The residue from my abusive relationship clogs my brain neurons like smoke and nicotine residue clogs electronics. Enough smoke and the greasy nicotine will kill a computer, a server…enough abusive residue can kill my brain function. I’ve got to clean the residue from my brain so I can start fresh.
My most limiting belief is “I am worthless”. Despite evidence to the contrary, this idea underlies every single thing I do, every thought I think.
I am worthless to my husband.
- I hinder him, hold him back.
- I don’t know how to manage “his” money. I spend too much.
- I don’t appreciate him. I was unwilling to love him how he wanted me to love him.
- I don’t understand his culture – the one that drinks constantly no matter what the occasion (or feeling).
- I don’t understand men; I want him to be a woman (really-he said that to me once).
I am worthless to my family.
- I don’t provide a monetary contribution.
- I warp my children’s minds.
- I don’t have any friends who can offer any positive benefit.
- I don’t know how to support the people I love when they need me.
I am worthless to a functioning society.
- I am too liberal in my beliefs.
- I give people too much benefit of the doubt.
- I trust strangers.
- I don’t offer a skill that people could use.
I am worthless to myself.
- I don’t even have the common sense to know when I am wrong.
- I push and push and push to get what I want even though I know I’m wrong for wanting it.
- I think about the wrong issues, getting sidetracked by unimportant details and ideas.
- I am unwilling to change my mind, I’m too stubborn.
These are the ideas I bought into over the years. These are things my abuser told me. These are things he believed about me – or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he said them only to bring me down, make me feel disheartened, to make me easier to control.
When I have confronted him about the things he’s said to me, his response is “I’ve always told you how talented you are.”
Really? That’s what he’s been trying to tell me? He’s a lousy communicator.
What I want to do NOW is rid myself of HIS beliefs about me. I want to shine; but it’s hard to shine when I’m stuffed into a cloud of doubt. Although I know the doubt I’m suffering is fictional – it “shouldn’t” be present – I also know that I FEEL it very deeply. I feel like it could be true.
I am trying to find my way clear of this sticky, murky residual abuse. I’m doing it to myself at this point. He isn’t even here, and I still think these things.
Maybe the first step is to set this belief out in the open air – bring it into my conscious mind where it can no longer skulk and hide away. I will release it, and if it comes back like a boomerang then I’ll release it again until I’ve thrown it so far away it can never come back. Maybe god will catch it and put it on the shelf with all the other self-limiting boomerangs people have thrown away so it cannot come back to me ever again.
Maybe he’ll give the “worthlessness” idea to a narcissist to balance them out a little.