Love should never feel like walking on eggshells. It should not come with conditions and strings attached.
Dear Survivor,
At first, it may have looked like devotion, romance, infatuation, and even felt like love. The constant check-ins, the jealousies framed as care, the subtle sabotage, the need to be with you all the time. It felt like intensity, passion, maybe even romance.
Then came the slow unraveling of your freedom and autonomy. And the person becomes a shell of who they once where.
They made your world smaller without raising their voice. Maybe they said you were overreacting, too emotional, unappreciative or disloyal when you tried to set a boundary. If you found yourself shrinking to keep the peace, that was not love, it was control and coercive.
The scariest part is that it often begins with what looks like love. But it is coercive control.
That is what makes coercive control so confusing and painful to identify. Abusers can hide behind affectionate words while dismantling your autonomy and self-respect. And when control feels familiar, it is easy to mistake it for connection or even care.
You deserve to recognize the truth of what you lived through.
Many survivors question whether their experience counts because there were no bruises, no broken bones, no scars. But the silence, the fear, and the isolation were real. The emotional pain still hurts. The trauma response and reactions still exist. That is why I created the Types of Abuse Worksheet, to help you put words to the wounds you could not explain.
You are not imagining things. It was abuse. And it was real.
Blessings and healing,
Catrina
#narcissisticabuse #domesticviolence #DV #IPV #abuser #toxicrelationships #abusivepartners #emotionalabuse #narcissist #survivorstories #healingjourney #traumarecovery #relationshipabuse #abusesurvivor #mentalhealth #healingafterabuse #coercivecontrol