The Reality of Abuse, A Followup

This is a followup on my previous post. I appologized to the person I harmed and asked their forgiveness. They were surprised, not that I was appologizing, but that I felt so badly for something that they didn't view as abusive or anything other than normal behavior. I was glad that they felt that way but I wasn't ready to let it go that easily. In fact, I'm still quite bothered about my actions and how far I had gone down that slippery slope.

Since then I have had a fair bit of time to reflect on everything around this. One thing I remembered was what Viktor Frankl learned while he was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp: "Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose."

In other words, when I am being driven crazy or am feeling close to the edge, its not wrong to be feeling that way. Where right and wrong get involved are in how I choose to respond to the circumstances that have caused those feelings. If I go over the edge and lash out, its because thats what I chose to do. A better choice is to remove myself from the situation long enough to back away from the edge. Then I can come back and deal with it appropriately.

There are two things at work here. The first is being aware of myself and how I'm feeling. Its paying attention to the people and circumstances around me and asking myself, "how does that make me feel?" The second is taking accountability for my actions. Regardless of what is going on around me, nobody is making me do anything. By combining self awareness and accountability together, I can no longer blame someone else for my actions. I know how I am feeling and I know that I'm close to the edge. I can choose to go over, or I can choose to back down or remove myself. With self awarness and accountability, the freedom to choose my response becomes a reality.

I'm not trivializing this or thinking that's its going to be an easy process. In fact, I know its quite the opposite. Learning how to manage myself is an ongoing process that will likely take me the rest of my life. I'm sure there will be times when I look back and realize too late that once again I have harmed someone. The key will be to have a positive balance in their emotional bank account, not so that I can get away with it, but so that they will be willing to forgive me when I ask.