Healing From Emotional Abuse | The Scapegoat Walks Away | The First Day

If you are healing from a trauma or emotional abuse, welcome to my blog today. I hope that you’re feeling safe and secure right now and that this blog serves as an emotionally safe place for you. This post is written for anyone who has had to or is planning to go no contact with an emotionally abusive family, family member, co-worker, boss, friend, or partner, however, it is written from the perspective of someone who has been scapegoated by a narcissistic family unit and has had to walk away. No matter the emotional abuse, our bodies react in similar ways with adrenal fatigue, anxiety, and depression. I hope that this blog post can bring you some peace during your first day away.

If you need help, please speak to a professional therapist, social worker, or the police if you are in psychical danger. I am not a trained professional, simply someone who has been through numerous complex traumas in childhood and early adulthood. Because I am not a professional, I am not giving out professional advice and my posts are not a replacement for real therapy. I have had therapy myself and highly recommend it. Instead, I am here to offer my own personal experience and share the wisdom I have learned after escaping an emotionally abusive situation. I am making this a small series that I will be sharing in the wellbeing category of my blog.

In these posts I will be sharing what helped me in the moment during my first day, week, month, three months, six months, and year after making the decision to get away and to heal my life. It is my hope today that this blog post can help you start your own healing journey and find some relief to the anxiety, hurt, and depression that you may be feeling now. I went through it and I know how suffocating it is. My symptoms were that of Complex Post Traumatic Stress. I didn’t think that it could ever get better, but I knew I had to try one day at a time. I knew that I could not continue living the way that I was if I wanted to have a life at all.

The first part of this post I will be sharing my own experience. Perhaps it is like yours or perhaps it is very different. You can skip my story to get to the bottom of this post where I share my own tips on what to do on day one of your healing journey.

Emotional abuse comes in many forms and can come from many different types of relationships. Whether this abuse is from a parent, a sibling, a friend, a boss, a co-worker, a romantic partner, or somewhere else, it can be severely damaging. Emotional abuse comes in all forms from verbal abuse, manipulation, gas lighting, being devalued and discarded, having your feelings diminished, being blamed or scapegoated for things that are not your fault, walking on egg shells, being ignored or given the cold shoulder, being lied to or even lied about, having your reputation smeared, and the list goes on. This kind of abuse is hard to express and to understand, especially if you are an empathetic person. It is difficult for people who have not experienced this kind of abuse to understand. It is hard to understand how anyone could ever act this way when you cannot do these cruel acts yourself. A great source for learning more would be Dr. Ramani’s videos on YouTube about emotional and narcissistic abuse. She explains all of these terms, their effects, and how to heal.

 

 

Everyone’s experiences and reaction to their experiences is going to be different. Allow me to share my own experience so that you can see where I am coming from:

A brief background on my own experience is that I grew up with divorced alcoholic parents. The divorce itself was a good thing, but it did have a ripple effect. I lived most of the time with my mother who was an alcoholic. She brought a very abusive man into our home for fifteen years. I spent most of my childhood until I graduated from high school afraid to set him off. It was a very scary and violent upbringing where I always felt like I was tip toeing in a minefield. The police were constantly showing up to our house. The ACE test is a childhood trauma test with ten questions. Children with more than three are very high risk for drug abuse, depression, suicide, and a number of disorders and unhealthy behaviors. Although I am fortunate that addiction has not effected me as it has some people that I love, I do rank a nine out of ten on the test. It explains why I fell into this toxic cycle in adulthood as well. Perhaps you should look into the test yourself to have a better understanding of how you have been effected by your childhood and what can be done to help.

My senior year of high school I moved in with my dad every other week. I was too afraid to leave my little brother alone with them for long or I would have moved out full time and much earlier too. It was not ideal. I could not protect my brother from the emotional harm that took place regardless and now I understand that as a child myself I couldn’t possibly nor should I have expected myself to do so. My mother really triangulated our relationship and still does to this day. I learned to see through it, but unfortunately he has not. For example, when I talk to my mother she will only talk about my brother. She will put me down and talk him up in order to try to create jealousy. She will say things like, “You know how smart your brother is. You were never naturally bright, you always had to read to be smart, but he doesn’t even have to try.” Or she will mention how he has given her grandchildren and I have not or how he is always there for her and I am not. She will talk about all the money she lends him to help out. Anything to try to spark jealousy, but I never take the bait. She tried to play off that my brother is the favorite to me, but turns around and makes me into the “golden child” when she talks to my brother.

This constant shift between golden child and scapegoat is her favored technique. When my brother speaks with her she will tell him all about the money she gives me (she has not given me any money) and how I went to college (ten years ago and she still brings it up) and how he has not. It is a constant emotionally abusive game she likes to play that erodes his confidence and self esteem and ignites his resentment in me. Sometimes when he has angered her too much he becomes the scapegoat, just as she will scapegoat me. A new favorite tactic is to also play the victim and tell my brother that I do not answer her calls and have written her out while she tells me the same about him. That in itself is highly emotionally abusive and manipulative. The fact that we don’t have much of a relationship now does not surprise me, but it is another layer of pain that I bear. He often takes her lead and talks down to me or spends months ignoring me then accusing me of not being there. It is a toxic cycle.

Although the childhood trauma shaped me and groomed me for being a doormat in adulthood, the trauma doesn’t follow me the same way that the trauma in my young adulthood has. When I think about the fights I witnessed, the physical violence, and the verbal abuse it makes me sad. I faced some very scary moments where I feared myself, my brother, or my mother would be harmed or killed. I prevented suicides in our house and stood up against violence to protect my family. I spend many nights hiding in my room or even outside at night to get away. But those are very old memories now. It took me some years to build up my self esteem and self worth. It did also slow down my progress, but I was able to learn from it. I’m not a victim of my past, but it has shaped me. The emotional abuse I faced over the past several years was far more damaging, but it too is also in the past now and I am putting in the work to grow from it.

When I talk about emotional abuse I’m discussing these abusive comments and actions that seem so small when you talk about them, but add up over time causes all sorts of damage to you and your relationships with others. It hurts you by causing gut issues, depression, anxiety, stress, erosion of relationships, and illnesses. Growing up in an abusive home made me too patient and tolerant of abusive behavior. I became a people pleaser. I am thankful that I have grown into a kind and empathetic person despite it all, but my empathy has also been my downfall. It also made me very susceptible to narcissistic and toxic people and even jobs.

All this lead me into being manipulated by a mentor of mine, my father’s ex who is also the mother of my youngest sibling, who I once looked up to as a mother figure. I’m sharing this now even though it scares me a little. I wasn’t even sure if I should. Would she find out? Would she read it? But I also realized that true healing comes from overcoming those fears, owning our own stories, and being able to share our real histories so that we can help others experiencing similar struggles. Speaking out is vulnerable feels like a great risk. But it actually frees us from the last ties that the narcissist has on us. When you can share your story is when you are officially free. So I do so now with a heavy heart that is beginning to feel years lighter.

When I was seven my dad stated seeing a woman, who seemed so wonderful at the time She brought beads over and we made necklaces the first day we met. She treated me very well, which I now know was to manipulate me. My little brother saw through it and she labeled him a “troubled child” with “behavioral problems” when he was quite young. I didn’t realize at the time that she was scapegoating him. He never liked or trusted her and so she found ways to make sure he was allowed over less as he got older and wiser to who she was. But to me she was perfect, like Mary Poppins or even a mermaid. She had my bother and I convinced she was a mermaid when we were very little. A year and a half later my youngest sibling was born and she became my world. The problems started off small. My brother was completely excluded from the family by then. I was kept around because of my adoration for her.

When my sister misbehaved and I brought it up, I was told that I was wrong, making up stories, or being disloyal to the family. “how could you make up such awful lies about your sister?” “She is younger than you so you should know better than to lie.” She could do no wrong, even when she did. I loved her very much, but I didn’t realize what this upbringing would shape her to be in adulthood. I stopped speaking up. I had no idea what “golden child” meant at the time but now that I am familiar with the terms of narcissistic people I now understand what was happening. The whole relationship between us was like the analogy of a frog in boiling water. It started fine and I didn’t realize how bad and abusive the dynamics had gotten and progressed until  the water was boiling over I was suffering extreme anxiety and depression. The more I apologized or gave second chances or let things go, the worse they grew. I was teaching them how to treat me and letting them get away with it.

When I was a kid I was only around a couple days every months so I didn’t have the time to live with it. Then I went off to college several hours away. I lived with them for several weeks the summer before my senior year because I had no where else to go and I started seeing the cracks. People would praise my dad’s ex for taking me out of the goodness of her heart and she “humbly” accepted all the praise she could get, retelling the story of how I came to be there for every captive audience. Feeling so grateful to her at the time I didn’t mind. Living there with her with a “real mother” in her beautiful waterfront home on a private island was so much better than being homeless. Maybe I was being too sensitive, I thought. Then I graduated and moved to Maryland. She never came to visit not once in the three years I had been there or even once in the five years since moving back to home close by. In fact, I barely heard form her at all except for holidays when I was expected to be there to make her look good. I stated noticing a lot more was wrong with the perfect presentation I was always given. After moving back home I was expected to be there at her beck and call, but then was discarded and ignored for months at a time until I was required back again.

When someone portrayed themselves as kind I fell for it. It took me years of digs, criticism, manipulation, gas-lighting, and severe emotional abuse that only grew over time before I realized the reason that I was so sick and so mentally unbalanced was because she was constantly playing into my empathy to make me feel low to gain what she wanted; admiration, attention, and to be used as a tool in her vindictiveness. She got sadistic pleasure on causing me anguish and then denying any wrong doing. She made me double guess my very instincts. When I shared things that I was upset about she would tell me, “Don’t play the victim.” If something was going on between me and my mother should would listen with what I thought was an empathetic ear, but later learned was a false facade that she used to gather intel on me to use against me later. She was a therapist, which fed her need for constant narcisstic supply, but also gave her perfect knowledge on how to manipulate people. She hid her cruelty behind her career and “altruism.” Every time she pretending to listen or to care, the things I confided in her about would be used later to tear me apart. It reminds me of the quote by Maya Angelou, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” I was always forgiving and letting things go when I should have been protecting myself instead. I became ensnared by a covert narcissist. Every time I forgave her and believed things would “be different” next time, it only progressed. It wasn’t until after I walked away that I learned what these terms actually were and what they meant. After an emotional breakdown a therapist asked me, “do you know what gaslighting is?” The answer clicked it all into place.

When I stopped playing into her games and tried to create healthy boundaries she would up the ante; constantly texting and leaving manipulative voicemails to guilt, punish, and terrify me into getting what she wanted. “I don’t understand how you could treat me this way when I have been more of a mother to you than your own.” Or, “You have no empathy and you’re a cold-hearted person.” The worst was, “If your sister dies it will be your fault.” The more I started pulling away because of the abuse, the more abusive she got. She would attempt to convince me that every mistreatment was normal between families. “Sometimes families disagree and that’s ok.” But what we disagreed on was how I was being blamed and treated. That isn’t a normal family disagreement. This was all gaslighting.

When I was saving up for my wedding she offered to pay for my wedding gown. It was a nice gesture, but a big one that I didn’t feel comfortable to accept so I turned her offer down a few times. I had already saved up for my dress as it was. Then the Christmas before she gave me a box with a photo of a wedding dress saying that she would buy my dress as my Christmas gift. Looking back I see how she never accepted no for an answer. So I gave in and accepted. I figured it was kind and would be very helpful. Because I had never accepted a big gift before I didn’t realize that it would come with so many strings. Guilt trips about how expensive it was, how difficult the dress shopping was for taking away time from her busy schedule, how much she didn’t like my cousins who were my bridesmaids and are incredible people, etc. And then after she was upset that I didn’t thank her enough and wasn’t grateful enough for the dress. When we started having larger disagreements like me not sleeping over for Christmas Eve, the dress was used against me again. I was accused to taking advantage of her generosity.

When I finally made the decision not to take it anymore I started with boundaries. I thought maybe the problem was me. If I had better boundaries and didn’t let her guilt trip me into doing things for her then I would be ok. How wrong I was. Narcissists don’t like boundaries. In fact, they see it as a personal offense and will bulldoze them down. Her cruelty became more evident and it reached a point where I realized it could not be salvaged.

This person would demand all my attention and constantly command me around, only to ghost me for months at a time. She would tell people that she was “worried” about my mental health to make them question or disbelieve me. She lied about me and smeared me to anyone she could, destroying the relationships between myself and other relatives. She once even told people that I was an alcoholic, even knowing that I’ve never even been drunk. She triangulated the relationship I had with my own siblings, and turned her golden child against me. They would often “mob” me with family interventions meant to make me feel bad. “You should come over for dinner,” they would say after months of ignoring me. Once I arrived the smiles would instantly fade and they would say, “You need to sit down and we have to talk to you.” Most of the accusations were about how I wasn’t doing enough for them or being supportive enough, despite the fact that I was the one that was often disregarded and never supported. Then the blame and put downs would begin. I would sit and wither for an hour as I was lectured and told how inherently wrong and bad I am. Every gathering became an opportunity to be ganged up on and blamed. Every single one. I stopped feeling safe in her home.

She played gate-keeper to my sibling. As a child I understood, but when she became got her own phone and became an adult I still could not text, call, or meet up with my sibling without her permission first. When I did see my sibling I did everything I could to make sure she had a great time, only to be ripped apart by my step-mother a week or two after for not “doing enough” for her when we were together and not being “supportive enough.” I started checking in with my sibling more often. “Did you have a good time? Did you tell me everything you wanted to? Was I being a good listener?” It was never enough. She had complete control over our relationship and often denied me visits with poor excuses. Pretty soon my sister followed suit and started blaming me too. She started repeating my step-mother’s cruel words verbatim.

I was often left out of  events, even ones that I invited them to (I would invite them out for family events like apple picking and they would have to “cancel” only to find out that they still went but without me and the photos would be posted online as proof), but then guilted if I could not make it to their events. When I lived in Maryland without a car I bought expensive train tickets to Connecticut and planned for rides to make sure I didn’t miss important events. But she never visited me once in the three years we lived there a four hour drive away. In fact, I always had to go to her, but she always had an excuse to never visit us even when we lived nearby. When I could not make it to Christmas one year because my mother-in-law was having a serious surgery for her cancer and we stayed at the hospital with her, I had to beg their forgiveness for ruining their Christmas. “I understand that you couldn’t be here with us, but it ruined your sister’s Christmas and you should apologize to her for not being there for her.” It was the pressure of always being “bad” and “not enough,” but then being called “needy” and “too much” when I tried my best to do what they wanted. I ran myself down trying to make them happy and have them forgive me for things that I did not even do wrong.

I would be love bombed with sweet messages to trick me into coming back. But then it would switch to daily and hourly harassing text messages and voicemails. She would constantly try to convince me that I was not kind or empathetic enough or doing enough. I often believed it and felt like a terrible person. I tried harder and begged forgiveness. She would manipulate me with shocking stories about people I love only to change the story the next time or deny it altogether. She made some very serious and scary accusations that I later learned were manufactured or taken from her own experiences and reenacted with my sibling. She would often repeat and alter her story and the more I questioned it the more shocking it would get to try to shock me.

Most of her stories were completely unaligned with my memory of events. Most of her abuse was aimed towards my father after he rejected her and got together with his ex-girlfriend instead. In fact, all of her stories about him began a month after this occurred. She even tried to convince me that my father abused me as a child (before she had even met him). “It’s why you wet the bed as a kid,” she tried to convince me. Actually, I had kidney reflux disease with severe kidney and bladder scarring which caused my childhood bedwetting and I made sure she knew that. I have absolutely no memories of him abusing me as a kid, only memories of him protecting me from abuse and being a good father. I have never felt unsafe or uncomfortable around my dad. I even remember the embarrassing consent lessons as a kid. He did a great job. She kept trying to tell me I was “confused” and was too young to “understand” what had happened to me as a kid. Absolutely crazy. That is when I realized how much of her stories were complete lies and manipulation and how far she would go to get what she wanted, including brainwashing her own child against all of us. That was actually the last straw in our relationship. For the first time in my life I completely saw through her. My brother had never liked her and knowing this she did not allow him over as he got older. When he was twelve she told everyone he had a drug problem and that is why he wasn’t allowed over, but he did not have a problem with drugs at that age. The truth is that my brother had never fallen for her false kindness and he was a threat to her false identity. I never realized until this year how much she scapegoated him and triangulated our youngest sibling against him.

There were so many secrets and “You can’t tell…. that I told you…..” She would manipulate me into confiding in her and then turning it around as using everything I said as ammo against me. She told me secrets about my own sibling and made me promise not to tell her. I did not realize that this was a form of triangulation at the time, much like what my mother does with my brother, but in a more covert way. Meanwhile, she was confiding personal stories that I shared with her to my sibling or manufacturing them altogether. My sibling started repeating the exact accusations she had accused me of. “You’re never here for me, you’ve changed, you’re a cold person now, you have no empathy,” and “you’re not doing enough.” That was excruciating. The once wonderful relationship I had with my younger sister started turning dark. She started treating me the same way her mother did; blaming me for her mistakes, ignoring me for months at a time just to call me if she needed money, and talking down to me. She used my sibling to spy on me and report back. She would even have my sibling call me and listen in to tell her what to say. The last phone call I had with my sibling, I told them I could hear her mother she denied it and told me I was “confused” and “didn’t understand anything.” She would use my sibling to gather information about me and my husband that they could use. Then they pretended I was acting “crazy.”

She would manipulate me by saying I was like a daughter to her, then when she didn’t get her way she told me that I was not a daughter to her. In front of an audience she would play the doting and proud mother. “This is my oldest daughter,” she would boast. I soaked up the “love” like a sponge. People would praise her for taking me in.  My mother wound became a carrot that she dangled over my head. One holiday when I didn’t do what she wanted she told me, “I only have one daughter in this room and I have to protect her from you,” just because I came over for Christmas Eve, but didn’t sleep over. That was my only crime; my husband and I didn’t sleep over. We went home to sleep for our first married Christmas Eve so we could wake up at home for our first married Christmas. Which to her, meant that I “betrayed the family.” On a later occasion when I told her this hurt me she gas-lighted me by saying, “I would never say something like that. I cannot believe you would think that of me.”

She derived sadistic pleasure from trying to ruin my happiness and often mocked my career dreams and goals, disguising her digs as helpful advice. She was embarrassed of me in public if I wasn’t dressed a certain way. She sabotaged all the happy events leading up to my wedding causing a major drama after my engagement party then denying it ever happened, while dress shopping, at my bridal shower, and even my rehearsal dinner where she came an hour late an accused me of lying to her about the time when I told her we were driving to the restaurant now and to follow me. There are some other events that I’m just not ready to share and still feel very strongly about even years later, including a moment a week before my wedding where she accused me of some very terrible things, causing me to leave work early and seek professional help for an emotional breakdown. It didn’t stop after the wedding. Every happy event; birthday, holiday, and vacation was instantly attacked with ongoing texts about how me going to visit a friend was selfish or meant that I didn’t care about them. If I so much as left the state and she found out about it my phone would blow up with attacking messages. Every happy moment was proof to her that I wasn’t serving her the way that I needed to. Even my involvement in planning my nana’s funeral was an offense to her. And of course, she didn’t come to the funeral or offer condolences. My sibling spent the day of the funeral taking selfies at the beach.

When my cat died and I called her crying on the phone, she said she didn’t understand why I would cry so much over my cat but not over her and my sibling. My entire existence was invalidated and put down. Before going no contact, every conversation we had was about how “confused” I was. She was constantly trying to convince me that I “misunderstood” when she did something cruel and that I was “very confused,” and unwell. Thank heavens I had the help of a therapist to teach me what gas lighting and cognizant dissonance was. Also, I’m fortunate enough to have a partner that recognized how deeply wrong this was and wanted to protect me from it. There was so much grief when I realized that the “good relationship” I thought we had was just wishful thinking on my part and a lot of projection. I don’t know how I was ever tricked into thinking it was good. But by now you can see how every action I took was twisted and analyzed as a personal offence. I let her convince me that she was “there for me,” just because she kept gaslighting me to believe it. She had me so convinced that we had a good relationship at the time, when looking back all I can see is the truth that I didn’t want to see. She had me convinced that I was a bad person no matter how hard I tried to be good enough. This article is an insightful read if you too have been scapegoated in a family unit: https://parenting.exposed/the-relationship-between-the-scapegoat-and-the-golden-child/

At the age of 29 I decided to go no contact with my step-mom. At that point I had begged for forgiveness countless times, did everything they told me, was berated for it, and constantly told I was not doing enough or was being too much. I ran myself ragged trying to live up to her expectations while always falling short. I tried talking to my abuser and sharing how I felt. That was a big mistake. I tried making space for myself and setting boundaries. Those boundaries were completely ignored and added fuel to the fire. I spoke with a therapist and consulted professionals. I learned that there was nothing I could do to fix the relationship because the only way to keep the peace was to remain an emotional punching bag and keep quiet about it. They wanted me constantly groveling and I couldn’t do it anymore. When the smear campaign started and reached new heights I knew there was no going back. I knew that the only way to save myself, my mental health, my marriage, and my future was to choose myself. I went no contact with my “step-mom” (my father’s ex) as a last resort after two years of trying to fix things and nearly 23 years of emotional abuse. I didn’t go no contact to punish anyone or to cause hurt. I went no contact because it was the only thing left I could do to protect myself. I put myself first.

She has this public persona of the selfless hero, the activist, and the victim, that is very convincing to people who do not know her well. It is a mask that she wears to fool the world, but the truth is that she is a deeply broken person who doesn’t have good relationships with her family or deep friendships because she is too abusive and manipulative and controlling to keep healthy relationships. She will shelve people for years and only call on them again when she loses her current narcissistic supply and needs to top up. When I went no contact I saved my life and happiness in so many ways, but lost other important relationships in my life, one in particular that was very important to me and that was the relationship with my youngest sibling, but I also realize now is not good for me either. This person is turning out just as narcissistic, toxic, and abusive. I’m still open to that relationship if she ever decides to talk to me again after cutting out her abusive mother, but I know that might not be healthy for me either. Still, I remain hopeful that maybe one day she will see the truth of what happened. Even that might be wishful thinking.

I’m sad over the loss and grieving, but my husband, friends, and family have pointed out that I am better off. I still try to reach out and be a good person by wishing my sister a happy birthday and good holidays, but it is a sad truth that I realized I could never allow this person to be anywhere near my future children when we have them one day. But honestly, if I wouldn’t allow them anywhere near my own children, why in the world would I let them around me too? I am better off, but it is a reality and a future I’m having a hard time accepting. I always had high hopes for the future, but after how terribly this person acted at my wedding and sabotaged all the happy events leading up to it, why would I give them access to the rest of my life to sabotage in the same way?

My reputation was smeared. My character was questioned. But that’s ok because the people who truly love you and know you would see through those lies. Today I harbor no ill will towards this person, but I do look back on her with sadness. I’m almost one full year no contact as of writing this and my anxiety is now completely gone and my life has healed in ways I never knew could happen. I don’t spend my days in a dark depression any more. I spent so much of my time trying to win this person’s love and approval at the cost of my self-esteem and mental health. I have no regrets about going no contact, although at first I felt extreme guilt and kept wondering if I was being “too sensitive” to the abuse. Now that time has gone by I see how bad it truly was and wish to never return. The falling out felt like more than I could handle at the time and I went though severe depression afterwards. But within the first week I felt my anxiety disappearing. Her number was blocked so I didn’t have the constant fear of the next cruel message coming in. I was able to focus on myself and my healing.

Almost one year in and she doesn’t invade my thoughts on a daily basis anymore. Some things still remind me of what happened, or even the “good times.” It is important to remember that even abusive people have good days. It doesn’t mean that what we had was good. A few holiday outings, nice dinners, childhood moments, and memories cannot make up for all the bad that was done. I have reached a point where some days I forget about her completely and I don’t miss her treatment of me at all. In fact, I don’t even miss her. While some days I feel the wound like it is fresh. A year ago I thought I would feel depressed forever and could not see a way out. I’ve learned to accept what happened and the relationships in my life as they are, not as I dream them to be. I stopped wishing things would become better and started making better boundaries and only letting in what I truly want and need.

My mother has her problems, but one thing she did right is that I know she loves me unconditionally. I won’t ever have the kind of motherly relationship I want, which is what kept me in that abusive relationship with my ex-step-mom for so long, but I can be there for myself and I do have the love of a mother in my life. We have strong boundaries and we’re doing ok as long as I stick to them. I also have an incredible grandmother, a loving father, a very large family full of aunts, uncles, and cousins who I am so close with. My brother and I connect from time to time. It too is not the relationship I hoped it would be, but I am accepting what we have and appreciating the good without ruminating over what I miss out on. I have an amazing step-sister and brother-in-law, and so many nieces and nephews. I’m an aunt to 34 wonderful children. Isn’t that something? My husband’s side has 14 and my bother and step-sister each have two kids each. The rest are the children of my many cousins (my nieces and nephews once removed) and we’re all so very close. I also have meaningful and close friendships and fantastic co-workers. My life is abundant with good people who I love and love me in return. I also have the love of my husband, which goes to show that no matter what you can create the kind of life and family that you want one day, even if it looks different than you had first imagined. It won’t be perfect, but it will be full of love. I’m so lucky that when I went no contact I had a whole other side of my family and friendships to lean on. This has shown me that the assessment of this one unhealthy person is not a reflection of me. If I were the problem, other people would also have a problem with me. Instead my life is abundant. I still feel sad once in a while, but I feel grateful to have wisened up and gotten away when I did. I have no regrets.

These are just a few examples from my life and to many looking in they don’t appear that bad, but the emotional abuse is debilitating. I got very sick; my digestive track was not working correctly, my immune system was so low that I was constantly sick, I lost weight, lost clumps and patches of hair, developed severe anxiety and panic attacks, and became depressed. I lost my period for six months and developed chronic morning pain and illness. I felt like a terrible person. I felt guilt and shame. I felt worthless and unlovable. I lost all joy and motivation in my life. I stopped blogging and even marketing my business. I isolated myself from others and stopped seeing friends. I had difficulty breathing and felt in a constant stage of panic. At night I could not sleep and I started getting terrible nightmares and night terrors. I even experienced emotional flash backs. My marriage was suffering. Emotional abuse takes this severe toll on our bodies, especially after prolonged periods of time. We all react differently, but we all react to emotional abuse in ways that put our bodies through havoc. With the help of a therapist I learned that I am a good person and I do have empathy. By looking around at all the good relationships in my life I can see that clearly now. I did not deserve to be treated the way that I had. I learned to build boundaries and stand up for myself. I learned that I was experiencing Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It wasn’t until I went no contact with her and built stronger boundaries with other toxic people in my life that I started getting my life back and these symptoms went away. I never knew that a toxic relationship could make me so sick. Now, almost a year in, I feel healed. Sometimes I still feel raw, but I’m also at peace with my decision and I feel good about myself. I’m also so much healthier for it.

 

True healing begins when you decide not to take it any more.

When you gain the strength or the realization that it is not acceptable and no longer welcome into your life, that is when you can start your day one of healing. It happens when you decide that you have had enough. Maybe you’ve tried everything you could and everything has backfired. Most cases, it begins the first day you go no contact or limit your contact with the person or people abusing you. There is a lot of grief involved and this is a hard decision to make. No one can make it for you or tell you what to do. No one can tell you to go no contact, but if the relationship is not salvageable and if it is abusive and harming you, it may be the only option to get your life back. Scapegoats who walk away do heal in time. They learn that they are not bad inside, but quite the opposite.

When you go no contact or limit your contact, the person abusing and trying to control you is going to try to hoover you back in. Their abuse will pick up momentum. They need to protect their image and keep their narcissistic supply. They’re going to raise the stakes to get you back. They might apologize, beg your forgiveness and promise to treat you better. They will love bomb you. They might just get more cruel in an attempt to completely break your self esteem. They will guilt you and try to make you feel like a terrible person. They will also try to smear your reputation to mutual people in your life to get to you. You may lose relationships that you value. They might play the victim to everyone who is there to listen. But the truth is that the people who love and understand you will always be by your side. You don’t want anyone who will turn their backs on you or decide that it’s better to turn the other cheek when you are being mistreated. But it still hurts. There is a pain that you will feel regardless of whether you stay or whether you leave, but if you leave you do give yourself an opportunity to heal and lead a healthy and thriving life again.

Day one is about accepting what has happened. This may take time. You have to accept that this person, or people, that you love are toxic and bad for you. You need to accept the reality of who they are and what they have done. You might try to gaslight yourself into believing you’re over reacting or it’s “not that bad.” If you can accept the reality of what has transpired, you can set yourself free.

Day one is about feeling the grief. It hurts so much. You are grieving the loss of a loved one or someone you cared about. But instead of being gone, they are still here.

Day one is also about getting to a place where you feel safe. That is your number one goal right now. Your nervous system has been on high alert for a very long time. You may be experiencing adrenal fatigue, burn out, or severe stress. It’s ok to cry. Crying can help you relieve some of these pent up feelings.

Do not let any guilt consume you. Guilt will try. But this is not your fault.

Do not break your no contact and seek out your abuser. You may have to block this person. Block their access to you on social media as well. And even more importantly, do not look them up either. You may miss the good, but it is not worth the bad. Even abusers have good days. Don’t let those good times fool you into thinking they are good for you.

Your abuser might try to stalk you online or even in person; they might try to run into you at your work or your gym. They might orchestrate run ins at places you often go. Mix up your routine if you have to. If you run into them, do not engage and walk away. They will do anything they can to cause a scene or get you to react, but don’t fall into the trap.

Likewise, don’t look them up online either. Resist checking their social media accounts. They are going to do a series of things online to get to you; share extremely “happy” images and posts to show you how much “better” they are without you or put on a show about how much they don’t care, make you feel like you’re missing out, smear you online, or leave cryptic messages meant to make you wonder and bait you into reaching out to them. They might post photos of their “new best friend” or another person to make you feel replaceable or jealous. This is their new narcissistic supply. They may use posts to garner sympathy and play the victim for their captive audience who still believes their false mask. They might go on business as usual as if you never even existed. No matter what they do, they will do it intentionally to harm you.

A “flying monkey” is someone who will reach out to you on behalf of your abuser. They might pretend to be on your side to spy on you and share that information with your abuser. They might try to tell you that you’re wrong or make you feel bad. They might believe your abuser’s smear campaign and try to get back at you by emotionally abusing you on their behalf. It might be a friend or family member that you love, but at this point they are abusive themselves. Block them too. A lot of the time these flying monkeys learn that they were wrong as soon as they become the narcissistic supply in your absence. Or maybe they’ll always take their side and torment you. You deserve better.

The best thing you can do for yourself right now on day one is to get away for good. Take that big leap. Then you need to calm yourself and make yourself feel safe. Find a secure place to stay if you have to move away from your abuser. Stay with a friend or move into your own place. Find a hotel for the night and start looking for a new place to stay. Some people choose to move for a fresh start. Relocating will not fix your problems or make them go away, but it may give you time to rest and reset.

Do stress relieving activities like yoga, going for a walk, reading, and meditation to soothe your nervous system. Your only goal right now to to be safe and to feel calm. Ten minutes of meditation in the morning and in the evening will start rewiring your brain and stress response in as little as ten days.

Tomorrow you can start trying to understand more about why this person treated you badly. You’re going to want to educate yourself about what happened so that you can heal, but that can wait. You may want to “get over it” already, but you need to soothe yourself first. It can wait. One day at a time.

Just know that in this moment, you are safe. Do something that comforts you. Wrap up in a cozy blanket and watch your favorite feel good movie. Call a friend. Cry it out. Work out. Take a bath. Go out for a day. Meditate. Read a book that you love. Go for a walk. Your only focus right now is to make yourself feel safe and soothed. The rest can wait.

 

 

I hope that by opening up and sharing my story that I was able to help someone. My next post in this series will be all about what to expect and do for week one of your healing journey. Almost a year of no contact and I am seeing the light. It took many months of hard work to heal my broken heart and to start thriving. I’m still working on it. You are not alone.