Nailed Shut - Bullies

I don't like to deal with confrontation. It is necessary in life to communicate with people that will disagree with you but I don't like it when voices are raised or when I feel I am being bullied.

When I was married to a person I felt drank too much he won all the arguments because he bullied me into to submission. He never played fair and would just refuse to acknowledge anything I said. It wasn't about being right or wrong it was about manipulation.

I don't think this kind of manipulation is personal and for him he probably learned this approached worked while living with two drinking parents. Out burst and dominance was part of the way they communicated in his house.

Of course for me it wasn't how I was raised and it really scared me. I retreated and felt paralyzed by the situation. I couldn't win no matter what and it made feel stupid, helpless and I ultimately I took to my bed.

During that time I had one repetitive dream of being trapped in a house where all the doors and windows were nailed shut. I would make it out of one room only to find in the next room the window were also nailed shut.

I was lost in my relationship buried alive. I was isolated with no one to turn to for a second opinion. The disease had made him my whole world. In the beginning I enjoyed being needed so much it was great to think that someone couldn't live without me but what happened it turned out that I couldn't live without him.

I had to see that I chose this for myself. My need to be needed drew me to this kind of isolated intoxicating relationship. Then  I felt powerless to get out he was my whole life and I would be nothing without him.

Living with a bully strips you of your self-confidence and for me whatever he said about me I believed.

My higher power decided to get me out of this situation. It was a painful separation and it has take many years to heal the part of me that needed to be desperately needed in order to feel whole. I didn't know real love doesn't need to be earned it just is.

I wasn't intending to go in this direction with this post but here it is. I have been dealing with a few bullies lately and my reaction takes me back to the days when I had to deal will verbal abuse everyday. I have to see that my reaction is about the past and I can't be hurt unless I choose to be hurt.