Be done with “them.”

We don’t have to hate our abusers and bullies. We don’t have to not hate them, ether. 

We do have to be done with them. 

What I mean by that is, however we feel about our bullies and abusers, if we’re serious about recovery, we need to evict them from our head. 

We need to evict them from our self-talk. 

We need to evict their perspective from how we look at ourselves, our life, and the world. 

When we are abused and bullied over a long period of time, this thing happens where we tend to internalize the behaviors and point of view of our tormentors. 

If we got the sh*t kicked out of us for years, we often go on to kick the sh*t out of ourselves. 

If we got verbally berated for years, we often go on to verbally berate ourselves. 

If we were told for years that all we were good for is (whatever), we often go on to tell ourselves that the only thing we’re good for is (whatever). 

We go on to pick up where our abusers and bullies left off, in other words. Our conditioning tricks us into doing it to ourselves— sometimes long after our abusers and bullies are out of our lives. Sometimes after our abusers and bullies are dead. 

It’s a trick, a scam, a con— but we fall for it, because we literally don’t know any better. Especially when our abusers or bullies were important people in our lives. 

If our abusers or bullies were important people in our lives, the default assumption we make is that they are not, in fact, abusing or bullying us— but rather, that we must have done something to deserve how they were behaving toward us. 

It sets us on this years long quest to rationalize why we were getting sh*t on by people we loved or were attached to or respected. 

Whether or not we arrive at any kind of answer to that question— and, make no mistake, there IS no good answer to it— we still internalize our abusers’ and bullies’ behavior, because we are wired to reproduce the behavior of important people in our lives. We’re conditioned to assume it has value and validity, even if we can’t see it. 

So— we get in the habit of abusing and bullying ourselves. 

Self-mockery and self-reproach become staples of our self-talk. 

Starvation and other self-harm might become staples of our behavior toward ourselves. 

We feel guilty and reprimand ourselves for needing rest or enjoying things. 

We pick up where “they” left off. 

That’s what needs to change if we’re serious about recovery— we need to recognize when we’re replicating the behaviors of our abusers and bullies toward us, and we need to be willing and able to do whatever is necessary to interrupt that very well worn pattern. 

It’s not easy. Leaving our abusers and bullies behind often means leaving behind attachments that, while they may not be perfect, we often believe are important to our life story. 

That can suck. But if those emotional attachments and memories need to go, they need to go. 

We need to be willing to be done. 

We need to be willing to say no more. 

We need to be willing to set boundaries inside our own head and heart— because we are NEVER going to feel or function better if the inside of our head and heart is not s safe place for us. 

Yes, being done with our bullies and abusers is a type of loss, and we’re allowed to grieve and mourn that loss if we need to. 

But we cannot be in denial about the necessity of that loss— of deciding we’re done with our bullies and abusers. 

Of deciding that we are never again going to let our old bullies and abusers decide how we talk to or relate to ourselves. 

That’s over. 

We’re done. 

Never again.