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sarahsweets · Jul 15, 2019, 07:42 AM

@ennie

Quote:

Originally Posted by ennie

Sarah, can you please elaborate on "we teach people how to treat us," as you use this phrase quite often on PC?

(If you feel this is more appropriate for another thread, please feel free to open a new thread about this.)

I don’t know if it should be a new thread I’ll have to think about that. Let me first say that what I said does not apply to abusers and their victims. A victim is not responsible for the abuse.
I borrow ideas from AA sometimes and I should’ve given better context. What I mean by we teach people how to treat us is about boundaries. Setting them and keeping them. When a person becomes strong enough and supported enough to tell the toxic person or people what they will not stand for it’s a way of making those people manage their expectations. It gives them an action or situation that a person will no longer tolerate or deal with and what the consequences will be if they engage in those behaviors again. They now know what to expect because you clearly told them and they know the consequences because you also told them. Now it’s up to the person to follow through. Setting boundaries is all well and good but if we do not hold people accountable for the things we said we would not tolerate we are “teaching “ them how to treat us. We are demonstrating that we do not mean what we said and they may think we were not really serious when we told them what we wanted and needed. I had zero boundaries with anyone including AA people when I was newly sober and I was told that I could teach people how I wanted to be treated by my actions, I was able to set boundaries that I could keep. I had support in the beginning by having a neutral person stand beside me and the first few times I had to set some guidelines and then follow through I almost hyperventilated. But it got easier with time and practice.