Psychological abuse targets your mind: your memory, your judgment, your sense of reality, and your connections to other people. Its goal, conscious or not, is control. It's one of the most confusing kinds of abuse, because it makes you question whether it's happening at all.
Signs of psychological abuse
- Gaslighting: "That's not how it happened." "You're remembering it wrong." "You have a bad memory."
- Isolation: making it so hard to see friends or family that you stop trying.
- Monitoring: checking your phone, email or calls, or wanting to know where you are at all times.
- Accusations: of cheating, of being brainwashed, of being a bad person, when you've done nothing wrong.
- Ultimatums: "Do what I want, or leave."
- DARVO: when you raise a problem, they Deny it, Attack you, and Reverse Victim and Offender, so you end up apologizing.
What it looked like for me
I heard those gaslighting phrases for our whole marriage, until I stopped trusting my own memory. Later, my emails and texts were read, my calls were listened in on, and my friendships faded one by one. In the end, I was given an ultimatum in front of family. More in My Story.
Why it works
Gaslighting creates cognitive dissonance: what you experienced and what you're told don't match, and that's painful. To ease the pain, the mind often sides with the more confident voice. Over time you lose trust in yourself, which makes you easier to control. Coercive control works the same way, through many small rules and restrictions that add up to a cage.
Trusting yourself again
- Write things down as they happen. Your notes become your anchor to reality.
- Tell one trusted person what's going on. Isolation is the abuse's strongest tool.
- Notice your body. Tension, dread and exhaustion are information.
- If you feel unsafe, use Get Help Now.
Tools that help with psychological abuse
Building awareness: Your Wish Is Your Command helped me trust my own mind again and take my power back.
The principle behind the healing: Self-Honesty: seeing every part of myself without bias, so no one else gets to define my reality. See Principles for Living.
Shadow work: questions to journal
- When was the last time I doubted something I clearly remembered? What happened just before?
- Where in my life did I learn that other people's version of events matters more than mine?
- Which relationships have I let go of to keep the peace? Which one could I reach out to this week?
Owning your patterns never means owning their abuse.