Have you ever allowed yourself to be abused by a friend or by a significant other? If you have, I share that commonality with you, but hopefully you aren’t allowing that to happen anymore like I’m not. If you are though, please know, you truly deserve better!
Sadly, for most of those who have allowed abuse in any type of relationship like I once did with great regularity, it always seems to stem from cases of earlier abuse, usually from one’s adolescent years. Sometimes it comes from growing up in a home where the parents were addicts and other times it originates from abuse by some other peer a child looked up to. In my case, it was both where I was sexually molested by a coach and mentally and emotionally abused at times by my parents. Regardless, this pattern of being abused was really all I knew in my younger years and it continued into most of my closest friendships and intimate relationships later in life.
One time, if you can believe it, I bought a gallon of milk for someone I really liked and was attracted to, and when I went to grab a glass of it a little later from their fridge, they told me I wasn’t allowed to have any and to go get my own. And guess what, I listened to them! Another time, I had someone else in my life who said I was so wrapped up in them that I would probably put a dog collar on myself if they asked me to and walk around on all fours. Regrettably, I couldn’t refute their statement!
Those are just two of the many examples from my life where I allowed myself to be abused by people I considered friends, loved ones, or partners. I continually accepted that it was ok to be dominated by them on a physical, mental, and emotional level, even at times going so far as telling them to treat me that way if they weren’t, because it felt normal on some sick level. Eventually, intimacy for me constantly turned into being totally submissive to someone else’s sexual needs and desires. As for any other type of intimacy such as cuddling, and holding hands, all of that was completely scary and ridiculously uncomfortable any time I experienced it. I usually just ran from it anytime it happened.
The reality is that I had been abused for so long that I had grown up to become codependent on someone else for my self-approval, which only led to me tolerating and accepting too many forms of abuse by those I sought that self-approval from. The programming just wasn’t there within me to be any different. But thank God that’s no longer true. Unfortunately to get there, it took having to see a gun pointed at me by someone I cared about and loved to realize I deserved far better treatment in life.
Through a lot of deep spiritual work with therapists, holistic healing, help from spiritual teachers, doing 12 Step recovery work, and participating in men’s support groups, I finally found freedom from this toxic pattern. Nowadays I don’t allow people in my life to treat me with disrespect, to become dominant over me, to make me feel less than, or to be anything other than unconditionally loving of me. Friends treat me with the respect I deserve and so does my partner.
So, if by some chance, you are someone who is still allowing yourself to be abused by anyone in your life, no matter who it is, please know you truly deserve better! Hopefully it just doesn’t take a gun being pointed at your head by someone you care about to wake up and realize that…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
