Red Flags – Warning signs in me – a repost from MovedByFaith

We’ve heard about red flags that someone is an abuser. But there are also red flags in victims – ways they think and feel and rationalize during the courtship – which in retrospect they realize were signs of danger.

A survivor Kara discusses this topic on Moved By Faith, where she blogs with her friend and supporter Emma.

Kara’s post is called Warning signs in me.  I’ve extracted some of her points here, and added a bit of emphasis with italics etc.

[I had] poor finances, a rocky past in relationships,  and a history of bouts with anxiety and depression. If I had all these “issues,” who was I not to accept HIS “issues” ?

Problem is I allowed myself to process the warning signs as issues. These two are not the same.

Red Flags, Red Flags, Red Flags:

1. Wanting to be loved when it is too much to love yourself.
2. Wanting to belong in a family, to create a family.
3. Leaving your heart open to be trampled on.

It is positive to want to love and be loved, to desire a family, and to have a open heart. But to throw caution to the air, and want these goals above all else left me vulnerable.

Now, cleaning up the rubble in my heart has been a daily chore. It is not enough to know the warning signs an abuser emits, what are the warning signs in yourself that allow you to ignore them?

~Kara

Read the whole post Warning signs in me.
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• Posted in: Victims
• Tagged: boundaries, Christian maturity, prevention, protecting victims, red flags