Trigger warning. This can be said for all areas of my site.
In December, I found myself in a therapists office. I’m no stranger to therapy, but the last time I needed support in this way was during my divorce in 2015. I sat stiffly on the overstuffed sofa, and the therapist sat in a chair across from me, with a notepad. I told her about the many times over the last several months that I had been triggered. I told her about the irrational feelings I had about showing up and cowering in a place where I had experienced so much personal growth. I was desperately broken, and tears were openly falling down my cheeks. I don’t often cry, let alone in front of others. I felt so weak, or so I thought.
I was seeking her support and she told me I was doing all she would suggest. She helped me see that I was in a better place than I thought I was, emotionally. I was escaping anxious moments by walking away. I was drawing on the support of friends. I was planning my way out of the situation. She suggested a book, Coercive Control by Evan Stark. I’m still getting through it, but felt compelled to write. She told me she wasn’t sure what she could do for me, as I was already doing the things she would have suggested.
I’m still in the process of calibrating. The first time this came up for me, I was learning what it means to date someone that won’t love bomb me. I had to get used to the idea of someone not reaching out several times an hour in the early stages of dating. I still fight the idea that not hearing from someone special for a few days is his rejection. I’m learning how to take things slowly.
It feels important to explain how it’s possible to fall into an abusive relationship. 1 in 4 women or 1 in 7 men will suffer through domestic violence in their lifetime. Being triggered over the last several months has been the result of finding myself in situations where dominance is asserted through actions meant to limit the authority I once felt. It never starts as a slap across the face or an immediate lack of agency or control over your life. It starts much smaller.
Memories are somatic. This means an experience I once lived through, is stored physically in my body. It’s a series of memories I feel in my body. It’s triggered by smell, sight, emotions and the weight of emotions. When something is too familiar to ignore, my body will remind me of the danger that I can expect to come next. This is part of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. My body protects me by destroying my sense of safety. It’s painfully exhausting. It’s been affecting my sleep and I’ve slipped into a depression that makes getting up in the morning much harder than it used to be.
Emotional abuse is continuous, ongoing, and not specific to one moment. It’s relentlessly frequent, but minor transgressions. It’s like a series of small scratches. It’s institutionalized doctrine that is often reinforced by politics, education, religion and family structures. Trauma bonding and complex post traumatic stress disorder are additional structures of entrapment. The cycle of abuse goes through tension, explosion, crisis and reconciliation. For it to be a cycle, this has to happen at least twice. It forms synapses and chemical reactions that automate brain pathways of thought and behavior, while flooding your body with hormones. It’s not as complicated as I just made it. Allow me to unpack this for you.
New Romance
In the first days of dating an abuser, it doesn’t feel like abuse. It feels like someone wants to know how I’m doing. It feels like his thoughts about me are just as obsessive as my thoughts about him. It’s normal to get a text or twelve an hour. He’s thinking of me. He wants to see what I’m up to. Did I eat? Did I miss him? He wants to get to know everything about me. He has small trinkets or gifts for me when he sees me. He’s being sweet, kind, and considerate, and this is love bombing.
Most people are busy with their own lives, getting to know someone to see if they want to get to know them further. It’s supposed to be a slow progression of incorporating someone into your life as you share moments of connection. Immediately falling in love is a red flag.
Isolation
What better way to get close to someone, than by replacing their family and friends? I wasn’t told I couldn’t see certain people. I was asked for more of my time. I was asked to go on more dates, and my time was special to them. When I refused to give up certain people, I was told, “I don’t like who you are around them. You seem like a different person, and I’m not sure you care about me.” If I was out without my guy, I was often asked when I would be back. He didn’t trust me, but never said I wasn’t trusted. A lot of times, I was asked where I was, because I was missed. I’d come home and be ignored.
Tension
Tension building isn’t always explosive. It’s that first moment you don’t do exactly what is wanted or expected of you. It can be a look. It can be a harsh sense of humor where you feel isolated, or like the butt of a joke. It can be something small like, “why did you look at me like that.” Sometimes it sounds like, “I don’t appreciate your wandering eye. I was disrespected.” Once it sounded like, “you can do what you want, but I expect my girlfriend to not be out late at night.” These are usually small enough transgressions that I could just not commit them. This is where I took responsibility for how he reacted to my behavior. This is where verbal abuse starts, and it often feels mild enough, that I wondered if it’s me, or my fault. It’s minor, and a way to see how hard they can push.
Explosion
The explosion is different for each situation. It comes down to him losing control or deciding to take back control through punishment. It’s something that is clearly abusive. The explosion is about intimidation, to get you to stay in line. It’s being yelled at in public. It’s extreme humiliation or physical pain. If you were to see this happen to a small child, you would feel a visceral reaction strong enough to make you pause or intervene. Like moments of verbal abuse, it comes down to something that was triggered by the victim. It is something that the abuser irrationally tries to convince the victim, could have been prevented, if the victim had behaved differently. Acute blame and shame are directed at the victim.
In one relationship there were two nights that stood out for me. Love making became painful and aggressive. I begged him to stop but eventually dissociated. I mentally checked out, and waited for him to stop. I was confused about that for a long time. At the time, I was told he got a bit carried away from his testosterone peak. He was weightlifting on those days. He hugged me and smiled like a little boy that just popped a piece of candy in his mouth. I didn’t know if it was my fault for asking him to move faster. At the end of our relationship, he admitted needing to teach me a lesson.
Honeymoon
The aftermath of the explosion is the honeymoon phase and this is where gaslighting lives. There is love bombing in this phase, but also a blending of reality. This is where I was convinced it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. In the aftermath when emotions are high, but coming down, is the best time to shape reality. These are not negotiations, but insisting what should be. It’s often an affectionate conversation. This is when they offer their boundaries for you to fall in line, in support of the relationship.
Trauma Bonding
You may have heard about Stockholm Syndrome. This is when a hostage feels trust or love for the person holding them captive. It’s a survival mechanism. In the honeymoon phase, the mix of a firm reprimand and praise is confusing enough to help you dismiss the explosive moment. It sounded a bit like, “you’re such a sweet person, I just wish you weren’t sweet to everyone. You make me jealous and I hate it when you do that to me.”
Your mental voice might say, “he probably wouldn’t have been upset if I just did what he wanted me to do.” The abuser is likely telling you this. "He wants to work this out because he loves me.” He probably said this too. “He had a rough childhood. He has no idea how to work out problems. We can learn together.”
A lot of what you’re told in the honeymoon phase is easily adapted as truth, because it’s easier to accept what you’re being told to believe. You may feel a strong desire to work things out because you know how nice it once was, and might be again. I did. You can be understanding, but understanding doesn’t mean you need to stay.
Several important ingredients that contribute to someone's "addiction" to their abuser are oxytocin (bonding), endogenous opioids (pleasure, pain, withdrawal, dependence), corticotropin-releasing factor (withdrawal, stress), and dopamine (craving, seeking, wanting). With such strong neurochemistry in dysregulated states, it will be extremely difficult to manage emotions or make logical decisions.
Complex PTSD will also compound the cycle by distorting reason. Being hyper vigilant and waiting for the next foot to fall, avoiding the traumatizing behavior that you might want to blame for being victimized, the flashbacks and flooding of emotion, sleep disturbances and detachment can also be ways to cope through ongoing abuse.
Defining Microaggressions
Throughout the relationship, various acts of aggression are minor enough to dismiss. I’m going to help with that.
Gaslighting
Gaslighting looks like blatant lies. You might have seen the same situation, but the abuser will make sure you follow their series of events and use their language to describe it. They’ll deny your perspective as something that should even be considered. They’ll destroy anything that defines your identity or sense of achievement. Their actions won’t match their words.
It’s not as simplified as negativity. They will confuse you with positive reinforcement. They will build allies into their argument, alienating you from supportive friends. If their argument looks plausible, humiliation will work against you to silence you. They’ll convince you that your concerns are smaller than the big picture, you are lying, and you might be crazy.
Trust yourself. You know yourself better than they want you to think you do.
Intimidation
This can be aggressive but sometimes it’s not as straightforward as, “do that again and I’ll make you regret it.”
Sometimes it’s threatening to leave, or withhold finances. It can be playing on their home turf. A lot of the verbal abuse happened when we were alone in his car. More than once, I was worried I’d be stranded on a road trip.
It’s making the situation feel safe for them, even if you’re on edge. Especially if you’re on edge.
It’s dishonoring your time by making you wait for them.
Sometimes it is as simple as yelling at you, or raising their voice, but it can also be making their displeasure as transparent as a look on their face.
It’s clear impatience. The silent treatment is also a form of intimidation. It’s human nature to crave acknowledgment. Ignoring your existence is about isolation and humiliation.
Micromanagement
In situations where you try to negotiate through compromise, it’s often without accounting for the imbalance of power that is already present. A lot of the abusive situations I’ve walked into, started the moment I made someone feel threatened. It wasn’t on purpose. The roles of men and women are blurred.
By carefully defining my relationship role, I was put in my place and able to follow his lead. This was how I did my grocery shopping, managed my money, gave chores to my children or even what clothes I chose to wear.
Please don’t limit the idea of abuse to romantic relationships. It can happen at work, in the home, at your church or temple, and anywhere there is a hierarchy of power.
Retaliation
One of the most dangerous times in an abusive relationship is when you are leaving your abuser. The control they had over you is slipping away and their reaction is to react to the powerlessness that comes with your independence. They’ll stalk your social media, and track what you’re doing. I had an ex threaten to send pictures of me committing sex acts with him (during our relationship of several years) to my Dad. Another sent messages to my step Dad on Facebook, describing what a terrible person I am. Becoming independent threatens their authority and the struggle becomes aggressive.
Humiliation
Being humiliated can include someone sharing something private and embarrassing. It can be negative comments about your body. I was once told that my hips were square and I needed body contouring underwear. I should have responded that anyone lucky enough to touch my body would love my square ass and hips. I was compared to a mother, a friend’s girlfriend, ex-girlfriends and someone else’s wife. I always came out last on that list. It didn’t matter who else saw or heard what was said. What mattered at the time, was that I was inferior in his opinion and I was made to feel that his opinion about me was more important than my opinion of myself.
Regulation
In regulating what you do and how you act, victims are both free and subjugated at the same time. I’ve known someone that had their pantry organized a specific way, for a husband that never cooked. In going to school each quarter, I had to outline how I would still take care of my children, and cook our meals in order to get permission to register for school. I was able to take classes, and in the end I was thanking him for that opportunity. In relying on ideals of being a good mother, good wife, good church member, I was regulated into specific behavior. I was shaped into a shadow of who I was, and it’s still taking me years to reclaim my birthright.
Regulation included my online presence as well. I was questioned about what I posted online, whether or not we were friends online. I had my posts private, so only friends could see them, and it expanded my personal prison. I remember freaking out about my emails. I was exchanging emails with a friend, bitching about my life. I accidentally left my email signed in and called my friend, begging him to change my email password. He chose to distance himself from my insanity. It was the right choice. I eventually made all of my posts public and accept that how others interpret what I share isn’t about me.
Getting Support isn’t always Institutional
I once walked into a courthouse to ask for help with a restraining order. As I listed the many ways I felt controlled, and broken, I was told to get out of my emotionally abusive situation, but that there was nothing they could do. I needed to list the moments when I felt physically threatened, because that was the only way I could justify taking away an abuser’s right of access to me, per the Los Angeles Superior Court System (2015). I was also given a list of resources. It was a list of agencies that will give you emotional support and resources to help you find safety.
My family and religious beliefs taught submission and obedience as a wife and child. I didn’t feel I could go against my husband and the idea of being a good wife meant doing all I could to hold onto a relationship, even if it was no longer a relationship that helped me grow and thrive as a person.
Get Support Anyway
It’s important to understand it’s not your fault. There’s no short list of steps to take, because each situation is unique. I was in therapy when I finally admitted to myself and my therapist that I was an abused woman. The lines between love and abuse were so blurred that I had no idea what was real, imagined, love, or power. When I first saw her, my ex-husband went to one appointment. He painted me a certain way, and as I continued to see her without him, she helped me see that his portrayal of me was inaccurate.
I don’t feel that all of my abusers set out to look for a victim. All but maybe one. They were only trying to make themselves feel good about their lives. I doubt they would even see their actions as abusive. In their eyes, I was probably making them my victims. Either way, the fastest route to recovery is to cut all contact as quickly and completely as possible.
Find a therapist. There are support hotlines and websites that can help you create an exit plan. The hardest part is cutting off all contact, but it’s the best way to heal and move on.