Healing is noticing abuse in REAL time.

One of the signs of healing is, noticing abuse IN REAL TIME. When I mean abuse I mean the manipulations, passive aggressiveness, taking jabs at us, gaslighting and anything that is harmful or disrespectful towards us.

In the past we never realised it until someone told us that's not how we should be treated or we might have realised it much later due to our emotional fog or mental block. Sometimes we might be in freeze mode so we don't even know what's happening.

As we heal, we start to realise it when it is happening right there and then. This to me is a progress. This is Stage 1.

Stage 2, which is a more advanced progress would be putting a stop to the abuse right there and there by speaking up, drawing boundaries or doing whatever it takes to stop from being abused.

Stage 2 is more of defending ourselves and standing up for ourselves. Many of us might have reached Stage 1, but not Stage 2 YET.

My therapist said it takes time. We need to slowly heal and build our self confidence, and then we will be able to assert ourselves gradually.

As Codependents, we probably didn't even know about Stage 1. So if we have reached that, I think it's a good awakening for us.

Next we need to work towards Stage 2, which is defending and protecting ourselves from threats and harm.