Abuse is heartbreaking.

It can be hard to recognize when you are being pulled into an abusive relationship. Abuse often starts in the form of romance, love, and friendship. When an abuser begins the relationship, it may start with praise and affirmation, exciting and romantic experiences, charm, giving you money or gifts – all things that pull the victim in.

It’s important to understand also that there is the micro relationship (an individual and the abuser), and the macro relationship (abuse in families, workplaces, organizations, social groups and even society at large).

People in abusive relationships often cannot see that they are in abusive relationships.

What is abuse? It is to use wrongly or improperly, to treat in harmful, injurious, or offensive ways, to speak insultingly, harshly or unjustly, to revile or malign. There are different kinds of abuse including emotional, sexual, verbal and physical.

Betrayal is a form of emotional abuse. Guilting, belittling, deflecting responsibility, isolation, intensity, volatility, jealousy, sabotage and manipulation are also all forms of abuse.

Gaslighting is also abuse. Gaslighting is when someone leads you to question your own reality. A victim of abuse may initially recognize that they are being treated wrongfully, but the abuser presents twisted truth that deceives the victim into believing as true something which is false.

It’s also important to understand cognitive dissonance, which is the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to decisions and perceptions of reality.

THE PROBLEM WITH RECOGNIZING ABUSE

Let’s say someone you love is in an abusive relationship, and you sit them down and say, “Look, I think you are being abused. This happened, that happened, and that happened.” What you are doing is presenting evidence, facts, and logic to this person about what you are noticing, but what happens is that the victim doesn’t understand. They are not going to accept what you are saying. Instead, they will provide excuses, explanations, and rationalizations, that counter every point you are making. If you insist on showing them facts and evidence, they will start to attack you. Why? Because all of this evidence you are presenting creates a deep mental conflict with what they truly want to believe – that their abusive spouse, partner, parent or “friend,” loves them and wants the best for them.

This mental conflict is irreconcilable. So what happens is the brain, not the logical part of the brain, but the more primitive parts of the brain go into denial. It’s like a short circuit on an electrical system. This is a built-in survival mechanism in humans, but unfortunately it keeps people stuck in abusive relationships.

If you are in an abusive relationship, getting out starts with you. The first step is to really want out. You’ll find yourself oscillating between recognizing that you are being mistreated and then offering justifications, rationalizations and reasons why the person mistreating you really loves you. You may also begin to take responsibility for their abusive behavior, and the abuser will tell you, “The fact that I behaved this way was your fault. You provoked me by …..”.

WHAT CAN AN ABUSED PERSON DO?

Something important for an abused person to do is to make a list of all the things the abuser has done to them. Then they can come back and remind themselves of these facts, when they begin doubting their own sense of reality. Secondly, get help from the outside. They need people who are living in truth, to reinforce reality in their lives, because it’s so hard to see clearly, when you are being victimized.

It’s also important to understand the abuse cycle. If an abuser realizes they have gone too far, they will pull back their abuse, and often be loving to re-engage the cycle. This may come in the form of romantic gestures, gifts, giving of money, trips, dinners out, praise and affirmations, or simply saying things like, “This is for your own good.” Or “I really care about you.” Then once the victim is lured back in the abuse intensifies.

It becomes like boiled frog syndrome. If you throw a frog into boiling water, it hops right out. But if you put a frog in lukewarm water and then slowly turn up the heat, it doesn’t realize it is being boiled until it’s too late. So it is with abusive relationships. At first it seems great. The abuse comes incrementally, and the victim tries to be more loving, forgiving, etc. Slowly the victim becomes so accustomed to being abused, that they are unable to recognize it. It’s the normal they know, and their fantasy is that the abuser genuinely cares for them.

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