim’s emails and social media accounts

14.  Intimidating the victim with weapons

15.  Pressuring the victim to have sex when they don’t want to

16.  Pressuring the victim to do things sexually they’re not comfortable with

17.  Forcing sex with others

18.  Refusing to use protection when having sex

19.  Pressuring for forcing the victim to use alcohol or drugs

20.  Sabotaging the victim’s performance at school or work by keeping them up all night

Toxicity of relational nature impacts many people. As abusers’ circle of influence – and therefore destruction – is sadly widespread, the best revenge is expressing indifference – not giving a shit! Getting un-stuck from draining relationships is not usually easy and for some, requires the support of a competent mental health professional to learn to forgive oneself for counting on the disloyal, trusting the deceitful and loving the unlovable.

What is anger due to "borrowed" shame?

When a mother shared with me how she were afraid of herself for shaming her kids in exactly the same way her parents had shamed her, she was astounded and frozen to discover she was about the same age as her daughter when she'd felt unduly humiliated. For a few minutes she had become what she had sworn she would never be – an inpatient, disrespectful, and unmindful parent.

She asked me if this would go on forever. I explained to her that shame is contagious in shaming families, passing on easily from one family member to another to impact everyone. Recall previous anger management posts when I explained how the emotion of anger manifests in response to some other underlying feelings, with shame as the most persistent one. In the context of a family, one or more members might "borrow" the shame that actually belonged to another person.

The presenting image from the past is that, at one time, a child received shame against his will. This shame initiated from the action or attitude of another – usually a more powerful – member of the family. I shared my view with mother that this shame must be returned before she could embrace a non-shaming view of herself. She said that she would fear herself for standing up to her mom and dad, but admitted how more convenient a release of tension could it be if she chose to continue shaming her own child. “Totally understandable”, I remarked to reassure that returning borrowed shame is only really letting others take responsibility for their own actions or emotions.

Often, transference of shame emotion happens when the family cannot stand the humiliation of the real problem and this can be either intentional or unintentional. Consider the following monologue for clarification:

“You should be ashamed of yourself, young man! If you got better grades and caused less concerns around you, your father wouldn’t get so upset and have to drink”

In this instance, the speaker – be it the spouse, parent or a sibling – finds it much easier to blame a child than to cope with a grumpy volatile man’s drunkenness. Some children may be blamed the most for family sufferings – a phenomenon referred to by family therapists as scapegoating – still others in the family may also “borrow” shame unwillingly. When there is a powerful and often hot-tempered member whose shame is never owned nor acknowledged but readily transferred, another member’s failure to keep everybody happy and everything perfect will make the soil fertile for shame and guilt to grow inside of her or him.

What is the remedy?

The gateway to healing is a self-realization followed by compassion towards self, and then, others. It begins with a straightforward recognition that your feeling of shame about something might have nothing to do with you as it could be the product of another family member’s actions. To succeed at getting released from and returning such “borrowed shame”, consider this self-statement:

“Some time ago I took on some shame that didn’t belong to me, thinking it was mine at the time. So did the rest of my family. But now I know that I did nothing at the time that was wrong. I am not guilty and I have nothing to feel ashamed about”

Anger is appropriate and common during the exploration of our childhood. It suggests that something wrong happened. It can provide energy for us to create changes in our thoughts and actions in here-and-now or we insist to keep anger inflamed. Be aware that valid anger doesn’t need to turn into resentment, which is a far less productive emotion for making a resentful person hold on to anger and not want to give it up and move forward with life. The main goal is for you to return borrowed shame that damages your wellbeing, and not to punish others by insisting that they should feel humiliated.

This task involves a bold conversation with aggressor that requires some preparation. I will focus on helping you master that in the next Biweekly.

Dr. Hessam