Is it Possible You Have an Abusive Relationship in Your Life?

We all to often her the words abusive relationship and immediately think of a couple, a husband and wife, partners, boyfriend and girlfriend. We all too often don't recognize that many of us have or are experiencing abusive relationships in our daily life.

At one point in my career I had a boss that made you know exactly where you stood with her. She was very aggressive, very easily angered and you never really knew what version of her you may get. Probably the toughest boss I ever had, but one who saw potential in me and gave me a chance. There were many times that I was a buffer between her and others because I wouldn't let her intimidate me and I would tell her what I was thinking. I remember her hanging up on me one day because I got "snarky" with her, a term she often referred as a defining quality of mine. Looking back I was probably pretty snarky because I was annoyed a lot of the time. Anyway, she eventually left the organization. Some time after she departed one of my employees and I were discussing how much better we felt going to work everyday. She said to me "it was liking getting out of an abusive relationship". Ding, Ding, Ding!!!! Holy Shit was she ever right!

Sometimes our abusive relationships are not even with people. The company I was working for was very much the source of the abuse. I left the organization almost two years ago, and it has taken me almost that long to get to this point where I look back and see an entirely different perspective of what it was and what I experienced. Just like any relationship we leave, it takes time to see the things you had been blinded by and missing the whole time. While you are in it, you are enchanted by the love and passion of what you are doing, the desire to meet your goals and like many of us we try everything in our power to make it work, until we realize it never will. This is the stage of grief I am currently in. Yes I said grief, it is a standard process we go through anytime we suffer a loss, doesn't matter what the loss is or if we are the ones who initiate it, we still grieve. The more I write, the more I meditate, the more I listen, the more I realize I had an abusive relationship with that job and company. When a companies culture is cut-throat, it is every man for themselves, there is a lack of raising others up and more tearing others down, you are in an abusive company. You will see unrealistic expectations set for you, you will feel like for every step you take forward you take 30 back. You know how your mom told you that you can't change people, changing a company culture is an entirely different beast, and not for the faint at heart to undertake.

And you think that is all, no. We also tend to be abusive to ourselves. Just like any abusive relationship, this can be physical, verbal, sexual or mental abuse (yes this is also the case with company culture abuse). We can be our own worse enemies. For some of us we do things physically to harm ourselves (cutting, burning, overexercising). We verbally and/or mentally shame ourselves, saying things like "I am fat, stupid, ugly". Abuse to ourselves can be very dark. We often hide it or display it in ways we probably never wished too (drink to much, use drugs, etc.).

The truth of this story is abuse can show up in many places in our lives and the lives of our friends and family. Any relationship we have, either with a person, a career, a company, the food we eat, the whiskey we drink (yes I admit I have a little bit of a relationship with whiskey) can be or turn into abusive (if I drink to much of the whiskey...). So if you catch yourself not staying true to your core values or you see others who are experiencing significant stress, anxiety or stress it maybe for an abusive factor not yet realized.

Stay safe and take care of yourself and the ones you love!