How Expecting the Worst Confirms It

Robert is thirty-two years old and has trouble holding a job. He grates on people's nerves with his abrasive, blunt outbursts of displeasure at their behavior. Because of his inability to deal effectively with others, Robert is most successful at jobs in which he can work alone. Unfortunately, while Robert works best alone, he also works slowly.

He constantly second-guesses his own judgments on the job. Caught up in daydreams, he spends a good portion of his time imagining how people will react to his work and what he will do and say in response. He wants to be ready for what he knows will come. Expecting and even anticipating a negative reaction, he seems to enjoy it, since it vindicates what he has believed they were thinking all along. He is happy inside because he was right. To others, Robert comes across as defensive and hostile because he is already sure that any response to him will be negative.

Robert grew up as the youngest of three children. His older siblings couldn't relate to his childish behavior. He was raised with the indelible impression that his brother and sister were smarter, better looking, and bound to be more successful than he could ever hope to be. His parents loved him, but Robert always had the sense that he was an afterthought, that the real tradition of the family would be carried on by the older, more capable children.

In school, Robert was always teased by the other children who knew his brother and sister. He was a thin, unattractive child whose dour expression set up a barrier without him speaking a word. Robert seemed to want to be left alone, and others were more than happy to oblige.

Robert grew up feeling that he would never amount to anything, that who he was as a person was not valued, and that people would always deal with him in a negative manner. Anticipating their reactions, Robert sought to beat them to the punch by being openly hostile and abrasive in all of his relationships.

Even therapy was a battle zone as far as Robert was concerned. He didn't like his therapist, didn't like her conclusions, and didn't like having to change the way he had always dealt with the world. Robert didn't want to take the chance of being hurt, yet neither did he want to continue living the way he was living now.

Robert's recovery will be slow, but as long as he listens to the truth, which softly whispers above the clamor of his self-doubt that he really is a valuable person, one day Robert will finally believe it.

Emotional abuse not only damages a person's self-esteem at the time it is done, it also sets up a life pattern that daily assaults the inner being:

• Do you view life as unstable?
• Are you constantly vigilant to the behavior of others?
• Do you second-guess yourself?
• Does nothing you do ever seem to be right?
• Are you unable to control your negative emotions?

Affirmaton Statement: My victory comes by building my self-esteem higher than the effects of emotional abuse. I confirm that each day I will rise above the abuse and choose thoughts and actions that show I am able to love myself.

2009 Healing the Scars of Emotional Abuse, Gregory L. Jantz, Revell