164. The Abuse Pattern

The Abuse Pattern

You have the impression of being in the “too much” in love and in your life, that you are addicted to drama, that you accumulate toxic relationships, that you accept abuse from your partners and that you cannot manage to put a stop to it, then this episode is for you. I have written two books published by Editions Eyrolles one of which is on the love patterns we repeat and the abuse pattern takes up a whole chapter in my book S’ouvrir à l’amour, et si la solution se trouvait du côté du nerf vague ? The abuse pattern is the step above the non-alignment pattern or the betrayal wound that I talk about in episode 15. If you listened to episode 153 the 4 categories of love pattern or if you have read my book you know that the abuse pattern comes under the category of the absence of limits. In this episode I would like to detail it a little more as it is a pattern that comes back often.

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The different mechanisms of the abuse pattern

  • You are constantly in the too much, in excess (eating too much, working too much, taking care of too much, analysing too much, seducing too much, too many projections).
  • In love, this translates into a feeling that relationships take all your energy.
  • You love too much (too much, too fast, too strong, you are addicted to strong emotions)
  • You adopt the saviour syndrome (“he/she has a heavy past”, “he/she is going through a difficult phase”), you do too much.
  • You accept the abuse of others.
  • You confuse love and traumatic attachment I will talk about it in episode 165.
  • You are addicted to drama or chaos (the “nice ones” bore you).
Your reaction mechanisms involve your body even more (burnout, addictions, eating disorders, ruminations, anxiety, panic attacks, relational exhaustion, obsessive behaviours like stalking your crush on social media, checking their phone, dating burnout, accepting things you do not want sexually, sexual addiction…)

The challenge if you have the abuse pattern

It is to realise that you are in the too much, that you are beyond your own limits or those of your partner (you are often a red flag, I talk to you about this mechanism in episode 93). The consequence of this challenge is that you have difficulty trusting your judgement to evaluate a situation.

The origins of the abuse mechanism

  • Many years of non-alignment, betrayal.
  • Patterns linked to the body: difficult birth, eating disorders, medical interventions, rape and abuse (episode 101).
  • A disorganised attachment that I call the drama attachment.
  • Strong dysregulation of your nervous system which has led to a dominant state being the dorsal: disconnection from the body, difficulties in feeling emotions.
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The first step to getting out of the abuse pattern

It is to become aware again of your limits at the somatic level, to feel them (not to intellectualise them). It is a great work of listening and reconnection to the body. You have some tools in episode 58. It is a work that requires patience because it first requires reconnecting the body (coming out of the freeze) and welcoming all the stored emotions that have not been totally processed. It is unpleasant at the beginning because the protection mechanism of abuse was to no longer “feel” and in coming out of the freeze, you will feel everything that you did not want to feel in the past. This is a phase that will require you to release this initial storage without overwhelming yourself (you can do this through breathwork or emotional release massage during the Day of the Past) so that you have the impression that the emotional waves are calmer. After this initial phase, you need to no longer repeat the same mistakes and learn to process emotions as they arrive and learn to support yourself when they are too intense to avoid going back into disconnection. For the abuse pattern, I always advise doing the deprogramming of love patterns with the psycho-corporeal approach of Somatic Deprogramming (the Day of the Past option in the coaching Opening Up to Love) because the Day of the Past allows you to “reconnect the plug” more easily. I invite you to listen to The love story of Marie-Anne who had this abuse pattern and who explains her transformation and how she felt after the Day of the Past.

A tool to evaluate your judgement of a situation

Taking the time to evaluate your judgement of a situation, by taking it out of your head and putting it in writing, will help you understand what led you to that judgement, evaluate it and, if necessary, correct it. For each situation about which you are not sure of the accuracy of your evaluation, follow the steps below. Step 1: identify the state of your nervous system Identifying the state of your nervous system will not only help you determine whether you are capable of self-evaluation, but also whether your evaluation is biased by your state:
  • in the sympathetic state, you will tend to imagine the worst;
  • in the dorsal vagal state, you see no way out.
 Step 2: note what you have difficulty evaluating Note what you have difficulty evaluating without judging yourself. Step 3: identify what may have contributed to the situation Observe objectively the actions you took that may have led to this result. Then ask yourself: if a person acted exactly as you did, what could be the impact on the situation? Do the same with your partner’s actions. Step 4: what is the best possible interpretation? What would be the best possible interpretation of the other’s actions? You often observe a person’s behaviour through the repetition of their actions, so it is not “bad” to give the benefit of the doubt. Step 5: identify how you can dispel the doubt For what you have difficulty evaluating, ask yourself in theory: “How can I estimate if a person is… next times? With what facts?”

Pour aller plus loin

Si tu as envie d’approfondir le schéma de l’abus, tu as mon livre S’ouvrir à l’amour disponible dans toutes les librairies. Tu as tout un chapitre où je te partage des outils pour te reconnecter au corps et ressentir tes limites dans l’engagement social.

S'ouvrir à l'Amour

Le livre qui va te permettre d'identifier tes schémas amoureux et te permettre d'apprendre les clefs pour construire une relation saine

Going further

And if you would like to do the work on your love patterns through the body and transform your love life, you have the programme Opening Up to Love and you can take the Day of the Past option as well.
Opening Up to Love

Sandy Kaufmann

is a somatic therapist and coach, based in Switzerland. She is the author of two books published by Éditions Eyrolles and has accompanied more than 600 people. She is the creator of the Somatic Deprogramming method and hosts the podcast “S’ouvrir a l’amour“, ranked in the French top 50 in the relationships category.

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