How to Break the Cycle of Emotional Abuse in 3 Steps

You can be living in a cycle of emotional abuse without even knowing it’s happening. And by the time you catch on, the damage’ll already done.

But i’m not alone in that, eh?

“It happens to the best of us”. “It’s not a big deal”. “Size doesn’t matter”.

You’ve heard it all before; the things people tell you to make you feel better about your shit situation.

But seriously, you’re probably no different to me. Smart, independent, confident, loves having a laugh.

And then one day – what you knew to be true – turns out to be a big fat lie.

Gotcha! As life smacked me awake with its harsh reality.

Boom!

– Your partner never was who they said they were.

– And they cheated on you.

– Oh, they abused you as well.

– And get this: silent treatment is not normal behaviour! Neither are helicopter rides to say sorry.

Everything kept blowing up. One truth bomb at a time.

And that’s exactly what it feels like when you figure out you were dating a narcissist too late in the game.

Wouldn’t it better if you could say this instead:

“I’m breaking this motherfucking cycle on this motherfucking plane”?

That’s why you’re here isn’t it?

You want to get out . You don’t want to keep reliving the same arguments. Or feeling unsafe in your relationship anymore. And you’re too damn tired to keep trying to make it work.

I’m done with my narcissist. But you might not be, you might still be figuring it out. Or maybe you’re educating yourself for the future.

Whatever your reason for being here is, I applaud you 👏. Especially if you’re here to make better choices for yourself.

So come on, let me show you how to break your cycle of emotional abuse – I promise you’ll get a lot from this guide.

Step 1 of Breaking the Cycle of Emotional Abuse:

Recognising Their Toxic Traits

A narcissist’s manipulative tactics make it tough to identify and process your emotions. And the longer they subject you to their cruelty, the more you lose yourself.

The cleverness of emotional abuse is that it’s subtle and invisible. So it can take months or even years for you to recognise that abuse is going on. But, you don’t have to know or define the abuse you’re experiencing. All you need to be aware of is how consistent their behaviours are.

It’s not to say that you can’t notice their behaviours early on. But to give yourself the best chance to break the cycle – be aware of what narcissistic traits might look like:

The cycle of emotional abuse: Spot the 8 Narcissistic Traits

Look out for these narcissistic traits:

  • Lacking empathy: you’ll find they lack sympathy when you tell them their behaviour’s hurting you.
  • A sense of superiority over others: they can appear arrogant and like others are beneath them. 
  • Entitlement: feeling like they’re in their right to do what they want, when they want.
  • Thoughtless: they’ve a shallow way of thinking. And they don’t take things seriously or understand their importance.
  • Seeking admiration: a narcissist’s always on the hunt for praise and validation.
  • Anger: their temperament can do a 180 when irritated.
  • Exploiting people: they tend to use people to their advantage. For example, they might’ve resourceful friends who give them access to things – like celebs.
  • Unresponsive: when confronted, they can often retreat from you and ignore you. AKA the silent treatment.

Suspicious that your partner may show the above traits? 

Ask yourself the following questions:

Does your partner…

  • Give the impression they think they’re better than everyone else – like they’re in a league of their own?
  • Feel they’re deserving of special treatment?
  • Act like they don’t care about your feelings?
  • Consider you when making decisions?
  • Need you complimenting them all the time?
  • Fill with rage unexpectedly?
  • Use people to make them look better?
  • Ignore your messages or disappear with no explanation?

Step 2 of Breaking the Cycle of Emotional Abuse:

Understanding how you Feel

Now that you know what a narcissist might look like, the next step is to understand how they can make you feel. Once you establish this, you can determine if your relationship’s toxic. You need to be aware of all these elements to help you break the cycle of emotional abuse.

5 Signs you’re in an emotionally abusive cycle

An essential part of understanding emotional abuse is knowing how the cycle worksTo break it, you need to become aware of the patterns in your relationship and the regularity of their behaviours.

A narcissist won’t ever take ownership over abuse; it’s better to put that energy into yourself. So it can be helpful to understand and identify how you’re feeling instead of what it may look like.

Pay attention to your emotions and the signals your body might send you. Like butterflies in your stomach when you’re around that person. They could also be fluttering warning signs, communicating something isn’t right.

Acknowledge how they make you feel, trust your instincts and tune into your gut more. Your feelings are valid and important, and you shouldn’t be pushing them away to keep them happy.

Below are some signs you may be experiencing as a result of the abuse:

1. Feeling confused and not remembering stuff, like you’re unsure or doubting yourself.

Narcissists will try to make you feel like your memory is unreliable – it helps them control the narrative of a situation. Like gaslighting, used to confuse you and have you second-guessing everything.

An unwelcome outcome of repetitive gaslighting is cognitive dissonance. The more they manipulate you, the more you mistrust your reality versus the credibility of the abuser. The gaslighter preys on your confusion to strengthen their conviction. So you further doubt your truth. This unwanted mental strain helps you normalise and rationalise their behaviour to soothe the tension away.

Love bombing is also a tool they use to help you forget the bad times. Naturally, you want to live in harmony, so love bombing enables you to ignore the negative moments. And in turn, you start to doubt your past perceptions of the relationship – because things are good again. Narcaway describes this technique well in her video below. She calls it “toxic-amnesia” (watch the full video below):

*Top tip*

If you’re confused, start a daily diary. Document all significant interactions with your partner, write down your activities. That way they can’t manipulate the truth from your memory later. It’s during the good times when they often try and get in your head. They wilt your past perceptions and influence your mind to think it was “a rough patch”.

A daily journal can help you keep track of incidents and spot the patterns in your relationship. It also provides a reference for your mind when you start to doubt yourself.

2. Feeling insufferable, like you’re walking on eggshells.

The inconsistent behaviour. The floating between rejection and intense adoration, is designed to keep you in the loop. Narcissists want you motivated by hope and fear:

hope the relationship will improve and fear it could worsen.

This brings an anxious, unsettling feeling you try to avoid. So you walk on eggshells and prevent any conflict with them. But, instead, they keep you hooked by throwing in early memories of the two of you together. Like “Remember our first date and how special it was?” They’ll remind you that they could be that doting person once again.

My ex withheld sex a lot of the time, particularly after working away. I guess I expected we would reconnect when he got back. I yearned for the connection after being apart and hoped he did too. But, instead, he would come home and not go near me; he would avoid sex at all costs.

I felt scared to voice my feelings a lot of the time, anxious I may upset the balance between us. I also knew from past conversations that complaining about the lack of sex only amounted in a fight.

My self-esteem struggled a lot. But I felt bound by love and that it was worth sticking out; I always knew how great we would be again. But, the reality is you shouldn’t have to repress your feelings to keep the peace and avoid conflict. You should be able to have healthy conversations without feeling attacked.

3. Rationalising and normalising their ill behaviour.

Pay attention to how you react after an incident or explain matters to your friends. Like, are you downplaying how you felt and making excuses for your partner?

Rationalising and normalising behaviours can manifest themselves in 3 different ways: 

Narcissists feed you convincing stories that reassure your trust and commitment to them. 

For instance, my ex told me how he got cheated on and how that betrayal affected him. So, I thought he would never be capable of that himself.

He reinforced my belief further with his disappointed reaction towards his cheating friend. Oscar worthy that was. I really bought into his lie.

So when he stayed out all night. And ignored my existence, those past accounts continually helped me rationalise inappropriate behaviours. I never believed him not coming home meant he was cheating on me.

You believe you’re the cause they act a certain way; you associate their anger, silent treatment, or irritability with it being your fault. 

You develop a habit of thinking that if you show more loyalty, effort, and compromise, you’ll be able to prevent the repercussions of their actions. So you adapt your behaviour to the needs of the narcissist. This enforces normalisation of ill behaviour. Because they manipulate you to think you’re at fault for how they act. But no one should be using their pain as an excuse for hurting you.

It triggers the fear that they might break up with you and leave you alone again if you don’t act accordingly. You’re already heavily reliant on them as trauma bonds have formed from all the highs and lows. So you don’t understand or see the abuse taking place. And you can’t begin to imagine explaining your relationship to others.

Emotional abuse is hard for you to detect and invisible to everyone else around you. The charming narcissist ensures everyone else always sees their best side. So when you react to anything, you reinforce the belief that you’re the crazy one. After all, the others have only ever seen their best side and will naturally defend them.

The housemates we lived with always jumped to my ex’s defence when he stayed out all night drinking. They defused the situation and made me believe I was overreacting. They refused to think my ex had a drinking problem. Instead, I was the problem as I worried too much.

However you look at it, it’s wrong for your partner to not say anything about their whereabouts all night. And then not make it home to bed.

So when everyone’s telling you to think one way – and you don’t agree – it just feels easier and more manageable to rationalise their destructive behaviours away.

You base your relationship on how society portrays love:

You have to fight for what you want, love isn’t easy, or relationships are hard work.

Historically, lead male characters in movies present themselves relentlessly pursuing the female. Their persistence would always pay off, regardless of her wishes. This feeds the message that you’re rewarded if you work hard enough, i.e. you’ll get the girl!

We have seen these types of relationships on TV and in movies for most of our lives. So it’s no wonder that we have become conditioned to assume fiery relationships are how “normal couples are.” You mistakenly think that relationships are complicated. And that your partner’s behaviour is representative of a stereotypical dynamic between couples.

Big romantic storylines, like Ross and Rachel, reaffirm that narrative. But if you look deeper, Ross, “the nice guy,” is actually a bit of a narcissist. When he finally gets Rachel, he tries to control her actions at work and who she surrounds herself with. Yet, despite how hard it is for them to be together, we’re still rooting for them to make it work.

This, coupled with how society portrays struggling single women. And their need for a partner to make them “feel complete”. Creates a disoriented perspective in our minds. It encourages females to normalise poor behaviour as single life looks so much worse.

The video below explains the “nice guy” concept perfectly:

4. Feeling like you’re overreacting and making something out of nothing.

Is your partner diminishing how you feel? And making you feel like you overreact to situations? That’s how I felt a lot of the time.

I had a minor biking accident when living in Australia with my ex. I flipped over my handlebars and crashed to the floor with my bike landing on top of me (don’t worry – I had a helmet on)! My ex was further ahead and came back to check on me.

I couldn’t move my arm and felt sick with pain. Something must be broken as I hadn’t been in agony like it before. He said I was being dramatic and overreacting because I was in shock. So he picked up my bike and continued walking ahead of me back home. Charming eh!

He had me convinced I didn’t break anything. So, I carried on about my evening and even went swimming the next day! Until my housemate exclaimed how swollen and bruised, it was. She insisted I should go and get it checked out at the hospital.

Long story short — I’d broken my radial head! Of course, I wasn’t overreacting, but I believed his words over my pain!

Don’t be me in that situation. Test whether you think you might’ve overreacted to something and open up to someone you trust. Hypothetically explain the situation, ask for their opinion and reassurance over the matter. Check how they would feel about it if they were in your shoes. Sometimes a third party to your relationship can be a good marker to evaluate incidents – particularly when you’ve lost your way of thinking straight.

5. Feeling like you’re being blamed for everything

Not only do they make you feel at fault for a lot of things, but you also experience a great deal of self-blame. That’s because they’re smooth at deflecting and manipulating responsibility onto you.

For example, suppose you confront them about their aloof manner with you. They’ll deny any change in mood or project the blame onto you: “you’re the reason why I am being cold”. And without pause, you’re manipulated to feel at fault for their demeanour.

They distract your attention away from them by deflecting it back onto you. They’ve blamed you for the reason why they’re “cold”. Suddenly your concern is more with your behaviour: how did you make them feel that way? And what did you do wrong? Narcissists dislike accountability. So they gaslight you to divert the focus away from them.

Feeling the need to fix things

It’s not uncommon to feel obligated for fixing your partner’s low spirit. You’ve learnt to feel hopeful things will change – if only you could get through to them or adapt your behaviour. If you loved them unconditionally and showed them greater consideration, they’ll come around and stop acting so unkind. But this only strengthens the abuser’s control over you.

The subtleties of emotional abuse – gaslighting, passive-aggressive behaviours like silent treatment, guilt-tripping and blaming – all amount to the self-belief that you’re accountable for the relationship problems. After all, you’re led to believe you’re the reason why they’re upset with you. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking someone who loves you would only act this way if you deserved it.

These feelings and paranoid thoughts are typical side effects stimulated by emotional abuse. It makes love feel erratic, confusing and hurtful. Feeling unsafe and questioning where your relationship stands are also signs of emotional abuse.

What Emotional Abuse Feels Like

The above list is not exhaustive; below are some other feelings you might be experiencing:

  • Hyper-vigilance
  • Fearful of being honest
  • Anxiety
  • Experiencing shame and embarrassment, or guilt
  • Helplessness and desperation
  • Depression
  • Isolated
  • Retreating from social situations
  • Misunderstood 
  • Defensive
  • Needy; requiring constant reassurance
  • Questioning yourself and your memory
  • Acting out, e.g. trying to give them a taste of their own medicine (as a defence to the abuse)
  • Becoming submissive
  • Crying (A LOT)
  • Self-regulating your behaviours and words
  • Manipulated, betrayed, used, and controlled
  • Undesirable, especially if they withhold sex.
The cycle of emotional abuse: the emotions you experience when subjected to psychological abuse.

Step 3 of Breaking the Cycle of Emotional Abuse:

Look out for the Signs in Your Relationship

At the time, I didn’t have a great understanding of what my emotions were telling me. Now I know it was narcissistic abuse. It’s challenging to recognise these feelings. But they’re paramount in noticing emotional abuse.

Now you know the signs, you can begin to question your relationship. Try to gauge how you uphold the inner workings of the cycle. And in turn, you might be able to break your cycle of emotional abuse.

You need to distinguish how much you’re trying to fix your partner. Versus how much onus is on their responsibility for fixing themselves. For example, if they play the victim and feed you lines like ‘you’re the only one who can help me stay sober.’ Phrases like that show they hold you accountable for their recovery. So they’re guilt-tripping you to stay (hoovering). 

Because of the depth of love women feel for their partners, many of us will obligingly stay with them. We’ll help to fix them, no matter what. Women are conditioned to be caregivers; we always want to be the ones to change someone for the better.

But remember:

You don’t work on a person; you do your own work.

So work on yourself instead of focusing on them; honour your own energy.

To quote Florence Given, “Stop raising him. He’s not your son”.

Breaking the Cycle of Emotional Abuse AKA Breakaway From Them

When your relationship ends with a narcissist, you’re unlikely to get closure from them. So, how you move on is down to the choices you make. But it’s important to realise that it will take time for your emotions to catch up with your actions. So be patient and kind to yourself, and trust that things will be better without them. Be more concerned with the inside of the relationship rather than what’s waiting on the outside for you.

I will not sit here, lie to you and tell you that I never have bad days. But I can confidently tell you that I’ve healed a lot, and I continue to heal. It was a fucking tough time when he broke up with me. And I know it’s cliché to say, but I’m honestly a stronger and happier person without him.

I promise you; you’ll thrive again. You won’t be the same person, but trust that you’ll be a better, happier one. Break away from them, cut all contact with them and anyone connected to their circle. You need to be away from them to truly heal yourself.

Education is our best line of defence:

  • spot the behaviours,
  • recognise your feelings, and
  • act early to break the cycle of emotional abuse.

Sallt Sisters is here to support you in your recovery, so get in touch if you need to. I know how you feel, and it helps to relate to others in your situation. Going no contact is hard, but it’s the only solution to rid them from your life. So try talking to me, instead of talking to them.

Ready to take that first step? Start here with this checklist.

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