Category Archives: Life Education

How to Handle Emotional Abuse

Life Education, Life Skills, Mental Health

To those of you currently broken down because of emotional abuse: I have been there: letting the abuser get what they want, going into depression, and becoming unsure of what I am worth and how I deserve to be treated. In this post, I want to share with you how I got out, and how you can get out too.

To those of you recovering from emotional abuse: It is possible to rise up and take control of the situation and your life back from the abuser. You can find people who will understand and support you, and you have actions you can take to make things better.

To those of you recovered from emotional abuse or not yet experienced: Here are tools you can use in the future to help you and people you care about recover faster.

  • Get Out. Get to Safety — Staying alive is #1. Keep your mind and your body and your soul. Don’t worry about losing the rest of what you have. You can get them back later using your healthy mind body and soul.
  • Document Your Story in Writing. Don’t repeat yourself to people, don’t re-live the trauma by re-telling the story. Write it down. Let others read what you wrote.
  • Share Your Written Story with Trusted Advisors. Don’t go through this alone. Seek support and help.
  • Rephrase Your Story. Rewrite your story with you as the center. “Joe took my blender” becomes “I chose to let Joe take my blender because I wanted to protect myself from fighting him for it.”
  • Strategize Next Steps. Review your written story, remove distracting details like judgements on the situation (“Joe taking my blender means Joe is terrible!”) and focus on what matters (“I want compensation for the damages of my blender being taken.”).
  • Heal, Rejuvenate, Relax. Take care of yourself by engaging in healthy activities like sleeping, eating nutritious healthy food, and doing fun things with good people.
  • Forgive and Move On. Forgive yourself for how things turned out, and forgive the other person for hurting you. Don’t seek revenge: Focus on your strategic next steps and leave the situation.
  • Take Control of Your Life. Your life is back in your hands. Take care of yourself.

I’m sorry this happened to you. I wish you well. You will get through this.

Some additional tips for those who like details.

  • Get Out. Get to Safety — Staying alive is #1. Keep your mind and your body and your soul. Don’t worry about losing the rest of what you have. You can get them back later using your healthy mind body and soul.
    • Speed is important here. Don’t get caught up on searching for a perfect solution: find the quickest acceptable resolution and take it. Don’t lower your standards too far either: find your minimum, and then get that and get out.
    • Focus on activities you know will be valuable. Sleep, eat, rest, take a walk and get fresh air and sunlight, connect with supportive people.
  • Document Your Story in Writing. Don’t repeat yourself to people, don’t re-live the trauma by re-telling the story. Write it down. Let others read what you wrote.
    • Write in ONE document. Don’t make the mistake of writing in multiple emails, multiple threads, multiple windows. Put all your thoughts onto one document so that you don’t miss anything and you repeat yourself less. It will be long: let it be. You can revise later. For now just get your thoughts recorded onto the page.
    • The goal of this is to move the emotion from in your head onto the paper so that you can think more clearly and logically moving forward.
  • Share Your Written Story with Trusted Advisors. Don’t go through this alone. Seek support and help.
    • Share that one document. If you use Google Docs, your advisors can leave comments in the margins. You can then work through the thoughts and organize them with support.
    • If one of your advisors is making you feel worse, kindly tell them “Hey, your last comment made me feel worse. I felt ___.” If they apologize and change, let them stay. If they don’t, consider temporarily cutting them off from the conversation. You are being emotionally abused already, don’t add to that by getting emotionally hurt by your advisor too.
  • Rephrase Your Story. Rewrite your story with you as the center. “Joe took my blender” becomes “I chose to let Joe take my blender because I wanted to protect myself from fighting him for it.”
    • When you are thinking more clearly, re-write your story in the following format: Facts that you observed. Feelings you felt. Impact of the event. What you want next.
    • Facts that you observed. Joe was here on Tuesday. There was a blender here as of Monday. When possible, gather hard evidence and documentation to show it is true. “This is true, here is proof.”
    • Feelings you felt. I felt threatened on Tuesday when Joe yelled at me. “When I saw this fact, I felt this. “
    • Impact of the event. I now have to buy another blender. I feel less safe than before. I don’t want Joe to come over again. “After these things happened, this became true.”
    • What you want next. I want compensation for the blender. I want to forgive and not hunt for revenge. I want peace.
    • Avoid the Ifs. Remove and ignore all “If ___ then ___” statements: thinking about ‘ifs’ doesn’t help you, other people won’t take ‘ifs’ as truth when you tell them, and focusing on ‘ifs’ is distracting you from the details that are concrete and reliable.
    • SBI = Situation Behavior Impact = a common format for organizing your story
  • Strategize Next Steps. Review your written story, remove distracting details like judgements on the situation (“Joe taking my blender means Joe is terrible!”) and focus on what matters (“Joe took my blender. I want compensation for the damages of my blender being taken.”).
    • Do not want the following things: other people’s approval, other people’s opinions to change, other people’s thinking to change, anything that doesn’t materially improve your life. If someone else’s approval will get you something, focus on the getting that something. If someone else’s approval won’t get you anything other than their approval, ignore them and move on.
    • Do not want things that might cost more than the effort: if you get less than what you give, consider letting go or at least delaying that action until you’ve recovered more.
    • Do not do things that put you in a worse position. Position Power and Influence is everything. Move to safer and better positions. Always be Improving.
    • When you decide on what you want, be sure to talk to the person with the power to give it to you. Don’t waste time on people who cannot take action or make decisions to get you want you want.
  • Heal, Rejuvenate, Relax. Take care of yourself by engaging in healthy activities like sleeping, eating nutritious healthy food, and doing fun things with good people.
    • Get fresh air, sunlight, nice scenery.
    • Write down 10 things you are grateful for. Forgive yourself.
  • Forgive and Move On. Forgive yourself for how things turned out, and forgive the other person for hurting you. Don’t seek revenge: Focus on your strategic next steps and leave the situation.
    • Rediscover what you care about. Remind yourself what you enjoy. Refocus on making your dreams come true.
    • The Art of Communicating by Thich Nhat Hanh is very useful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDW6FYdIoYE
    • Don’t retaliate: Standing up for yourself
  • Take Control of Your Life. Your life is back in your hands. Take care of yourself.

Misc. Resources

Be the Driver of Your Car

Life Lessons, Thoughts On Life

Lately I’ve been feeling tired and I don’t know where my time is going. I don’t feel like I’m doing very much, yet I’m exhausted. Also, I don’t know what I’m doing. Did I mention I don’t know where my time is going? I feel lost and confused, like I don’t have control and I don’t have a map and I don’t have any skills. Do you know what I’m talking about?

If you’re feeling this way, this is the article for you.

The way we are getting out of this feeling is by using driving as a symbol and analogy for our life. If you are in the driver’s seat of a car, what would you do?

The first thing to do as the driver is to take action. As the driver, the car goes where you tell it to go. If someone else takes the wheel from you, then you are no longer the driver. Sitting in the driver’s seat does not make you the driver. Taking the action of controlling the car’s direction makes you the driver. You must take action to be the driver of your life.

The second thing to do as the driver is to make decisions. Make decisions in your life. Don’t let other people make decisions for you. You decide where you are going to take your car. They can tell you they want to go to the bathroom, or to visit their favorite restaurant, or see a park, but you are the final decision maker. You are the driver: make the final decision.

The third thing to do as the driver is to always be moving. A car that isn’t moving is not being driven: it’s a parked car. Don’t be a parked car going no where in life and panicking at what you’re seeing out of the tiny windows you’re looking out of. Keep Moving.

The fourth thing to do as the driver is to clean your windows. See the world, as much of it as you can. Take in information so you know where to go, whether there is danger up ahead or not, and whether to take this detour or not. The circumstances of the world around you are constantly changing, so be on the look out and keep your eyes open.

The fifth thing to do as the driver of your car is to take care of your car. Take it to maintenance, to the shop, for oil changes, purchase insurance

The sixth thing to do as the driver of your car is to equip it so you are read for the road ahead. Stock it with snacks and water and comforts while driving and equipment for the activities you’ll have along the way.

The seventh thing to do as the driver of your car is to do your research and plan ahead. Buy a map, make advanced phone calls, get feedback and input from others. Plan your trip so it goes smoothly with less surprises.

The eight thing to do as the driver of your car is to make advanced purchases. This goes hand in hand with planning ahead: When you make a plan, pre-purchase things you know you will need in locations you expect to be. Make your journey a pleasant one. Give yourself 5 star customer service and take care of every detail you can.

The ninth thing to do as the driver of your car is to influence the world around you positively in the direction of your goals. Ask for things from the world: you will be surprised at how often you will get what you ask for. And you will not be surprised when you don’t get what you didn’t ask for.

The tenth and final thing to do as the driver of your car is to control the attitude, personality, values, integrity, tone, and atmosphere of your environment. Be calm. You are in a car, it’s safe in here. The world is out there. You can’t always control the external world, but the inside of the car is yours to take control of. Take control of it.

Life Lessons July 2014

Life Lessons, Thoughts On Life
7/30/14.
7/29/14 When you can’t think of what to say #conversationSkills just compliment the person. That’s how I greeted someone and he warmed up to me instantly and I wasn’t even trying.
7/25/14
Some people think to be encouraging to others they have to show disappointment and say things like “you’re not good enough.” They think this kind of encouragement is a way of showing love.
To the people who encourage this way: I think the act of showing disappointment and making negative statements is not encouragement and is not love.  I think a more effective way to encourage others is to speak the intent: I want to encourage you to do better.
To the people receiving this kind of treatment: I think it’s important to recognize the limitations of other people. They don’t know any better way to encourage, and that’s why they do it this way.  It’s not right, but it’s the best they can do.
7/23/14  I am too narrow minded sometimes in my communication: either they have to say the exact line in my head, or else it’s not acceptable.  This is especially true when it comes to love: I only look for what I want to hear, and even when they try I don’t accept it if it isn’t exactly what I demand.
It’s important to recognize the way of expressing is different from person to person due to language, culture, values, etc. So rather than focusing on the words being said, look past them to the message being communicated
7/22/14 my mom would accuse me of not loving her if I ever said no.  This is different with with healthy people: you can say no and still love someone.  Healthy people allow for no.
Resentment is an offloading of responsibility to the other person.  If you take responsibility for your actions and for your consequences, you can’t resent someone else, it wasn’t their fault, it was yours.  Same with passive aggressive behavior: it is your choice, not the other person’s fault.
7/20/14 A large barrier to my success has been to underestimate complexity: just looking from the outside, it’s hard to get a sense of how complicated things can get.  But once you know, then you can adapt.  Specific story: I tried to start a website, but I refused to use any pre-existing code or theories like databases or algorithms, believing that I could and should rebuild the wheel from scratch.  While I could do it my way, I didn’t understand the sheer number of man hours that went into what we have today, the millions of hours of toil to get to this point. There’s no way one man can achieve it all in one’s lifetime.  Therefore, to succeed in this world, you cannot make your own way completely independent of society and civilization: you must stand on the shoulders of giants. We have come a long way since sticks and stones.
7/15/14 Waking up is extremely important to set your life on track–everything is thrown off if you wake up late.  Your day is further thrown off if you eat late. You need energy to function so always eat.
7/14/14 Lack of skill does not mean lack of love.  If someone does something for you poorly, but out of love: it’s love.  Don’t criticize judge or be ungrateful.
7/4/14 I used to think scholarships were people trying to use me. The distinction is in how much you participate in the formation of the goals. If you set the goal, then they are using you in one sense, but you are letting them in another. If you’re going to be used, it’s better to be used in the way that you want to be used. Then it can be more of a partnership where you both get what you want.
7/2/14 STOP LABELING YOURSELF: don’t bring your insecurities into your life and relationships.  I keep labeling myself as poor: stop it.  Just say: I have this much money, period. It doesn’t mean poor, it doesn’t mean rich, it just is.