empty

I’ll play dumb just to see how far you gone go

[remanence-of-love]

[heartofmuse]

Tonight, I am but a thousand scars, bleeding beneath a silent moon.

e.v.e.

[thoughtkick]

“You have to meet people where they are, and sometimes you have to leave them there.”

— Iyanla Vanzant

[whendidmythoughtsgocrazy]

And if I'm meant to be alone, please take away my desire to be loved.

k.b. // unknown

[remanence-of-love]

[llovelymoonn]

ainslie hogarth motherthing

kofi

[thoughtkick]

“Each minute we spend worrying about the future and regretting the past is a minute we miss in our appointment with life – a missed opportunity to engage life and to see that each moment gives us the chance to change for the better, to experience peace and joy.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh, Savor

[perfectfeelings]

“Don’t you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don’t know a soul?”

— Haruki Murakami

[littlemissbratty]

"But you survived"

I have PTSD

I can't sleep without a light on

I flinch and panic at loud noises

I have nightmares

I overthink everything

Im scared to say no

I shutdown and isolate myself

My body favours feeling numb over anything

But yeah... I survived...

[traumasurvivors]

Your abuser not being aware they're being abusive does not change the fact that it is abuse. You don't need to prove it to them or get their confirmation for your feelings about it to be valid.

[eldritchbauble]

You know what else contributes to how traumatic emotional abuse is? The fact that people think it's not real or at least it's not as bad as physical abuse.

[traumasurvivors]

Hey, friendly reminder that your abuser doing "nice" things for you doesn't negate what they did to you.

Buying you things, doing your favours, or anything like that doesn't "balance" the scale and mean the abuse doesn't matter or doesn't exist anymore.

Other people talking about how "good" they are doesn't change what they did to you.

These things don't just make your trauma disappear.

They still abused you, and it was still wrong. And you don't owe them anything.

[traumasurvivors]

Abusive people are not abusive 100% of the time. There may be quiet stretches, even moments of kindness or affection. Survivors often cling to those moments as proof of love. And maybe the person did love you, in their own way.

But here’s the truth. Love doesn’t erase abuse.

Love without safety and respect isn’t the kind of love you deserve.

Real love is more than the moments you aren’t being hurt. It’s more than occasional comfort between storms. Love is steady care, consistent kindness, and respect that doesn’t disappear when things get difficult.

Whether they loved you or not doesn’t change the harm you experienced. Both can be true. They may have loved you, and they also hurt you. The presence of love doesn’t make the abuse less real.

Disclaimer: I know that some people firmly believe that someone who abuses you can’t love you. You are valid to hold that view, and I respect it.

For this post, though, I’m framing it differently. Sometimes that narrative can make it harder for survivors to recognize abuse because if they’re convinced the person did love them, they might dismiss the harm as “not really abuse.” I want to be clear that even if someone loves you, that doesn’t erase the abuse, and love without safety or respect isn’t the kind of love you deserve.

[traumasurvivors]

It's normal that things might not get better when you leave an abusive situation. For many people, things actually get harder at first. Being in a safer place can give your body permission to feel everything it had to suppress just to survive.

That doesn’t mean leaving was a mistake. It means your nervous system is finally exhaling.

Trauma doesn’t end when the danger ends. And even if it feels worse right now, it’s still good that you got out. Getting out creates the possibility for things to get better.

[the-floral-skeleton]

Can we just say abuser again. “Narcissist” this “narc abuse” that, and then 90% of the time people just describe regular abuser behavior.

“It’s a classic tactic for narcissists to take away something you care about and then give it back and expect gratitude” you mean it’s a classic tactic for abusers. That is not some special strategy that only narcissists use, it’s literally just manipulation. Manipulation is a classic abusive behavior.

I am begging people to understand that abuse is a pattern of behaviors that anyone can fall into, not some special separate group that you can neatly label and separate yourself from.

[hairylungs]

trying to categorize people into "abusers" vs "abused" as if those two things are mutually exclusive will always fail. people that have been abused in the past are not suddenly incapable of being abusive, nor are people that have been abusive immune to being on the receiving end of abuse. you cannot meaningfully separate people into "a group that abuses" and "a group that is abused". it is simply impossible. there will always be abusers amongst the abused. abuse is a cycle that is perpetuated, not by a type of person, but by people in general. that cycle is also not stopped by a type of person, but by people in general. it is defined by your choices and behaviors, not some inherent trait divinely bestowed upon you by the Universe or whatever.

[traumasurvivors]

Someone being abusive "some of the time" is an abuser.

They aren't "sometimes" an abuser. They are an abuser. And abusers can do nice things. For us. For others. And they can genuinely mean those nice things in those moments. It isn't so black and white as abusers are always abusive and evil and it's so straight forward and easy to see.

A lot of people get stuck on "people who love you won't abuse you" and I appreciate the sentiment but I think it can be confusing for people because then they're reluctant to label something as abuse because they believe that person loves them. It can make it harder to see what’s happening because “if they love me, it can’t be abuse”.

It's easier for me to say that abusers can be nice. They can make us feel good. They can even make us feel loved. But it doesn't "balance" out the abusive things and neutralize them. Abuse is still abuse and you deserve better.