The Familiarity of Chaos, Stop Choosing Abuse

There is a theory about victims who return to abusive relationships centered on the familiarity of chaos.

The theory is that victims choose abusive relationships because of the familiarity of chaos which creates a false sense of control.

Chaos is Comforting

Abusive relationships are typically chaotic and unpredictable. The chaos makes people more susceptible to emotional control, and the abusers can use this to their advantage.

As a victim, you become used to this chaos, and it becomes a familiar environment to you. With this familiarity comes comfort in predicting (so you think) behaviors and responses. Anticipating the negative behaviors generates a false sense of control.

This is also especially true if you were witty and intelligent and could sometimes get a “win.”

Succeeding where other people fail and being able to hold your own in extreme situations makes you good at stressful situations. Your “wins” proved you were in control and that was comforting.  

Psychological Chaos

Abusive relationships have some patterns to them. The manipulation starts slow and builds as the relationship progresses. For mental and emotional abuse, there are typical patterns of trust-building and gradual gaslighting. Gaslighting has been popularized in the political space, but be informed. Gaslighting is far more dangerous than a news channel highlighting someone contradicting themselves. In your personal life, gaslighting will look both subtle and blatant. It will be continuous every day and is meant to tear you down and make you easier to control.

Gaslighting is someone telling you things are false when they are not. It can involve real events that you have proof of, and the abuser will just deny it. It can occur in all types of relationships, such as a boss or coworker. Someone continually telling you that you are not qualified even though you have more experience than someone else.

With gaslighting, if you are told the lies enough, combined with certain trust-building moments, you will start to accept the lies. Gaslighting strategies could also be used to build up someone’s beliefs, but this psychological tool used negatively can lead to a complete breakdown of someone’s trust in their reality and, as a result, their independent thought.

Physical Chaos

With physical abuse, early signs will look like cutting off family, not letting you drive, or not letting you have a cell phone, money, or credit cards. If you are a kid and still at home, there are some things abusive parents might do to keep you from having friends and building relationships outside of the house. Abuse in a children’s environment might look like a mother moving outside of the school district but lying about the address. The child now has another hurdle to escaping the home. The main hurdle being the mother and having to go through her to get to school, and she probably loves it.

These physical control methods are means used to create chaos, hurting or taking what they want when it suits them. It’s familiar and we think we know what to expect. The chaos is comfortable.

It Ends

The abusive relationship ends. Anywhere there is a relationship with someone or something there is potential for this chaos.

As you start to step into healthy relationships that aren’t manipulative or argumentative, you get bored. There is no rush of excitement in winning an argument, no adrenaline rush from someone coming home and threatening you, and life is unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

Let’s first look at how one might seek to feed this comfort of chaos in their hobbies.

Chaos Addiction?

Have your ever called yourself an adrenaline junkie and not given it any second thought, while other people watch in disbelief as to why anyone would try something so dangerous?

Hobbies

Hobbies that involve risk, like parasailing, base jumping, mountain biking, scuba diving, and sky diving, provide chaos. These activities can be taken to real extremes and dangers. When the person is operating on the edge of their skill level, there are moments when out of nowhere or around a turn, there’s a challenge that needs to be overcome. In this moment of surprise, there is a familiar old feeling of chaos, and the person has to adapt in the moment and overcome the challenge, just like they did in an abusive relationship.

This challenging situation is familiar, and because of this, it provides comfort. The feeling of surprise and excitement by something unexpected (something chaotic) is familiar and familiar things are comfortable because we think we know what to expect. This knowingness of what to expect creates a sense of control.

As the routes and waves become known, the skills improve, and muscle memory and habit take over. There aren’t as many surprises or challenges. Like other drugs, the body and mind adapt to the initial threatening hobby, and more complex challenges are needed to experience chaos.

That is why the term adrenaline junkie becomes accurate. Just like with abuse, our athletes return to their sports, ready to push to the next level.

Creating the Abuser

Another suggestion I came across recently was that people look for their abuser once they get away. You managed to get out of said relationship and into a stable job. The suggestion was that you would start to look for who is abusing you. At work, in relationships, you are looking for the abuser to replace the abusive role you are used to having in your life.

While I also understand this theory’s idea of creating chaos for comfort, I disagree with this suggestion.

Being aware of human behavior and how humans can be manipulated and controlled does not mean you are out in your day seeking and creating an abuser. What I can accept by the phrase “seeking an abuser” or replacing the abusive parent role with someone else is the idea that you ignored red flags and took the job or relationship that has more risk anyway.

What trauma and in healing from surviving and escaping a previously abusive relationship, you are aware of what they look like. Finding yourself in this abusive relationship, you are now left trying to figure out how to convince people that the abuse is happening.

This is why you might end up in an abusive relationship whether personal, professional, or social. You did not seek out the negative or abusive person at work, but you did ignore warnings signs of chaos.  

Career Choices

A preference for chaotic relationships can show up when selecting a career type.

For this example, let’s use flight. There are options to become an airplane part designer or aircraft mechanic, but you instead choose a pilot. And not just any pilot but fighter pilot or flight test pilot. These roles have a certain amount of inherent risk and potential for chaotic moments that will feel familiar and that, after a lifetime of abuse, you crave. The craving for someplace familiar where you know what to expect and have control.

Even considering these job types is one way the abuse is still showing up and defining your life and relationships.

Chaos and Control

The familiarity of chaos is comforting for a perception of control. The control, is a false sense of control as you are not in control of the situation but only your response to it. You were never in control of the abuser or the abusive situation, but only your response to it. Because you learned the responses and behaviors to navigate these situations, you have the responses on standby. To enjoy a more stable, less chaotic, relationship means becoming someone who responds differently. Responses that you do not have on standby, and as a result, you feel out of control.

To feel out of control is uncomfortable and the abused return to abusive relationships for a sense of control over their lives.

Addiction to Abuse

This addiction to abuse is actually an addiction to familiarity, comfort, and control.

However, if you were “good” at it. If you succeeded in the abuse and got “wins.” I think there’s another motive you can read later this evening after the article “Addiction to Abuse, The Desire for Positive Chaos.”

Resources

For more information on gaslighting or abusive personality types, Dr. Ramani has a YouTube channel that is a great resource. Her discussions and interviews focus on narcissistic abuse and gaslighting techniques.

You can follow her on instagram below.

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Dr. Ramani Durvasula (@doctorramani) • Instagram photos and videos