Member-only story
The Internal Message From Abuse That Welcomes More Abuse
Brainwashing led to one core concept
After extensive research and therapy, I finally lost interest in the psychological labeling of all the types of abuse I survived.
Whether the man that possessed my mind and controlled my life for nearly a decade was suffering from narcissism, schizophrenia, bipolar, only drug addictions, or all of the above, makes little difference now in my healing process.
Sure, I wanted to identify all the labels to make sense of it, sorting through every applicable term to understand my painful past.
I dug deep with a mix and match game to link behaviors he exhibited to a diagnostic explanation. But every curiosity and every agonizing question I had were all attempts to simply answer the question of “Why?”
Why did this happen to me? Why didn’t I see the truth, the abuse? Why didn’t I escape sooner? Why did I agree to a relationship that did not look like a relationship from the start? Why did I agree with the demeaning and shaming?
By investigating his characteristics and abusive patterns, explaining them by a variety of disorders, at first I was able to better understand what I survived. I was able to accept that this chronic trauma was not my fault nor a reflection of my…