Why do they need to recover on their own?

[Seymore]

Why exactly is it best that abusers/people with emotional problems need to recover on their own? Is it so that they don’t get the idea that “I have this person who takes crap from me, so I must not need help”? Or is it more than that? What if the person goes on meds for their anger/mood swings...is that an “all clear” to consider reconciliation?

[savignon]

I think meds are dangerous (as a reason for reconciling) b/c they don't solve the real problem, ditract from the real problem and can be stopped at any time (which often happens) and then you're right back to sqaure one after a lot of hope.

People with problems like that need to recover on their own b/c they need a fresh enviornment where they are only focusing on their own needs/wants/strengths/weaknesses. Just like if you were recovering from an alcohol addiction, you don't get to drink 'here and there'. It's a time to find out WHY and how to change it and what you have in you to change it.

If you've been abused, you should consider doing the same. You've also been addicted to trying to solve someone else's problem or trying to behave "good enough" to avoid conflict...(guesses)...you've developed a pattern that needs to be broken, on your own, away from the abuser.

[Pocket Rocket]

Why exactly is it best that abusers/people with emotional problems need to recover on their own? Is it so that they don’t get the idea that “I have this person who takes crap from me, so I must not need help”? Or is it more than that? What if the person goes on meds for their anger/mood swings...is that an “all clear” to consider reconciliation?

 

They need to recover on their own because unless you are qualified to help them you could do more harm that good, especially because you are not impartial. They can also be in too deep to realise there is anything wrong. They have to realise how bad things have become and how they need to change. no force on Earth can make that happen but themselves.

 

i would be extremely cautious when it comes to their recovery. Recovery isn't a linear process, it comes in cycles. If you go back it may also hinder the process. You need to be sure they are indeed well. And you need to do your own part in recovering. you need to recover from whatever part of you is still drawing you to someone who did and still could potentially hurt you.

[lostandhurt]

Self discovery and honesty are importaant parts of recovery. If someone else is invloved to much how much is imagined or projected from the other. Like an enabler unknowingly helping even though they didn't mean to.

I see meds as a way to even out the mind to allow the taker to start and make sense of the senseless. If everything is a jumble of problems and drama how could anyone hope to find a place to start healing.

It is very hard to stand by and watch but sometimes intervening is worse.

 

lost

[Seymore]

You've also been addicted to trying to solve someone else's problem or trying to behave "good enough" to avoid conflict...(guesses)...you've developed a pattern that needs to be broken, on your own, away from the abuser.

 

Thanks everyone. This is kinda hitting the nail on the head. My ex was emotionally abusive, and I'm doing my best to stay strong. I am not sure if she has a mental problem or just an attitude problem. She used to see a psychologist and quit a couple months after she met me, claiming it was pointless (but sometimes claiming she thought it worked and she was better). She told me that he recommended she take medication, which she turned down, saying she didn't want to be a vegetable.

 

Anyway, she'd always been good at talking me into things, or winning an argument by confusing me or somehow getting me to admit I was wrong about things I knew in my heart to be right. I don't know if that's considered manipulative or what, but she'd said she was going to give me a couple of weeks of NC (after I told her it was done for good), focus on her life and bettering herself, and then try to contact me. Well, it's almost been a couple of weeks, and I'm worried that she's going to contact me and use the argument that she's on meds now and everything's ok, or she's getting help, so it's ok to come back. I just don't believe people change that quickly and I don't want to be suckered into a relationship again that's fine for a month and then before I know it, I'm so upset I'm not sleeping again. I don't want all the hateful and angry things she said or did to or around me anymore. I think out of my 550 posts, 450 were about all my problems with her in the last year - the anger, the teasing, the controlling...I can't go through that again, but the temptation is the thought of a better her, and I think she knows that.

[John Bendix]

Why exactly is it best that abusers/people with emotional problems need to recover on their own? Is it so that they don’t get the idea that “I have this person who takes crap from me, so I must not need help”? Or is it more than that? What if the person goes on meds for their anger/mood swings...is that an “all clear” to consider reconciliation?

 

Interesting question.

 

It seems that they need to self evaluate their thought mode and emotional reactions. Their partners has been there to receive the "blame and complain" behavior and thus they are unable to see that they are responsible for their own actions and reactions.

 

The problem comes in that they still may never be able to do that. A typical scenario of a person going hrough some form of emotional distress is to look to a source outside of themselves to blame their unpleasant feeelings and perceived life situation on for this has been the pattern thatthey have developed for themselves. That person is many times the partner in an intimate relationship. It becomes the partner and the relationship that is giving them so much pain and so when they get away from these, their suffering will end.

 

Sorry, with the exception of some sort of abuse, rarely does thus plan this work. Their internal struggles will still be there bc they have not been effectively dealt with by them. In the new circumstances they will find someone or something else to blame for their misery, such as their job, new SO, family, and even the past realtionship leaving its scar. Again, escape may be perceived as their only way out of there suffering.

 

As for meds being the cure all, we all now that they are not. But combined with certain forms of therapy (changing patterns of thought and emotional responses), a person can (though not always) get through their problems. It needs to be remembered that people who have gone through psycho and pharmaceutical therapy and have put their condition in remission, can fall right back into it by claiming that they no longer need to continue any therapy. The dysfunctional patterns can then return.

[EQD]

isnt it like less than 1% of abusers ever really recover/seek treatment? or am i thinking of another social disorder?

or is it 8%? i forgot...

they dont know/think they need to change. someone sticking around validates that. you wont fix something if you never know its broken.

[Seymore]

you wont fix something if you never know its broken.

 

^I like that idea. Good analogy.

 

Thank you again, everyone. I appreciate the answers, they are interesting to read and insightful.

[Seymore]

Not everyone with emotional problems blames them on the outside world - in fact I'd say that anyone who does has a very poor prognosis for recovery!

 

Oh, she was a master at that. Someone else was always to blame for her condition at the moment. She'd even get herself into things and play the "why me" card.

 

And as far as her taking responsibility - she wrote me an email a week after the break-up telling me all the things she did and how sorry she was. I don't know if that's recognition, guilt or taking responsibility, but she's apologized for all that before, so I don't totally buy it.

 

I'm not thinking of getting back with her, btw. I just know that when crunch time comes I tend to weaken and kick myself later, especially with her - like I said, she can turn things around and I'm left wondering what I just did. That's why I come here - everyone's very informative and supportive.

 

My New Year's resolution was to stand up for myself more, and I started early when I left her. I need to keep it up.

[Timebandit]

I think that very often when people are in say an abusive or dysfunctional relationship, both people are part of the problem. Each part of the relationship plays a role, such as being the aggressor, being the victim, enabler etc. There is usually a co-dependent relationship between them.

 

thereforee it is often important to create some distance between these persons.

[itsallgrand]

I think someone who has a history with you of abusing would be more likely than not to have some serious challenges to treating you right even after a full recovery.

 

Abusers do have a great way of throwing off personal responsibility, it goes with the abuse. It's one of the main reasons for the abuse in the first place, IMO.

 

It may not seem fair or make sense either, but I remember distinctly a sense of injustice and dislike and very strong negative feelings for those people who I had abused in my past - when I was going through treatment in a psychiatrists office and even after the fact. Working through that was itself a challenge.

 

It may sound twisted to someone who has been on the other end of the stick, but there is feeling of being disrespected by someone who has tolerated horrible unacceptable behavior by you repeatedly. There was a lot of anger with feelings like that - feelings of people behaving in ways to try and control me to be what they needed me to be, to take responsibility for their happiness and welfare.

 

That sort of core orientation of placing oneself as a victim can go very very deep. That is my point. It's strange: I started to see that in the relationship that beget it all for me, it was like the two were the same except one was inside out and the other inside in. Aggressive on the outside me, with a victim inside - and a victim on the outside, with an aggressor on the inside. That would be a mom who refused to put my needs even equal to her own, a mom that lived as an alcoholic. She aggressed with passivity.

 

And the more pressure to perform to some person's standard and not be able to simply breathe, to be on ones own and be respected for that regardless of anything else, the more I felt pushed with guilt and false sense of responsibility for this person, the more "temptation" there is to blame something or someone outside for personal choices. The person gets to feel left without options except what they know to try and escape what they are feeling. Which is essentially trapped.

 

One way to think of it is that by keeping distance and not tolerating any abuse - you really do respect that person for what they are, who they are, what they are capable of in the moment. And that is all anyone really deep inside wants or needs.

 

In a way, expecting that person to be who you need or want them to be when they are shouting with all of their being "I can not, or I will not!" with all of their being is not fair to them either.

 

It's especially damaging in such intimate relationships like parents, or a partner.

 

This is merely a personal bit and if any of it can help you, good. If not, feel free to disregard it. I wish you well and strength, know you can do it. You most certainly can.

[John Bendix]

Meds also take longer than two weeks to really kick in!

 

I disagree with John Bendix in that, from my own experience, emotional problems can be worked through whilst still remaining in a relationship. Not everyone with emotional problems blames them on the outside world - in fact I'd say that anyone who does has a very poor prognosis for recovery! - but if one partner in a relationship gets healthier then it does change the dynamics of the entire relationship and the stresses can cause the relationship to break down. Depending on the flexibility of the other person.

 

Abusers, however, are experts at NOT taking responsibility for themselves and I think the OP is wise to be wary. Very very wary.

 

I'm sorry, but when did I say that a person in a relationship, under emotional distress, cannot work out their problems while in that relationship? I was responding to the OP's general question of why "it is said" that people need to be by themselves to work these out. That is merely a general statement and I was explaining why it is uttered. I did not say that I agree or disagree with it or any part of it.

 

In addition, I never intimated that ALL distressed persons blame the outside world. It was also mentioned by me in the same context.

[Seymore]

Thank you for that. I'd be lying if I said I understood it all, but I did get something from it. The thing is - I didn't feel that I tried to make her what I wanted her to be - she would be my ideal woman a lot of times, too, when she was good. I didn't see it as me demanding she be a certain way, I thought that was who she was, and couldn't understand the blow-ups and the mood swings or the things she'd say or do when she'd explode. I didn't mean to try and change her. Or maybe I misunderstood that part.

 

And the thing is - if she had strong negative feelings for me deep down, how could she have loved me?

 

Thank you again. I will do my best to stay strong and not contact her. She keeps pleading and telling me she'll get better which is making it very hard to let go, because she doesn't understand this needs to happen.

 

Also - do you feel you've made any progress? What led you to seek help?

[John Bendix]

This is the bit I was referring to. My phrasing was slightly off, because my main point is that not all people with emotional problems look to blame others, rather than to intimate you'd said something you hadn't. Sorry if this caused any offence.

 

No problem-