Abuse Survivors: None Of Your Beeswax!

One of the things targets of abuse (esp. in childhood) get "trained" to do is be extremely hard and judgmental toward themselves. This, believe it or not, is BETTER than the other thing that might have happened: becoming a Narcissist.
It's about a thousand, maybe a million times harder to heal if one has developed the disorder of "Narcissism" as a result of a dysfunctional or traumatic childhood.

One of the things many survivors tend to do is be SUPER HONEST ALL THE TIME, and think of being forthcoming with information as MORALISTIC.
Survivors often go to the extreme with trying to "be honest" and "straightforward" by giving TOO MUCH information, and giving personal information to people who don't need to know those things.

Survivors often develop a habit of NOT PROTECTING themselves, sacrificing themselves for the sake of principal, and SHAMING themselves severely whenever they go outside of the strict parameters they have set for themselves.

Survivors often live on the edge of shame all the time, and will often shame themselves for normal human behaviors, feelings, and small mistakes or sins.
Shame is a weapon when used inappropriately, and controllers, abusers and manipulators use it OFTEN, both to control others, and to make themselves look "good" in comparison to someone else - (project shame onto a target and everyone else near them looks like they don't "deserve" to be shamed because they're so "good").

Survivors often BUY INTO THE PROJECTION OF SHAME that someone else placed on them, and will end up being "honest to a fault".

This is NOT an implication or statement that DISHONESTY IS OKAY. That's a completely different thing.

"Honest to a fault" for an example would be to reveal to a new neighbor that you used to have cockroaches, even though they've been cleared out for three years. Or WHY you were late to an important meeting, (you stepped in dog dirt, your stocking ran, your hair got caught in the curling iron brush) when you could have just said "Sorry I'm late". Or telling a new acquaintance about an abusive relationship or childhood, or telling a relative about an addiction to shopping for clothes.
"Honest to a fault" means TOO MUCH INFORMATION when it's not necessary, and thereby sabotaging one's goals by inadvertently painting a less than positive or strong picture of one's self to other people.
People for the most part ARE JUDGMENTAL of other people, in a negative way, and we usually end up finding out the HARD WAY after the fact, after we've said "too much" to the wrong person.

A person who has Narcissism issues will put your once having had cockroaches at the top of a LIST they are compiling about who is a "loser", and probably tell anyone they can in order to paint you as such (for no real reason except that's their hobby, because they lack inner self-esteem).
A person with Narcissism issues will latch onto your reasons about why you were late, and pin them on you like you are one of those "bumbling" people who "can't keep it together", and they'll also use that as ammunition against you.
A person who has Narcissism issues will use the information about your having been abused for several things: To JUDGE you, as if the abuse was YOUR fault; As free information about you that reveals that you are probably an easier "target" for manipulation, since you've been abused before; As free information about HOW to manipulate you, gain your trust, and bully you; and as "ammunition" against you in the future.
And of course a relative with Narcissism issues will blow your shopping addiction to extreme proportions, using it for gossip and slander fodder, using it to manipulate you, and turning you into a family Scapegoat.

Stop giving away free information that's NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS!

Here's a little window into the mind of a Narcissist-gossip: I once had some neighbors (not close friends) who seemed to be acting strangely, as if they were angry, as if we had done something wrong to them. Finally I asked the husband if we had done anything to offend them, and he answered back in a snappy tone, "You people think you're too good to talk about the details of what's going on in your life like everybody else! You're too private! We don't even know how much money you have! And what do you DO all day when you're in your house?!"   ......Okay? That's what's going on in their heads. They were ANGRY that we didn't give away our lives like the National Enquirer, so they could use the tidbits to talk about us. And yes, these neighbors were particularly "gossipy", they always had some criticism to say about random neighbors and people in the community, and the nicer the target was, the more criticism they had about them. But people like this are NOT RARE, they are actually VERY COMMON, much more common now that the Media has created a poisonous vortex of TEACHING young people that Gossip and slander are "normal" for so many years now.

Healing our boundaries means we WILL and DO learn not to self-sabotage by giving away too much information about ourselves and our lives, and we WILL and DO learn what information is "okay" to reveal, WHO it's okay to reveal it to, and what is none of anyone's business but our OWN.
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