When I wrote Know Your Enemy The Christian's Critic, I felt the need to disempower the enemy, the one who may have once been a friendly sparring partner trained to get you ready for battle, but unfortunately turned into your worst enemy!
This enemy could be family, friend, neighbor or stranger, but either way, we don't want any parts of someone who sets traps for us or repeatedly lets us down by saying or doing abusive things. However, before we discover that we have an enemy, the writing is on the wall (early warning signs), but do we pay attention?
When I first noticed the signs not just with one but a few "enemies" it started with a change in personality. The smiles and laughs began to slowly fade away, the demands for my time and energy began to increase at times aggressively, and I found myself having what I call unnecessary disagreements a little more than usual. The causes seemed insignificant. I asked myself, "What is going on?" What was happening? Why was their true colors starting to show now? Disheartened by all that I was learning about them, my soul became heavy and I soon discovered I was at war with friends turned foes.
When they know you are aware of who they really are, there will be trouble, your enemy is going to find a way to attack you with his or her insulting behaviors; therefore, causing you to reflect on your own behaviors to stir up guilty feelings in their attempt to get you to bend to their will or acquiesce. However, we don't do that when it is clear from our interactions and those who have witnessed how we have behaved around the enemy to accept any form of disrespect or abuse, we speak up! When you don't do that, you will find yourself replaying what you should have done, how you should have stood up for yourself...you begin to play all sorts of thoughts in your mind; therefore allowing your mind to be swept by the litany of reasons why this person should get the pass and keep on abusing you without suffering any consequences.
"He was having a bad day. I don't know what I have done to hurt them. I know I don't deserve these abuses, but I've done some things in the past and maybe this is deserved. He said he was sorry. She said it would never happen again. Maybe I'm the crazy one." Slowly your self-esteem is being chipped away at and eventually you will conform. Your fighting and standing up for yourself is worthless once your enemy is in your head. It all sounds like a bunch of noise while your feet and hands continue to do for your enemy. Your mouth still tells the world this person is important in your life even though you don't mean much to him or her.
The day you make up in your mind to stop taking verbal and/or physical abuse from someone is the day you take back your power and protect your mind from further harm. It's not enough to seek help of a therapist if you refuse to take the necessary steps to disempower the one who is hurting you rather than enabling him or her to continue to harm.
Sometimes the victim will take the verbal insults, but stand up for everyone else. Why? He or she feels empowered when helping others, but what good is that when you can't help yourself? We see many victims on the Internet posing like they are free from all of their positive posts, but the truth is when they are operating in the real world, they are broken mentally, physically, spiritually, sexually, and financially. They come to the Internet for a little picking me up and then back to their miserable worlds with their mental health further disturbed by their abusers.
So the truth, whatever truth you or someone else needs to get off their chest, must be said to the one who is hurting you. There will be more pain and suffering to come, but it's worth it when we are trying to get free from a toxic person. May this truth and the one you think about concerning your self and your situation put you on a path toward freedom!
Nicholl McGuire is the blog owner and the author of Know Your Enemy the Christian's Critic, Face Your Foe, Laboring to Love an Abusive Mate, Tell Me Mother You're Sorry and other books.
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