The War I Didn't Know I Was Fighting | Healing After Emotional Abuse & Betrayal

Author’s Note

This piece came from a place I never thought I’d have to write from.

It isn’t meant for attention, and it’s not written for revenge.

It’s an unfiltered truth. Raw, precise, and hard-won.

I’m sharing it because writing it helped me understand what I had survived,

not just emotionally, but psychologically.

This is not speculation.

It is my lived experience,

based on months of documentation, reflection, and

naming what had no name while I was inside it.

I do not make these statements lightly.

And I share them now with one purpose:

To help others who’ve been through something similar feel seen, validated, and less alone.

If you’ve ever questioned your sanity, doubted your own story, or carried shame that was never yours to hold—this is for you.

This is part of my healing.

But it’s also part of how I reclaimed power from the inside out.

Not by yelling louder, but by seeing clearly. And telling the truth.

With love, Katherine

The War I Didn’t Know I Was Fighting

I didn’t know I was going to war when I said yes to a hiking invitation.

I never got a draft letter in the mail.

I never spoke to a recruiter.

I thought I had found the land of peace and honey.

He promised me blue skies and sunny days.

He promised me safety, warmth, and love.

He was attentive. Attuned. Interested.

He used words like caretaker, consistent, cherished, enduring love, and trust.

Words of safety.

Words that made me exhale.

Words that made me believe I was finally home.

He said,

“I want to be your person.”

And for a while, he was those things.

Until he wasn’t.

But the change didn’t hit like a bomb.

It crept in slowly,

layered in little actions that repeated,

followed by words of love.

Heart to heart.

Skin to skin.

Connection…

…followed by sniper attacks to my psyche.

I told myself he was busy.

Important.

That he had responsibilities.

That he had priorities.

That maybe I was too sensitive.

Maybe I wasn't that important.

That love sometimes stings before it soothes.

It became a pattern:

• Shots fired

• Loving words and affection

• Grenade attacks

• Words of safety and attention

• Gut punches

• Roses

• Enemy invasion

• Territory markers made of diamonds

• Words of safety and attention

• Missile strikes

• Loving words and affection

• More diamonds

• Tactical deprivation

• Promises and Presence

• A familiar ambush

• Very expensive diamonds

• Words of safety, warmth, love, and affection

• Disappearance

• Punishment

• Torture

• Secrets

And all the while, I wasn’t the only war he was waging.

There were other fronts.

Other women.

Other versions of himself.

He performed love while deploying control.

He played certain songs—handpicked soundtracks to sculpt the story he wanted me to believe.

And I was far from the only one who mistook the war for intimacy.

I wish he had just hit me.

At least then I would’ve known it was violence.

At least then I would’ve known I was bleeding.

At least then I might’ve believed me.

But instead,

He used silence like a blade.

Affection like bait.

Love like camouflage.

And I didn’t even know I was at war.

Until one day,

in my need to know the truth,

I detonated the atomic bomb.

Unintentionally.

I didn’t scream.

I didn’t rage.

I didn’t burn the house down.

I simply uncovered everything.

Every lie.

Every manipulation.

Every detail he prayed would stay buried.

And while he scrambled to contain the fallout,

he never realized I had been preparing.

While I was under attack,

I had been quietly documenting.

Studying every interaction.

Noting every contradiction.

Paying attention to patterns,

to language,

to inconsistencies,

to shame—his and mine.

And still, not completely ignoring my intuition.

I was fortifying my internal structure.

Identifying his weaknesses.

Cataloging his battle scars.

Watching what he tried to protect.

So when the blast hit,

I retaliated.

Not with rage,

with precision.

With psychological warfare, he never saw coming.

I held the truth up to the light, and it did what truth always does.

It leveled everything.

It shattered the image he had spent years crafting.

And that’s when I realized,

I hadn’t just been in the war.

I had been the battlefield.

Every lie carved into me.

Every invasion staged across my skin.

Every silence, strike.

Every kiss, cover.

And when it was over,

I didn’t rise like a phoenix.

I limped.

Bleeding.

Shaking.

Hurt—but healing.

I looked back only once.

And all that was left of him

was his burned ego.

His mask,

and a tuft of sheep’s clothing,

still smoldering

On the battlefield that was me.

And that’s when I realized.

I hadn’t just been dating a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

I had been in love with a psychopath.

And, still, I wonder,

Was it really that bad?