Does the abuser see you as a person?

In today's episode, we delve into a profound concept known as "the Teddy Bear Effect," which provides insight into manipulative expectations within abusive relationships.

The "Teddy Bear Effect" stems from Patricia Evans' analogy in her book Controlling People. It's about how abusers create an unrealistic version of their partner, treating them as if they were a teddy bear - compliant and devoid of personal needs or feelings. This pretend relationship ignores the authentic person's identity and imposes unfair standards that serve only the abuser's sense of control.

Key points discussed include:

• The non-reciprocal nature of abusive relationships where expectations are one-sided.
• How controllers project their own narrative onto their partners, ignoring true emotions and reactions.
• The damaging impact on victims who feel unseen and unappreciated for who they truly are.

Here are the two books mentioned on the podcast:
Controlling People
The Verbally Abusive Relationship

Transcript

Welcome to the relationship recovery podcast. Hosted by Jessica Knight, a certified life coach who specializes in narcissistic and emotional abuse. This podcast is intended to help you identify manipulative and abusive behavior, set boundaries with yourself and others and heal the relationship with yourself, so you can learn to love in a healthy way. Hello, and welcome back and thank you. As always for being here.

I wanted to start out with a few quick reminders before we dive in. Today to a topic that I've actually been thinking about a lot recently. And so just a few house cleaning things I am so grateful that people find this podcast and that it is helpful, and it is healing and it is opening up neural pathways for you that you're able to understand your relation chips better, and really validate for yourself that you're not crazy. It's not you. And I am also honored that people reach out and you want to book clarity calls, but I just wanna be very clear because I'm very respectful of my clients time and do just think it's important because I do have an offering if you just wanna 1 off, But the clarity call is meant to be a call between us to see if we are meant to work together if we should work together, I try and learn as much as I can about what you're going through.

Obviously, I totally understand that there's a lot of things that gather we won't talk about in a quick half an hour, but that's what that call is for. What's going on, can I help? And let's go over logistics and what this looks like. A validation call on the other hand is I just need a 1 off with you and I want dive in. And I say this often when I bring this up on podcast podcasts.

It's, like, if you don't see a time that works for you, just email me. I do have times available, but just sort of the piggy piggyback that same comment. I care very much about the reoccurring clients that I have now and, like, obviously, they are going through a lot as well. And so I try up to preserve some time just in case there's is reschedule and things like that, but that also means I have some availability in between I also do take those on the weekend when I don't have my daughter. And so you can always email me and ask, jessica jessica night coaching dot com.

And I'd be happy to find a time. And if you're curious about, like, which option is best, you can also email me about that, I am here to help. But I definitely have been getting a few clarity calls that or either no shows, which just sort of pushes back appointment times for people that really want the help or it's uses as a free call, which there's a lot of free content here. You know, I really commit to continuing to deliver this podcast, you know, but there's other options if that doesn't work, but you can always reach out Additionally, my emotional abuse recovery course is available on my website, emotional abuse coach dot com and that is the first step to beginning to separate from an emotionally abusive person. Okay.

The topic. I'm so bad at logistics, guys. U, but really important that I get that out there because I wanna be able to serve as many people and in the best way that I can. Today's topic is a topic that has been coming up in my life it's also been coming up in the lives of my clients, which is usually pretty aligned, and I was down a reddit rabbit hole, but and it reminded me of something that I learned many years ago called the Teddy bear effect. And so We often wonder how the other person could possibly see us the way they do or accept us in a certain way.

Or child expectations for us. And when we are with the controlling person, nothing makes sense, but their expectations of us are at the top of that list of things that don't make sense. And sometimes, this puts us in a real spiral because we start to wonder, is it me? Is it them? You know, we might vent to somebody and they might say, oh, my husband does that.

Or my boyfriend does... That or we might second guess ourselves, Google behaviors, bring this to therapy, feel like it's us, and I don't want you to have to do that. And I think that a lot of times, you know, we wonder if it is us. Because you're an empathetic compassionate person and likely if you're hurting someone and they're telling you that you're gonna wanna look at your behavior but a lot of times when we're with a controlling person, it's not us, and it's our reaction to the control, which is reactive abuse, and often we wonder how they could possibly see us go away they do. And when we are with the controlling curves and nothing makes sense.

The expectations that they have of us are often very unrealistic and driven by control, but they don't seem that way, a lot of the time, they want us to be a certain way, so their life is easier, so that they don't feel sheep, so that they aren't blamed a which is actually molding them accountable. And often, this is so unrealistic that there is no option but to comply. In some way because they're often so convincing that you often feel and think that you're supposed to meet their needs, even if it's not really rational And 1 thing that helps me in my healing was to begin to see this through Patricia Evans analogy, It's called the Teddy check. Now, Patricia Evans is an amazing resource. She's not spoken about that much, but she should be.

She wrote the book verbally abusive relationship, and it is very good. And this Teddy check comes from her book, controlling people. I will post links to both of those in the show notes. What is the Teddy check though? It essentially means your partner treats you is if you're supposed to be a teddy bear.

I'm just gonna let that land for a second. This perspective is based on how a child relates to a stuffed animal. In a way, the toxic person or manipulator or abuser, tries to create a pretend relationship. Let's first look at the qualities. The Teddy bear is an ina object, and therefore compliant.

A child plugs their thoughts and perceptions into the teddy bear, making it do and say, what it wants. The Teddy is always comforting. The child talks to Teddy and responds to Teddy, as Teddy. Teddy is always appreciative kind and doesn't mind if you've been sitting around for a while. Teddy agrees with you, And then in this theory, we can see that Teddy also would do things for you, and thinks about you before you ask.

And this is because the teddy bears is based on for 10 play. My daughter thinks that her stuffed animals are her friends, and they have thoughts and have feelings and they have fights and they have responses. But no matter what at the end of the day are She goes to bed and all her stuff these are in the bed, and everybody is tucked in. Everyone's happy. Because it's a reality, and this is what the abuser or controlling person is playing.

They are playing pretend here with us, they're trying to plug their person into this pretend version. And if we follow this narrative, When the non abusive or authentic person speaks up, the adult may think something like, sometimes teddy talks about stuff, But doesn't have anything to do with you, so just not agree. No matter what the tone is and the same goes in vice versa. You're supposed to just not in agree. So when we talk when we express things, they don't take us seriously.

When it's the other way, they just nod, They act agreeable or not. Ted doesn't get upset with you. Imagine if it did, Say, Teddy was upset by something. Right? How could that be?

The abuser would then deliver their usual response. Mixed with diverting and counter that would silence Teddy. Teddy would likely stay silent for a few days and everything would go back to normal, and he probably would just look at Teddy and say, well, Teddy is malfunctioning. Right? That's the excuse.

Well, it must have been a defect and now we move on. And this works for the manipulator, because we learn from the love bombing stage that they don't see us as us. They don't see us as a person. We don't see them either. We see the absolute best in them.

We believe that that is them. And during this time, they not only see an irrational version of us, but we see a pretend version of them too, and they are attracted to us so insofar as we maintain their false reality, This is something that I had to learn and inquiring in my bones because I was in so many relationships that I would get to a point that I'd be like, that's not me. What are you doing? What are you saying? It's because they have a version of us that they've created, which creates a false reality.

And the problem is that this isn't grounded in reality. They do not accept the ways in which They are not the dream, man and woman and the ways in which that we are full people with thoughts, feelings, emotions, jobs, kids, injuries allen, whatever. They hold us to standards that we don't even understand because we never probably agreed to it. We probably never said like, oh, yeah. No.

You're right. I am happy all the time. Or you know what? There are literally no problems in my life. I always want to look my best.

Like, the standards they have for us usually are so unrealistic. We clearly didn't create them. And I have had people in my life tell me you don't know how to live stress free life in which I responded, aren't you as single parent to or that we should be able to talk whenever they want You know, that's 1 from a client actually. And when they take away our ability to sleep to process to breathe because they need to talk, when they want, that's butte. It's not stone I like to say, I need a break from this conversation.

I need to go to sleep. Let's find a time. It is abuse to say the time is now and you are not going to sleep until I feel better. Here's is an example. How somebody might pull that Teddy check on you.

And again, the teddy check is really to make sure that you are still, the version that they want you to be. Taking into account the cycle of abuse, we know that after there's an incident usually returns to the com stage. So the controller now checks up, on the victim to make sure things are status as quo. Even though it's late at night, the authentic person is asleep, the controller gets out or sets out to tell Teddy about a meeting that they had. Maybe they just got home.

There they're like, I'm gonna go tell Teddy about the meeting. Now you may think there's something wrong, Right? There is an insistence to talk. And in this example, the abuser wakes up the person to talk. He says, He just wanted to connect?

He missed her. There's no regard for the fact that she was asleep. And again, we need to think about this in the constant of control and abuse. This isn't somebody went to work. They're coming home.

I really missed you so much today. Even that because that person would like probably set the coffee machine to make coffee when that person woke up wrote a note and left a flower and said I really missed you. And then cuddle up next to them in the bed. Right? A controlling person wants what they want when they want it.

And so goes in, wakes her up, no regard for the fact that she's sleeping again, abusive relationship. That... So she likely was a asleep didn't want to be woken up, or else she would have been awake still. No regard that they have that she had a day 2, and the manipulator just wanted ted time. Want time to vent to talk to get their needs met.

And if you've ever been treated this way, you know that you don't feel like you have agency in your choice. And if you haven't been treated this way. You're likely listening to the wrong podcast, because seriously, if you have never been treated this way, it may be hard to understand why somebody would act out this way or even see a problem with this But we need to see that it's disregard the human needs of someone else. That's what the Teddy check does. It disregard our needs.

Because all they want is it Teddy bear to love them that will listen to them and that responds to them. Give and take is usually not an occurrence in an abusive relationship. They are 1 cited, so the expectations go 1 way. And what would happen? If you just wanted to talk or float event.

What happens when you have feelings? We go back to where we started, Teddy is not allowed to have feeling. The abuser makes up what the Teddy feelings are. Teddy bear doesn't require reconciliation. Here just requires time.

It's 1 way. They don't see as a living breathing separate person they see you as an extension of themselves. They feel threatened when you don't show up as expected. And they often project their feelings on you because they don't see you as real, which is half the time when they speak to you or wondering what the fuck is coming out of their mouth. So because it's likely things you've said to them.

I need space. I need to breathe. Can you give me some time. I would really appreciate if you didn't text me constantly while I was at with my friend? I need a united at home, whatever that is.

1 reason they do this outside of power and control, which is clear. Is that these qualities fell the void that they have within them. So when you aren't the person that they made up, they don't know what to do with that They see it as a personal attack. And this is why as victims, we often find ourselves thinking believing and saying. You don't want me or you don't seem to like me because they don't see you, and quite frankly, they don't like the real you.

They like the version of you that they created that is unrealistic to the circumstances. We all can work on ourselves. Right? There's always stuff that we can look at. That doesn't mean to change our inner our personality.

Think about this, someone who loves you doesn't completely disregard your emotions, safety determines mental health. They don't discard you and they don't disregard how you feel. An abuser, a controller is a well crap idea of who you are in their head and when you deviate from that. They become angry and abusive. They want you but not the actual you.

It's an And I think this concept is important because we need the language to understand our reality, not having words to express what's going on is really isolating and I believe that's what leads to crazy making. And this is why narcissistic controlling abusive behavior is so hard to understand because it turns it back on us, what everything just... It's like their rubber their rubber were glue. It just bounces off of them and sticks on us. That's exactly what it's like.

You know, but if you're feeling like you are in this relationship and the expectations are through the roof, and there's never any accountability. There's never any understanding. It's like, Yeah because they don't want that. They just want to dump on us, respond for us, feel for us and then move on from us. And it is so fucking painful.

But I hope that this podcast gave you some clarity on 1 concept of something that could be going on in your relationship. And... I highly recommend any of the work by Patricia Evans, but specifically the book controlling people. I think it will help a lot of people. The links will be in the show notes.

And if you have questions on this topic or want me to expand further. Please always feel free to reach out. You can email me at jessica at jessica at coaching dot com. You can find me on Instagram at emotional views coach. And you can find me at emotional abuse coach dot com.