Crash Course in Abusive Relationships

The following is an excerpt from something I wrote for a personal correspondence. I put a lot of thought and care into it, and from the positive responses I got from the people I had proofread it, I think it would be selfish not to share it. I have removed all names and any details that might identify the specific person/situation. I hope someone finds this helpful.

I'll go ahead and warn you that this contains vague descriptions of the sorts of behaviors abusers exhibit.If that has caused you distress in the past, I'd recommend either bracing yourself for it, or not reading further. I only cover psychological abuse, and don't really talk about physical abuse, because it wasn't relevant in the context of the personal correspondence this was originally written for.

I don’t know enough about you to know if you’ve had any experience with emotional abuse. In the hopes that you haven’t, I’m going to explain what my experience was like, because before having that experience, I had a pretty inaccurate view of what abuse looked like. I thought abusers would be easy to spot, obvious villains. But that’s not it at all. It’s so much more subtle, and insidious. And it can look obvious from the outside, but from the inside, it’s a different story.

[Until further notice, I’m using the “collective you”, rather than “you” meaning you.]

An abuser will convince you that you’re bad, or broken, or defective (when really you’re none of these). Then they act like they care and want to help you be better. All you have to do is everything they tell you.

When people were telling me that this girl was abusing me, I had been so brainwashed that I tried to explain to them how she was really helping me.

At some point, an abuser will get mad at you, and they will rage. Maybe they told you to do something, and you didn’t do it, or you didn’t do it right. Or maybe you stood up to them when they tried to control you. Or maybe they just had a bad day at work/school, and it doesn’t have anything to do with you at all, but they take it all out on you anyway. And because they’ve got you convinced that you’re bad/broken/defective, you believe with your whole heart that it’s your fault. That you are so terrible that you have made this caring person hurt you against their will.

And their raging at you isn’t the only thing that’s your fault. When they hurt you, it’s your fault. They’ll do this in different ways, one of which is saying you got hurt because you’re too sensitive. They might then make you feel guilty by acting like they are the real victim, because they didn’t want to hurt you, and you got hurt anyway. And you end up apologizing to them for getting hurt. If they lie to you, it’s only because you forced them to lie, because of how you would react if they told the truth. They only lied because you manipulated them into lying. You end up apologizing for not being more “open-minded” and “accepting” of them. They hurt you. You apologize. They don’t. Yes, really.

The end result is that nothing is ever their fault, and any time there is a problem, you are the one responsible. And you believe it. This is part of why you hide the mistreatment, and get evasive if anyone brings it up. You’ve been convinced this is your shame; these are your mistakes. You are made to believe that you deserve it. And if you told anyone, they’d know what a terrible person you must be, to deserve to be treated so poorly by someone so kind and caring.

Pretty much, they convince you that you are abusing them.

Part of how they’re able to do all of this involves “gaslighting”. That’s where they say/do something, then later deny it, and act like you’re crazy or imagining things. You end up unsure of your perceptions and judgments about the world, and thinking that maybe you are crazy. But the abuser is always there to “help” you see things the way they “really” are. They use this to manipulate and control you, and you are grateful for the “help”.

This self-doubt doesn’t just go away once you get out of the situation, either. It’s something that takes time and effort to overcome, as well as support/encouragement from people around you. Understanding how the abuser tricked you into doubting yourself is really important, because you need some explanation to make sense of your confusion, and without the real one (that this is something that was done to you), you tend to fall back on the explanation the abuser gives you: that you’re crazy.

Here are the signs you’re being gaslighted:

1. You are constantly second-guessing yourself.
2. You ask yourself, "Am I too sensitive?" a dozen times a day.
3. You often feel confused and even crazy at work.
4. You're always apologizing to your mother, father, boyfriend, boss.
5. You can't understand why, with so many apparently good things in your life, you aren't happier.
6. You frequently make excuses for your partner's behavior to friends and family.
7. You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don't have to explain or make excuses.
8. You know something is terribly wrong, but you can never quite express what it is, even to yourself.
9. You start lying to avoid the put downs and reality twists.
10. You have trouble making simple decisions.
11. You have the sense that you used to be a very different person - more confident, more fun-loving, more relaxed.
12. You feel hopeless and joyless.
13. You feel as though you can't do anything right.
14. You wonder if you are a "good enough" girlfriend/wife/employee/ friend/daughter.

When you’re in the situation, they’re making all the decisions for you. So when you get out, you feel lost. It’s been so long since you decided something for yourself that you’ve sort of forgotten how. This is why I kept letting my abuser back into my life over and over again. You get lost, and you decide it’s better to go back the way you came.

There’s also the “Cycle of Abuse”. If they were always horrible, you would leave. With narcissistic abuse, they go through three phases: Idealize, Devalue, and Discard. And it’s a cycle, so after Discard, they start over with Idealizing.

In the Idealize phase, they tell you that you are perfect in every way, and they act like a proper prince (or princess): totally charming. Being in this phase feels amazing, and you want it to last forever. They start talking a good game about how they love you and want to be with you forever. You think that they’re treating you so well because they truly love you. But really, it’s just to boost their own ego. They play the part of the perfect partner because it fuels their ego to think that’s what they are. And it fuels their ego to think that they’re so awesome that someone perfect would date them. But this phase doesn’t last. It’s just the bait on the hook.

Eventually you do something they don’t like, and it all comes crashing down. The Devalue phase starts. When you’re in this phase, you can’t win. Nothing you do is ever good enough. They say things like “I thought you were perfect” or “I can’t believe you would X after all I’ve done for you”. All the things they were doing during the Idealize phase get turned around and used as weapons against you. You get depressed, because you think it’s your fault that they changed. You believe if you just worked a little bit harder to be good enough again, they would go back to treating you well. After all, that’s what they are telling you. But that “good enough” bar is always held juuust out of reach. On a good day in this phase, when they tell you how you screwed up, they will also say that they “believe in you” or that they “know you can do better”. It seems nice, but the goal is to compound your guilt, to rub in that you let down this person who “loves” you and “believes” in you. Being in the Devalue phase is exhausting and soul-crushingly depressing. You stop wanting to hang out with friends or do anything, and just want to lay in bed and cry all the time.

And if you’re totally depressed, you don’t have the energy to fuel their ego the way they want. If you don’t have the energy to fuel their ego, they don’t see the point in keeping you around. So they Discard you, and look for someone else to fuel their ego. This part feels awful. And even though they had been treating you badly, you get trapped in thinking that it’s your fault and that you need to fix things.

After they discard you and you get some distance from them, you actually start to feel better. If they see this, they see that you’ve got the energy to fuel their ego again. They come back, and in what’s called a “hoover”, they may apologize, or promise to change, or anything else. And if you buy it and let them back in, they hook you with the Idealize phase and you start the cycle over again.

And throughout the whole relationship, there is never a feeling of security. They keep you constantly anxious, because you’re easier to control if you feel like they will leave at any minute if you screw up. They keep you anxious through silent treatments, threatening to leave, or actually leaving, only to come back again.

["You" means you again.]

Alright, that's as much of this as I think I can share without sharing personal details that aren't mine to share. I'd like to hear whatever thoughts this might have provoked, or maybe stories/anecdotes you're comfortable with sharing that demonstrate the sort of behaviors/attitudes that I've described here.

(Almost) all of the words here are mine (exception being the signs of gaslighting, which was taken from this article on Psychology Today). But most of the ideas come from various resources I've come across in the past 6 months or so. Many ideas come from the book "Why does he do that?" by Lundy Bancroft, which I recommend about every chance I get. Unfortunately, I don't remember where all of the other ideas have come from, and so I can't give proper credit. If you'd like to see a source or further reading for a certain paragraph, let me know and I can see if I can track something down.

This was written originally to be a 2-page introduction to the dynamics (and the statics) of an abusive relationship with a narcissist, and I know that detail in some areas had to be sacrificed at the altar of brevity. I welcome any elaboration that anyone would care to offer. Or if there is a specific part that you would like elaboration on, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Also, I'd be remiss not to extend a public thanks to u/unphogiveable for their help in editing and proofreading. But should you find any mistakes/errors, I wish to point out that this version has some minor changes which they didn't have a chance to look over, so I'm responsible for those. Having said that, any errors/mistakes which don't inhibit understanding will go uncorrected, because I'm good enough and it's okay to make mistakes. :)