The after affects of mental abuse can last a really long time. It’s a far reaching prison that often looks like it’s hard to believe compliments. The idea that your thoughts and emotions aren’t real makes more sense than actually knowing how you feel. Protecting yourself and your feelings becomes every thought you have, and pushing people away is easier than allowing someone close enough access to see or hurt you. Every thought is easily over analyzed, including all of the little things. Needing constant reassurance is normal after mental abuse. Building trust is really hard, and it takes effort to not hold someone at an arm’s length to preserve your sense of safety. It can make it really uncomfortable to feel loved and admired, and your self worth can take a nose dive.
I’m still healing.
My last relationship wasn’t really a relationship. It was that same connection I hated in my adolescence. We hung out. We talked. We fooled around, but it wasn’t something that would grow. I was still very much on my own, as it never became more than a friendship, and for friendship it wasn’t that deep. Before that, I experienced two other relationships that were varying degrees of domestic violence.
I’m still healing.
My last job became toxic for me. It’s not that it was an abusive company. My boss would never see himself as abusive. It just was no longer a safe space to heal. I was in so much distress, I reached out to a therapist and sat for a session. She told me I was doing all she would recommend, and let me know I was doing better than I thought I was. She recommended a book on Coercive Control and sent me on my way. (My goals at the time were to change teams to get away. She suggested I let HR know he was abusive, which was a culture clash. It didn’t matter. My other goal was to leave the company. I was interviewing elsewhere.)
It’s hard to know what is right and wrong in the power struggle in relationships. In romantic relationships, power and dominance might be dysfunctional and unhealthy. Parent and child relationships or boss employee relationships are built on dominance and power. Not every boss or parent is abusive. Not by a long shot.
In my last role, I started at the company with a year and a half of experience in accounting with a boss that quietly tolerated what I did. He allowed me to grow in ways I will always appreciate by not stopping me as I reached beyond my duties. He listened to my concerns and when it was urgent, he treated it with urgency. When it wasn’t, he let me take care of things. I found my voice because of him. I loved my job and loved doing what I did.
When new management came in, I was a bit of a wild child. I did a lot of what I wanted because I earned that, but under new management, I needed to be controlled. I understood it, but didn’t enjoy the process. My first head butt came in asking for my promotion. I had earned an 18% raise the year before and started compiling the reasons I wanted a promotion, months ahead of when I knew they were finalizing that budget. I created a slide deck that outlined what I did, the projects I was in the middle of, and how I wanted to grow in my role. This was important to me because I didn’t have a career map outlined by the company and I wanted to discuss my growth. I pointed out that without growth, it was a dead end job. My no, came with a 10% raise, and my “dead end job” was rephrased as, “maximized potential.” This was repeated as specific verbiage to use about my situation. It was a weak attempt at gaslighting, but it was the first time I saw the situation as mentally abusive.
A short while later I took my first vacation which I spent taking care of my Dad, answering urgent emails, texts, Slack messages, and responding to Salesforce chatter. I’m terrible at tapping out when it’s something I love doing. I came back and the duties that were handed off in my absence weren’t given back to me. I was told my role was being specialized. I felt like my authority was being stripped. My identity as someone capable of managing several things was just slapped in the face. A new person was brought to our team from another team. She was being groomed to rise above me, and eventually made my manager, with her lack of experience in accounting, and even though I made more than she and one of our other accountants did. This was frustrating, but also humiliating. I felt like I was being made an example, and I was treated as a joke. I tried to move to another team, enlisting the support of HR in how to take the proper steps, but my transfer was stopped. Anytime I brought my issues to HR, I was later brought into an office to be reprimanded. My social media was watched and commented on, even though the company standpoint was that my social media was mine to post whatever I wanted to. (I rarely call others out by name. If you’re triggered by something I wrote, keep in mind it might not be about you. This one is specific though.) I felt it was a way to isolate me from the rest of the company. I was told there were several people more qualified than me, ahead of me in the queue of potential transfers. I was being micromanaged. In a company where we had laptops and could work anywhere in the office, my new manager wanted me to work only at my desk. As a single Mom, I’d always been given the flexibility to work from home if needed and she tried to stop it. It got to the point that my location in the office was being reported to my management by co-workers. I received an accidental Slack message that was later deleted, describing my walk from my desk to the bathroom, to the kitchen and through support on my normal walk back to my desk. My blood pressure was dangerously high. I was often angry and on edge. I didn’t feel like part of the team, even though I had been there longer than most of them. I felt controlled, minimized, dismissed and powerless. This was mental abuse, but it looked like micromanagement, which is expected in the workplace.
When I was laid off due to the pandemic, I felt so much relief. I finally felt like I could breathe again. I’m also being really careful to find the right culture fit for my next work home.
I’m still healing.
It was the first time I faced mental abuse in the workplace. In one of my first jobs, at Local Union 99 in 1998, I experienced sexual abuse. At the time, there was nothing I or my manager could do when other co-workers would openly grab my butt as I walked to my desk. At the time, the only thing I could do was quit. The protections in place now, didn’t exit back then. There’s nothing in place for mental abuse in the work place. You hope that someone sees it as a culture issue, but it’s not always the case. The best thing to do when you have a mentally and emotionally abusive work place situation is to fire your boss and find a new one, or start your own business.
The purpose of this post isn’t to boss bash. I loved the company and my growth there, but I’m happy to move on as well. This is about healing and what I’m going through right now. When I was laid off, I entered this space of calm where I was surrounded by my family. I was able to do what I wanted on my own time schedule. I started feeling confident and comfortable in my own skin, and the anger slipped away.
In this time, I’ve actually decreased my credit card debt by about half. I’m not stress shopping the way I was, and without going to work, I’m spending a lot less. I’m also utilizing pandemic relief programs so I can focus all funds toward paying off one debt at a time. I’ve been able to support my family by being physically present. It’s been really great.
It was really good, and then someone reached out to me. He wanted to try to date me, and I fell apart. I’m still regaining confidence and reclaiming who I am when I’m not being told I’m less than I think I am.
The second I considered dating him, I felt insecure. During my marriage, I was a stay at home Mom. I never want to be in the position to have to live like that again. I want to know that I’m bringing more than my thoughts and body to a relationship, and being unemployed feels suddenly vulnerable. (I wasn’t two weeks ago, and was simply loving the freedom.) I’m not typically the materialistic type. Sort of. I love buying the things I want. I have just never been comfortable receiving from someone else in a relationship. It took a good year and a half before I was comfortable with receiving a round of drinks from co-workers at work. The idea of not being at his level was suddenly debilitating.
It was hard to believe compliments.
I couldn’t take what he said at face value. What he said he saw, and what I saw in myself didn’t match. It did two weeks ago, but suddenly it was garbage.
I couldn’t tell what was real, and not real.
Logically, we weren’t talking two weeks ago. It’s insane to believe I would be his top priority and he would reach out to me constantly. That would be love bombing which is one of the first stages in the cycle of abuse. I also cried uncontrollably, feeling rejected after the first 18 hours I didn’t hear from him. I knew it was illogical, and couldn’t understand why I still felt so rejected.
I couldn’t trust myself.
He had no red flags. He was intelligent, successful and we actually had a lot in common. I could imagine letting him in, until I did, and then wondered if I was looking at the wrong things. Was I missing red flags? I couldn’t tell.
I overanalyzed everything.
Everything he said or did was thought about and picked apart obsessively. I thought about his family relationships (seemingly perfectly healthy), and his dog (he spoils and cares for his animal like a child), and his career and plans for growth (I have my own goals and I could see us being supportive toward each other). But I second guessed every single thought with something sinister and over reaching. Innocent things can be terrible in abusive relationships and I saw things that weren’t there, and knew I was doing it. I couldn’t stop the thoughts that only went away when we were talking, and I couldn’t expect him to stop being him to make me feel better.
Self preservation won out and it looks like self sabotage and pushing him away.
At the height of my anxiety, I tossed out a red flag.
I mentioned his w-2’s. Not in a direct way. I wasn’t suggesting I’m a prostitute. I did it in a way that was more of a Freudian slip. I did it in a way that would make anyone second guess everything. Anyone with an ounce of sense would see it as a red flag and walk away.
When I was married, I experienced financial abuse and refuse to ever be in a position to have to ask for anything from a partner. As a welfare mom, I never even asked my ex-boyfriend that was living off of me for help. He played video games and got high all day when he wasn’t working, and I never asked him to help with anything. He paid my electrical bill one month out of the year we were together. He didn’t want the electricity turned off, and he helped with groceries one month, out of guilt because I was carrying the twins we later miscarried. I’ve never been used to receiving anything from someone I was dating, let alone ask for anything. My ex husband took care of me, but that came at a cost I refuse to ever pay again.
In spite of how I feel about receiving gifts from a boyfriend, I red flagged myself to let him tap out and walk away. When he stopped texting me, I stopped crying and feeling overwhelmed. I liked him a lot. Maybe too much, but I couldn’t handle the craziness I couldn’t control. I know where I need to heal and I’m being gentle with myself as I do it. It seems unfair to ask anyone for the patience I’d need right now.
I couldn’t ask for reassurance and refused to really step into trusting him.
I never told him why dating isn’t a priority to me. It sounds crazy. I’m healing from mental abuse and not in any kind of shape to contribute to a healthy romantic relationship. I know it. I’ll get better. It was better at one point. I’m the type of person to face down my demons and make them submit. I’m just not there yet. This last year hurt me in ways I’m still unpacking.
There will be dress up and make up and probably some selfies. I’m distancing myself from things that aren’t helping me grow. I’m focusing on self love. I know the only way to fully heal is to face it head on. I need to be in a relationship and practice trusting so I can trust again, but I’m also respecting my limits and putting me ahead of any kind of “we” I might consider. I’m certain he was pretty special, but I’m also aware of where I’m at right now.
Domestic Violence can be hard to identify, but I laid out that leg work in this post.