Lately, I have been thinking about ambient abuse. I brought this up on the smoke screen and mirrors thread. It has recently occurred to me to look at the ways that I suffered from this form of abuse in my life...there seems to be a draw from me towards people that use this very devious and subtle way of hurting others.
I think that because it is so hard to detect and for others to see it that it creates an intense feeling of helplessness. Learning to care for myself has been learning to accept and love that part of myself that was helpless as a small child. My mom did not respond to my helplessness, of course, we all know that N's despise helplessness and emotional weakness, which is what a small child is.
So I am looking at the ways that I struggle with helplessness in my life such as taking up mild occasional smoking again, an addiction I am helpless with and that I return to time and time again when I am coping with stress. Perhaps, I should not be so hard on myself? Or, allowing myself to be abused or, at the very least, bothered by N-saint still when I am helpless to do anything to change the past -- all I can do is keep moving forward.
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This is a clip from Vankin's stuff (I'm not big on him but there is some insightful stuff there).
Ambient abuse is the stealth, subtle, underground currents of maltreatment that sometimes go unnoticed even by the victims themselves, until it is too late. Ambient abuse penetrates and permeates everything – but is difficult to pinpoint and identify. It is ambiguous, atmospheric, diffuse. Hence its insidious and pernicious effects. It is by far the most dangerous kind of abuse there is.
It is the outcome of fear – fear of violence, fear of the unknown, fear of the unpredictable, the capricious, and the arbitrary. It is perpetrated by dropping subtle hints, by disorienting, by constant – and unnecessary – lying, by persistent doubting and demeaning, and by inspiring an air of unmitigated gloom and doom ("gaslighting").
