The Covert Rush
By Patricia Lefave,
self diagnosed monophrenic
We who are abused in a
variety of ways; physical, sexual, psychological, verbal, are
routinely told by our abusers and by their supporters and enablers,
who buy into the abusers' wide eyed, mystified act, that we must
deny the reality of
our experience so that THEY
can deny our awareness
of it. Our awareness threatens their 'covert' thinking style and
behaviour upon which the feelings of power and control over us
depends. Without the self delusion of the abuser, there is no rush to
make them FEEL better, and this is all about how they FEEL and not
about the reality of the situation or the actual relationship at all.
Abusers deny that abuse is
abuse since if they recognized it for what it was, they would have to
stop, and then they would have no way to FEEL better. If you think of
it in terms of addiction you will be able to make better sense of it.
It is like an addiction to power and control over someone else. Just
like when talking to an alcoholic or an addict who is using, you are
talking to the alcohol
or to the drugs and
not the person, when talking to an abuser or a bully, you are talking
to the power rush
and not a reasoning individual. Your focus may be on solving the
problem for obvious reasons, but his or her focus is on denying
there is any problem with them (like alcoholics deny the drinking
problem and tell you that seeing them as drunks is YOUR
problem) and on getting their 'fix' in the form of the self delusion
and power rush.
Abusers are addicted to
their warped thinking patterns. You cannot reason with that because
it is not reason based; it is emotion based.
We who are targeted are
often those who are quiet or non competitive so we don't understand
the thinking style of the abuser. It makes nos sense to us and for
good reason, but the abuser hears 'makes no sense' as a flaw in US
and not as a simple statement of our awareness of his or her
senselessness. Ironically it is because we are, the way we are, more
self contained with BETTER
boundaries, which often makes us targets for those who see life as a
'contest' against others which they must 'win' by invalidating the
other point of view.
When we look at an abuser
seemingly 'confused' by their thinking, the abuser sees our
'confusion' and assesses that as the sign of an 'inferior' mind. Of
course he or she is keeping that assessment to him/herself since
communicating directly with an 'inferior' would ruin everything.
That is why when we ask
them what they think they re doing or what is going on in them, they
don't tell us. Telling us about what is in fact, already perfectly
obvious to us, would ruin their self delusion. So they work to keep
the world divided into the split reality of 'them and us.' The root of
this thinking is in ALL dysfunctional families but it is more a
matter of degree than substance. No one can ever 'make something of
themselves' unless they first have
something, or someone, to whom they can compare themselves, who is
'less than' they.
That is how life is turned
into a contest of 'winners and losers' instead of a course of growing
SELF awareness and individuation with good boundaries, which is the
point of living and what it is all about for me and for many like me.
So in a way it IS like
being from two different planets, or universes, and should not be all
that surprising that when abuse victims break down, a common symbolic
experience when in altered states is that of believing and/or
expressing the idea that either we, or the others, are 'aliens.'
On a certain level of
understanding that is a very true and accurate statement.