Congratulations! You’ve left the abusive relationship! Now, you are starting to have post acute withdrawal symptoms just like when someone stops using drugs or alcohol. Our brains have been conditioned by the intermittent positive rewards that the abuser would bestow...
Something I have seen over and over again in my practice is that abuse and addiction go hand in hand with an abuser. Granted, we, the targets are addicted to the intermittent positive rewards, but the abusers? Oh, they have a whole slew of addictions of anything from...
Ahh, February. Spring is just around the corner, love is in the air, Valentine’s Day is nearly here and PING! A Text from your ex who you have not heard from in (fill in the blank) days, weeks, months, years declaring how they miss you and wonder how you are doing and...
Why? Why do abusers LOVE to either try to ruin the holidays or to try and hoover their exes during the holidays? Abusers do NOT have empathy, they do NOT feel real joy, or love, or any real emotion other than anger.
Abusers, narcissists in particular cannot stand it when they are not the center of attention and the one in “control”.
“My back and neck always hurt.” “My stomach is always in knots.” “I’m exhausted all the time.” “I have an autoimmune disease.” If this sounds familiar and you are a survivor of abuse, you are so not alone. Many, many, many survivors of abuse come out with chronic...
Abusers LOVE to hoover (suck in) their previous supply back into lives. DO NOT FALL FOR IT!!!!
Stockholm syndrome is so named because of the reactions of hostages taken in a 1973 bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden. Robbers took hostages and kept them for a week threatening to kill them and then giving them food or sharing details of their lives with them, which,...
Gaslighting comes from the play and movie “Gaslight” in which the heroine is made to believe she is crazy and losing her mind by her abusive husband. The gas lanterns in the house dim every time he is in the attic searching for her family fortune yet, he insists that...
Abusers do not love. They covet. When they meet a potential target for abuse, they want what the target has, which is love, empathy, kindness, compassion. The abuser can only mimic those emotions. Abusers do not understand normal courtship. They want the relationship to move at lightning speed, to mine you for wounds, your past, things that will be used against you later.