What I Didn’t Know Was Abuse Until I Left | Healing From Covert Emotional Abuse

This part of my story isn’t easy to share, but it is necessary

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I’ve been walking through a season of profound reinvention.

Part of that has meant facing the truth about a relationship I was in. One that was emotionally and psychologically abusive.

My former partner was funny, smart, handsome, and tender.

And also an expert manipulator.

Charming and humble on the surface.

Respected.

And emotionally neglectful and deceitful behind closed doors.

The abuse was covert.

Built on a foundation of

• Love bombing

• Mirroring

• Lies

• Withheld truths

• Gaslighting

• Image management

• Emotional withholding

• Hot and cold behavior

• And the strategic use of expensive gifts to

  ease his guilt and create confusion and control.

By the time I had the courage to seek the truth,

and the full reality came to light,

I was emotionally shattered.

But also strong enough to walk away.

I'll be honest. Walking away has been harder than staying ever was.

Because when you leave this kind of abuse,

you are not just leaving a person.

You are leaving a false reality you were deeply attached to.

You are grieving the love you were promised,

the life you thought you were building,

and the parts of yourself that got lost in the fog.

There were many moments that felt good.

And many words that felt true.

But those don’t erase everything else.

That’s what makes this kind of abuse so hard to leave.

It isn’t black and white.

The entanglement is part of the abuse.

It is what keeps you hooked.

And it is what makes the leaving,

and the healing, so complex.

And I still grieve the loss of my person.

Even though he was never who I thought he was.

It takes everything you have to choose healing over familiar hurt.

Because abuse does not just live in your mind.

It lives in your body.

It shapes your nervous system.

Leaving can feel like detoxing from a drug.

And it did.

Here is something important.

I did not fully recognize it as abuse until after I was out.

Because covert abuse works in exactly that way.

It distorts your sense of reality, of self, of what is normal.

When someone carefully withholds truths.

Manipulates facts.

Hides ongoing betrayals, like the existence of other women.

Uses grand gestures or gifts to mask harm.

Whispers words of safety, warmth, and love into your heart,

while their actions consistently contradict those words.

That shapes a false version of reality.

It leaves you anxious. Confused. Doubting your own instincts.

While I was in it, I knew I was hurting.

But I kept trying to make sense of it.

To fix it.

To hold on.

It was only in the aftermath when the fog began to clear

that I could finally name it for what it was.

Emotional and psychological abuse.

I am naming this now not to dwell in the past but to honor my healing.

And to make it clear.

What I experienced was abuse.

And if you have been there too you are not alone.

You are not crazy.

You are not broken.

You can reclaim your life.

And I am here.

Walking proof that it is possible.

More of this story will be woven into this space in the weeks to come.

But for today this is where I am.

Starting where I am.