- Is one of your favorite Mantras – It will be different this time?
- Do you often feel ‘knocked off balance’ – it’s as if you are going crazy!
- Have you left your partner only to return a few days / weeks later?
- Have you put a bucket loads of effort into making things work as you hope that ‘one day’ things will eventually be OK.
- Do you friends think you are loopy and ask you ‘Why don’t you just leave?’
- Do you frequently try to change your behaviour just in case you inadvertently upset someone
- Do you justify things a lot and find yourself saying ‘It’s not that bad’. You believe your situation is clearly not as bad as some other peoples.
- Do you ask yourself ‘What is wrong with me’ or ‘ Why is this happening to me’
- Do you make excuses for other peoples shoddy behaviour as you are sure deep down that they don’t really mean it
- Do you spend a lot of time with your head stuck in the clouds itching for things were different.
- Have you tried endless tactics to improve your situation in hope of magically transforming that person into the hunky dory individual you always wanted them to be.
If any of this seems familiar to you, then you have my sympathy. I have experienced too a situation very much like yours. I say like yours in the sense that it was not making me happy – quite the opposite in fact!
At the time, I also found it shameful to face the harsh reality of the truth, that I was being abused in my toxic relationship. I was also ashamed that I couldn’t just seem to get up and leave. Something was keeping me stuck in the roller coaster of abuse. Now I know, this was the heap of negative beliefs I was carrying around about myself, such as I am not good enough or loveable enough. Fortunately, after 7 attempts, I got out and more importantly STAYED OUT.
If this is YOU, then please, burst that denial bubble and do something about it. You owe it to yourself to get help and to get out. Please don’t fool yourself that things are going to change for the better. 95% of abusers never change. GET HONEST – Abuse is simply not acceptable behavior and is not something you should ever just learn to live with.
Lisa Phillips is a Life Coach and NLP Practitioner based in Australia. To sign up for Lisa’s free newsletter visit amazingcoaching.com.au.