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Dearest Survivor,
I am deeply sorry for what you are experiencing and processing to have led you to this page.
I am also optimistic for you ~ your being here reflects your self-love, self-respect, and desire to heal and imagine a new future.
The emotional pain and psychological confusion caused by a person who is entitled, manipulative, controlling, confusing, and stuck in their delusion of supremacy, is excruciating ~ especially when this person is someone you love.
Letting go of the “dream” you shared with this person and accepting that they do not love, respect, and care about you in the way you were led to believe, could be one of the most difficult challenges you will face.
There is no set time-line for this layered and complicated grief; you are not only grieving the loss of a significant relationship you have invested in so deeply, but also the wonderful partner you believed this person to be - or hoped they would become. You might also be grieving the YOU who existed so brightly before the abuse began, as well as the kind and just world you believed you were living in.
You are likely struggling with both cognitive dissonance and a loss of innocence as you try to make sense of what has happened.
You Are Not Alone
Please know:
You are not alone.
It was not your fault that you became entangled with someone like this.
Many intelligent and highly capable people find themselves involved in these particular kinds of toxic relationships, often more than once. Perhaps you have also experienced emotional and psychological abuse from a family member, friend, spiritual leader, therapist, life coach, mentor, or employer. Until we take the time to embark on the process of fully understanding the oppressive hierarchical systems and structures in society that enable people to abuse their power (or fight for power they feel entitled to), that praise people who exploit and power over others, and that protect people who are positioned high upon the ladder of social privilege and power, we are vulnerable to enduring ~ and even enacting ~ these harmful patterns in subsequent relationships.
The pattern CAN be broken and you CAN truly thrive again ~ with therapy, de-isolation, new personal boundaries, and re-imaging the kind of world you wish to be part of, to help create, and to contribute to. A world that values compassion over shame, humility over power, and empathy over moral disengagement. There are many people around you actively working to build this re-imagined world for us. You are not alone.
You Are a Person of Great Value
You were not selected by this loved one for your flaws (and all humans do have flaws); you were selected for the positive qualities you possess that made you an attractive source of admiration, validation, sex, and/or service, and in many cases - redemption. You provided for them a mirror that reflected back a much more palatable person than they are capable of seeing, believing, and portraying on their own. When your natural responses to their troubling behaviors began to alter this mirror and you could no longer offer a “reflection of perfection,” they began to de-value you and escalate the abuse.
While you might be struggling with heartbreaking beliefs that your loved one must perceive you as “worthless” to treat you so poorly, I assure you ~ that person knows your tremendous worth and value; that’s why they worked so hard to seduce and have you in the beginning. It is also why they have tried so hard to control you and shatter your self-esteem. Abusive people tend to believe that allowing someone they are attached to to feel autonomous and confident will increase the likelihood of abandonment. So, to assuage their insecurities and fear of abandonment, they try to “level up” to where they believe you are through grandiosity and arrogance, and they try to pull you down to where they believe they are through shaming, criticism, degradation, and gaslighting.
If you are feeling pressured by this loved one to stay in or return to the relationship, despite their constant abusive behaviors, this is because they still perceive you as malleable enough to continue giving them such a rich supply of emotional validation and service despite their toxic behaviors. In this case, the abuse will likely continue until you leave or until they wear you out, no longer value your supply, and discard you.
If you are feeling discarded by this loved one, it is because they have pushed you too far for you to deny their abusive behaviors and you are, thus, no longer a rich supply that they can control and access at their leisure. In this case, they are finished with you (for now) and will seek a new supply, a new “reflection of perfection,” who isn’t yet aware of their toxicity.
Whether you are being chased or discarded, please know that both scenarios reflect your strengths and great value; in time, I wish you the enhanced self-awareness and understanding to know that your positive qualities brought you to this painful chapter, not your flaws.
It Was Not Your Fault
It is natural, when we love and trust someone, to be open to their suggestions for how we could improve ourselves. Allowing ourselves to be positively influenced by our loved ones is a beautiful quality that enhances personal growth, both individually and together. Being open to our partner’s influence can become harmful, however, when their “insight” is actually used to gain power and CONTROL under the guise of love and concern for our well-being.
Over time, repeated criticisms, disregard for our feelings and boundaries, and attempts to challenge our realities can wear down our self-esteem, making it difficult to trust our intuition.
Such pain and confusion can result in severe emotional and physical distress; you might be feeling emotionally “unhinged,” noticing changes in your sleep patterns, or perhaps you are experiencing abdominal pain or other physical health issues. Listening to your body, to your gut (literally), is imperative for re-connecting to your intuition.
The body always feels what the heart won’t see.
You are not “broken.”
You are not “too sensitive.”
You are not “crazy.”
It is not “all your fault.”
You have been responding very naturally to very unkind, unfair, and perhaps even terrifying circumstances and behaviors.
Intimate relationships with abusive individuals who feel entitled to perpetual comfort, consideration, convenience, and control follow a cycle of idealization, devaluing, and discard. Such characters are stuck in their delusion of supremacy and employ an array of different covert and/or overt forms of abuse to devalue you when their superiority is challenged or threatened; this can also be described as “narcissistic defense.” Depending on the individual, these narcissistic defense behaviors can include: gaslighting (challenging your reality by trying to make you feel like there’s something “wrong” with you for what you know, feel, need, believe, think, prefer, desire), stonewalling (refusing to engage with you), the silent treatment, name calling, threats, minimizing your feelings, ignoring your boundaries, withholding affection, projecting their shameful qualities onto you, blaming you for all the relationship problems, dismissing your thoughts and opinions, talking to you in a condescending tone as if you are a child, insulting you under the guise of humor, coercing you into actions and behaviors you don’t want to do, threatening to cause harm to you, and even physical violence. When this person displays intermittent acts of kindness, affection, and generosity, there is often a natural impulse to minimize and sweep their abusive behaviors “under the rug” in an effort to hold onto hope that the relationship will improve or to simply keep the peace.
Of course you want to believe the relationship will improve. Of course you want to believe they don’t understand what they’re doing or that they just can’t help it due to a mental health issue. But ~ when a person is able to turn their harmful behaviors on and off, at will, these harmful behaviors are NOT due to a mental health issue. They are a clear choice made from a place of entitlement, power, control, and protection from accountability. They essentially feel “safe” to abuse and power over the person they are abusing and controlling. That’s why they’re not trying to abuse, power over, and control everyone they meet.
It really wasn’t your fault; you didn’t CHOOSE this ~ It is extremely rare that a person falls in love with someone who is cruel and abusive from the start. They were likely extremely charming and attentive in the beginning, perhaps even with moments of what felt like genuine vulnerability. Of course you were/are doing whatever it takes to avoid the “cruel” and to access the “caring.”
This cruel/caring cycle, however, can repeat and last for months or years until you either choose to leave or you are discarded permanently.
Staying, Leaving, & the Discard
There are many valid reasons people choose to stay in abusive relationships: hope, love, children, culture, finances, lack of resources and options, self-blame, or perhaps the dynamic is not yet understood as abusive and unlikely to change.
The choices to stay or leave both come with their own sets of risks and challenges:
To STAY could require drastically changing your expectations of your loved one and your relationship, and outsourcing many of your relationship needs to friends and family. Staying could also subject you (and your children) to further and escalated levels of abuse.
To LEAVE could trigger the abuser’s “narcissistic wound,” causing them to punish you and smear you to your loved ones to discredit your account of the relationship and control the narrative. Leaving will require going “no contact” with the abuser, or “minimal contact” if you share children, which can feel extremely difficult for quite some time.
In the event that the choice was not your own and you have been DISCARDED, you may be feeling empty, confused, afraid, “unhinged,” and “unrecognizable” as compared to who you were before you met this person.
This is a very natural response to the end of a relationship that offered no empathy, compassion, or explanation.
No closure.
Healing, Recovery, & Moving Forward
Please know that healing from such a painful relationship is not only possible but it is an OPPORTUNITY to step into a YOU who is more self-aware, boundaried, and whole than the you who entered this relationship. Healing from the harm that was done to us, also provides the opportunity to increase our empathy and compassion as we start to acknowledge and heal the moral injury from the harm we inadvertently inflict upon others due to our own harmful biases, blind spots, and behaviors, and our own unearned privilege and power in society. Engaging in anti-racism and work is NEXT LEVEL healing work ~ it’s LIBERATION work. Psychotherapy and anti-racism education can help you to access these opportunities and to move forward towards new levels of confidence, compassion, self-efficacy, and autonomy.
My decision to specialize in relational trauma work was prompted by patterns and similarities I was recognizing in the narratives of many of my clients as well as my personal experiences with entitled, coercive, and manipulative personalities. I understand the confusing and painful dynamic of an abusive and exploitive relationship and I continue to enhance my knowledge on how to help survivors to heal.
I provide video therapy and coaching services, designed collaboratively to meet your changing needs through this difficult process. I welcome you to contact me by phone or email to schedule a free consultation call.
Kindly,