Emotional abuse is defined as any pattern of behavior that undermines a person’s sense of self-worth and reality, according to author Beverly Engel. In a personal account, one individual describes how the changes began subtly.
At first, the shifts were small. The person stopped wearing an outfit that others liked because a partner said it did not look good. Friendships faded because they made the partner uncomfortable. The individual laughed less at things the partner did not find funny. They checked their own face to ensure their expression pleased the partner. They shrank slightly, in ways no one else would notice.
Then the changes grew larger. The person stopped trusting their own judgment. The partner said they were too sensitive. The partner denied doing things they had actually done. The partner denied saying things they had said. The partner claimed not to remember events. This happened so many times that the individual began to believe the partner’s version of reality.
The person started second-guessing every decision. They asked permission for things they used to do naturally. They drafted and edited every thought before speaking, trying to get it right. They even caught themselves editing thoughts before they were fully formed. They learned to read the partner’s moods like a sailor reads the sky, paying attention to slight shifts in tone, a gesture, a certain look, or the way the partner set down a phone. They became painfully tuned to the partner’s needs and expectations.
Somewhere along the way, the individual stopped asking what they needed, wanted, or what was true for them. Instead, they asked what the partner wanted to hear, what the partner needed, and what would keep things calm. They stopped listening to their own internal compass and replaced it with the partner’s approval and acceptance. Everything was structured around the partner’s comfort, liking, and convenience. They went to places the partner wanted to go, did things the partner wanted to do, at the time the partner wanted, in the way the partner thought best. From home projects to outings, the person’s life became a reflection of the partner’s preferences.
Years later, the individual looked in the mirror and realized they did not know who they were anymore. They could not remember the last time they had done the things they loved. They were not sure what their own opinions were anymore. The person they had been before the relationship felt like she had died or was never real at all.
The account states that this is what toxic relationships do. They do not just take time, energy, or peace. They take a person’s identity. Slowly, quietly, one small surrender at a time. The person who entered the relationship and the person still in it barely recognize each other. It is not just that you lose yourself, the writer says. It is that you lose the ability to find yourself, because the compass you used to navigate with, your gut and intuition, is gone.
The individual did not fully realize what was happening until they started doing research. They hated the word “people-pleaser” but the research forced them to look at the root of their own patterns. They also had to accept that the partner’s behaviors were not situational or one-off incidents. They were patterns that could not be denied. Cognitively, the person knew that the partner’s rants and outbursts had to do with what the partner was going through or the trauma they carried. But because the individual never saw the partner react that way with anyone else, they began to believe there was something wrong with them. They thought they were provoking the partner and had not found the right way to turn off the mistreatment.
The partner’s behavior was a stark contrast to the image he presented publicly. The individual thought people would assume they were the cause. When they tried to speak up or advocate for themselves, no matter how gentle and careful they were, they were met with rage. In moments they wanted to scream, defend themselves, or run, they smiled or apologized to end the rage. They overrode their own reactions and focused only on calming the partner, saying whatever was needed to turn the anger off.
When you are told enough times that your perception is inaccurate, the account says, you eventually stop trusting your own eyes. You say yes to things you do not have the bandwidth for because saying no feels dangerous. You feel exhausted all the time, not just from the relationship, but from the constant mental load of second-guessing every thought, every feeling, every decision. You become so consumed with the other person’s voice that yours goes silent. That is what makes it hard to recognize from the inside. You do not wake up one day and think you have lost your ability to trust yourself. You just stop trusting yourself.
The writer notes that the intuition is not gone. It has been buried under countless moments of invalidation, someone else’s reality, and the exhaustion of constantly adapting. The account explains that there are many reasons people stay for years, sometimes decades, in relationships that are slowly destroying them. One main reason is the sunk cost fallacy, an economic term meaning the more you have invested in something, the harder it is to walk away. The individual had invested time, energy, love, hope, and dreams. They had defended the relationship to people who loved them and made excuses for the partner.
The few times they broke up, the individual was met with desperate pleas to come back, grand gestures, and promises that things would change. The partner made them feel guilty. One moment he would be steeped in sorrow, the next angry at them for leaving, telling them they were yet another source of trauma in his life. So they stayed a little longer, thinking maybe it would get better if they just tried harder, became smaller, quieter, more of what he needed. The longer they stayed, the more they lost. Not just more time, but more of themselves.
The account addresses readers who recognize their own experience and think they should have known better. It says that trauma bonds do not exploit weaknesses. They exploit qualities like the capacity to love deeply, the ability to see potential in someone, and the willingness to believe someone’s words even when they do not match their actions. These are not weaknesses, the writer says. They are the best parts of you, used against you. This is why intelligent, high-achieving people get caught in these patterns. Not because they were naive or weak, but because they believed in someone’s potential more than they trusted their own discomfort.
