Transcription
[Music] guess what time it is kids it's time man get your bandanas out it's time for facts of your friends oh man I'm looking at I I set it up like it's all right so today's fact your friends I'm just going to say at the outset this one's tough because I'm going to leave with some some concrete steps some concrete things to look for but I also am going to leave you with some open-handed openend discussion topics um because I'm be honest I struggle with this and I should this is one of those things that like as somebody who spent their years working with abused and traumatized people I should be able to Rattle this off and I've called some of my colleagues across the country I have sat on the internets I've read books I really struggle with the definition of the word abuse and when you say that's abuse we all know what that is right it's it's physical abuse it's harm it's somebody hurting you it's psychological abuse it's sexual abuse it's neglect right we know when we hear the word abuse it it's easy to think like I can I know it when I see it right like that old court case about pornography like I know it when I see it right but as a science nerd just a nerd in general that's not good enough I like to Define it what is it and so I could just a simple definition online I this is just a random place I just typed into the Google what is abuse and here's the definition abuse is defined as any action that intentionally harms or injures another person that makes sense right so some of my discussions with my colleagues was yeah it's it's an intent to harm it's an action that that intends to hurt somebody the reason where I bulk at that is neglect is also abuse like the last caller we had a dad just sitting around while his kid needs to go to the ER and he's just not paying attention he's just eating chips he's not trying to hurt that kid he couldn't care less about that kid that's abuse and so there's no intent there there's just neglect there's just complete disregard and I would suggest that's still abuse and here's another um challenge um I had a colleague once that was we were all having a meeting and the meeting got got tense but we Al it was a tense meeting we were also laughing back and forth and the boss said something right like the the the highest ranking person in the room said something and everybody's laughing but it was like a very passive quiet just silly throw away thing and it wasn't an insult it wasn't a anything derogatory it was just like ah a little while later my colleague came out of that meeting and she was rage crying rage crying she was shaking to her core and the way she explained it was this incredibly abusive Behavior by the boss I was there everybody was there men and women and nobody saw it in fact we all saw the opposite we all saw some attempts to kind of let the air out of the room and to connect and I think it would be dismissive to suggest that her body was not in full fight or flight her body had moved to defend itself to to run to freeze to come back swinging and so for me in my just be like ah it's not abuse I don't like that either doesn't feel right and if we create a culture where the end user the end receiver is the person who defines abuse you get the world we got now where everybody's offended about everything and you know one of the cornerstones of anxiety is you got to go through it you got to work you got to head right into the middle of the storm that's where healing is but we've created a culture where everybody's anxious about everything everybody's fired up and worried about everything and it's everybody else's job in the world to bend their lives around our offense or our discomfort and it's chaos it's Madness it's a moving Target so I don't like saying that every person gets to Define abuse for themselves that doesn't make sense so I find myself in this quandry I like the idea of abuse is harm right it's a harm whether you meant it or not I also think there's got to be some sort of boundary there otherwise you get into this these thought crimes and this you raise an eyebrow and all of a sudden it hurt like I it's just such a mess and so I leave that to you I think it's an important topic to discuss how do we Define abuse at the end of the day um I even have to go this far as I'm and I want you guys to see or guess experience this is annoying my wife tells me I'm I'm I try to think through an argument in my mind and get all the way to the end of the argument um I can also Imagine a scenario where certain Behavior would be unifying in one situation and abusive in another right so it may be um fun it may be unifying to poke to make jokes with some of my childhood friends the very same jokes the very same behavior may be unifying for us and to somebody else like my wife or my a colleague that may trigger something that happened when they were a kid and it's and it's very ret traumatizing right so I think approaching the world I've got to be able to speak my needs out loud I've got to know when my body is reacting and I have to be willing to be hospitable and and I got to be able to say hey I didn't mean harm it's probably best if we don't work together I didn't mean harm in any way I will never make say that again do that again make that joke I had no idea I was neglecting you I thank you so much for telling me consider that problem fixed it's Sol right so I think it's a a mix of both um here is um this is from choosing therapy.com here's a couple of uh I'm just going to run through a couple these terms signs that you may be in an abusive relationship um somebody's verbally abusing you they're swearing at you they're yelling and screaming at you and sometimes you can abuse somebody very very quietly somebody threatens violence they threaten to withhold love they threaten to withhold food or safety right verbal abuse um some uh unpredictable behaviors can be abusive especially for kids when they don't know what mom or dad they're going to get whether it's going to be the rage dad or the drunk dad or the angry mom or the happy mom or the super you know engaged dad their nervous system can never stabilize it's always toggling with this hard back and forth between the sympathetic and parasympathetic response it's it becomes a mess um cruelty to animals or others right um threatening behavior forced sexual activity or disregard for others desire right you can be abusive through forcing somebody to cater to your sexual whims can also be abusive to withhold connectivity weaponize it that can hold somebody hostage um here's a couple other ones Financial abuse stealing money from the joint account lying about expenses making making somebody go through you or go through them in order to spend money I've heard of couples who somebody gives the other person an allowance they got to run every expense by you or you don't have your own debit card or whatever or they have their own account right there's Financial abuse um there's taking out credit cards in your name and spending money and racking up debt you've got to pick right so um there's public shaming there's harassment there's bruises in black eyes and by the way there's the fight or flight or freeze response one we don't talk about a lot that's a trauma response an abuse response is Fawn I'm going to nuzzle up to you and get so close to you that you won't hit me anymore I am going to get so close so it can look like intimacy it can look really really close so I think the key here for me is anything that makes my body feel like it's got a protected itself could be abusive Behavior it's not it's not a guarantee every time anything that causes my body's sympathetic nervous system to fire up fire flight ready to rock and roll could be it might not be it might just be that I'm really really tired I took that the wrong way and that's where it's incumbent on all of us to learn what we need to learn how to regulate our own nervous systems I can't Outsource that to everybody I can't make that everybody that everybody's job that's my job and if you've experienced trauma that means you got some work to do you got some healing to do that's hard if you are being abused right now if you're an abusive relationship call somebody call somebody call somebody your life has value outside of being somebody's punching back you're worth being loved and you're worth more than that call somebody reach out to a local hotline if you don't have a friend or like the last caller call some buddies and say it's I need help come get me and let's make a plan for what happens next Life's too short to be abused and if you're abusing somebody stop go get help