*Time out

You may need time away from situations rather than let abusive situations continue.  This may mean taking time out from an abusive/dysfunctional family or situation.  You may not want to completely stop seeing your family, but it is important for your well-being to remove yourself from abusive situations.  It is hard to recover if you put yourself back again and again into abusive situations as it is hard to build up your self-esteem when it is being knocked in old and familiar ways.  Give yourself some time to heal and grow and gain some awareness and perspective about your particular situation.  The more you recover, the more you will transform.  This may mean that your relationship with your family will change, as you no longer tolerate their behaviour, i.e. not only the abusive behaviour, but also the denial that often goes with it and the insistence that the abuse is 'normal'.

Your family may remind you of old stuck patterns.  You may find this depressing, or it may make you furious or leaves you with a sense of not belonging or misunderstood which can also leave you feeling lonely and exhausted.

Asserting your needs gives the other person an opportunity to hear and understand you and perhaps modify their behaviour accordingly (or not).  Expectations are not always useful here, but your recovery and well-being is.  You may feel you can only fully recover away from the influence of your family.  If this is the case, it is important that you recognise what you need to make yourself happy outside of the needs of anyone else.  A family in denial of abuse may try to make you feel that you are wrong, or making it up, or stupid.  This could re-stimulate a range of feelings from guilt (for rocking the boat) to hurt, anger, rage or feeling abandoned.  If your parents were never able to meet your needs as a child, be prepared for them to be the same now.  This does not mean you cannot get your needs met by others as an adult, but it does mean you might take time to see who is emotionally there for you when you need support and nurture those relationships instead of waiting for your parents to do something they are not emotionally capable of.  

Having said this people can and do change, but usually slowly and over a period of time.  Change often happens through crisis especially if a situation has been very stuck for a long period of time. 

Whilst you take some time out, do some of the meditations outlined in this site, read selfhelp books and actively nurture your own self- esteem.

Photograph by Jennifer Weston © 

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