*TRIGGER WARNING: EMOTIONAL ABUSE/MENTIONS OF SELF-HARM*
I want to start by stressing that if you’ve experienced emotional abuse, your story and feelings are valid. It has taken me four years to process the toxic relationship I was in in high school wasn’t just toxic, it was abusive and I’m finally ready to talk about it.
When I was in grade 10, I started dating my first boyfriend and couldn’t have been happier. I was young, it was new and I was excited. At first, he was amazing! He was so kind and funny, he complimented me and I felt good about myself when I was around him. After a few weeks, he began to grow a little toxic. He would distance himself from me, talk about hurting himself and even threaten to go through with it if I left him. A month later I realized our relationship wasn’t working out, so after a few days of trying to let him down easy, I ended things. That’s when he finally showed me who he really was. He told me how awful I was, how he never cared about me and how I would never find someone better than him. After a few days, I started to believe him.
So, what did I do? I went back to him and he apologized! He told me he didn’t mean those horrible things and how horrible he felt for saying what he did. Then he started telling me it was my fault he acted like that. If I hadn’t left him, he wouldn’t have needed to act out and because of how hard he pushed, I believed him. Eventually, I got my senses back and realized how horrible of a mistake I was making and I cut it off for the second time.
But I didn’t deserve anyone else, right? So, I went back again, and again and again. I went back more times than I care to remember and I refused to tell anyone because I figured they’d tell me how silly it was that I couldn’t get over this boy that I liked three to four years ago. The truth was, I was over him. I didn’t like him anymore. I didn’t have feelings for him anymore. The feelings disappeared the first time I broke up with him. What I did feel was an obligation and a lack of choice.
This is a common theme with emotional abuse. After being told 100 times over a few years that you are underserving, you really start to believe what’s being said to you. It’s so important to understand how untrue all these things are. You aren’t better with them. You have other options and you aren’t alone. As unbelievable as it seems and as you may have been told, people will believe you when you speak up. So why is it so hard?
I can only speak for myself, but I think this may be a communal experience. It’s so hard because it isn’t surface-level abuse. You don’t have physical scars or physical proof of the abuse. It comes down to your word against theirs. After being told that your relationship is normal for so long you may not think anyone will believe your word against theirs. But they will. I can’t promise you everyone will understand, nor will I. It’s been four years and even my closest friends and family still don’t really understand what’s happened to me because how could they?
What is important and what I’m hoping someone can take away from this is how to spot emotional abuse before (or while) it happens. It’s not an easy thing to do and as I’ve mentioned, it took me over four years to realize that the “toxic” relationship I was in was abusive. While this advice will come from my experience only, I do believe some of these experiences will be understood by many who experience emotional abuse.
Distance
This was the first thing I noticed from my abusive partner. He became extremely distant from me and wouldn’t engage in a conversation or would only respond with short and dismissive responses. This distance was created to keep me reeled in. It made me worried something was wrong. I wanted to put more effort in to ensure he wasn’t upset. While distance doesn’t always lead to emotional abuse, it is one of those first steps abusers may take to see how attached you truly are to them.
Gaslighting and Manipulation
Another huge sign is gaslighting and manipulation. Abusive people will do whatever they can to make sure you feel like they are in the right. They want you to feel less than them because that gives them power over you. They may tell you you’re being “overdramatic” or that you “don’t know what you’re talking about” and they’ll tell you this repeatedly until you start believing it. They’ll dismiss their actions, make you question your memories and convince you that you are the problem, not them.
Isolating
Abusers will convince you that no one will believe you about what’s happening. The phrases “who are you going to tell?” or “who’s actually going to believe that?” were so common to me that it wasn’t until July of this year that I was finally able to shake that feeling and tell someone. Isolating you allows you to become easier to hurt because they can attack you when you’re alone and without support. If you start hearing these phrases (or anything similar that makes you scared to tell someone), that is your sign to leave. Before I continue, people will believe you; you aren’t alone and you do have people that care about you.
Love Bombing
This is probably the most common thing people hear about when we talk about emotional abuse. Love bombing (because I just learned about it a few months ago), is another form of manipulation. Through increased attention, compliments and alleged love, they use this form of affection to keep you close to them. Some indicators of love bombing may be moving the relationship quickly, making comments about your future together really early into the relationship (saying things like “we’re going to be together forever” or “I’m going to be the one who marries you”) and ignoring your boundaries. However, the most common indicator of mental abuse is the abuser tearing you apart mentally before showering you with praise. This is what makes it so hard to leave the abusive relationship. It feels like (and you may feel like they’ve shown you) the abuser can change. Sure, they may tell you that you are nothing without them and that you are crazy, but they apologized and told you you’re pretty so they must not have meant those bad things. That’s not true. When they start belittling you and making you feel worthless, they cannot be redeemed.
If nobody has told you already, it gets better and you will be okay. It’s a long healing process, I understand, but it will get easier. If any of these experiences seem like ones you’ve gone through, you didn’t deserve that. What you do deserve is real love. If any of these experiences seem like the ones you’re currently experiencing, I’m hoping this will at least make you look at your relationship from a different perspective. Regardless of what your partner is or has told you, you are loved, you are valued and you deserve the world. All my love <3