Are You Lost In the Abuse? How To Tell and Why it Happens
Have you wondered why you put up with toxic behaviors and patterns in your relationship? Have your friends and/or family asked you why you didn’t just leave, or even worse, what’s wrong with you for putting up with the abuse. Although at some point in your healing process, it is helpful to self-reflect so you can gain awareness about your responses to the abuse, it is harmful when we or others add shame and blame on top of the abuse we have experienced. A better question we can ask ourselves or someone else who has experienced abuse is “What happened to you?”. Can you hear the shift in perspective and the care that it delivers to the receiver? When I heard the words “lost in the abuse” that was my answer to this last question. I was lost in the incremental, insidious abuse because I was holding up a house of cards. I was trying to keep my family intact. It wasn’t until I was able to get out of the toxic cycle that I began to see things more clearly. So what does getting lost in the abuse look like, and why does it happen?
How to Tell if You’re Lost
You give into the abuser’s demands.
Your goals and dreams have disappeared.
You don’t remember or even bring up your own likes/dislikes, opinions and values.
You’re unhappy but afraid to say so.
You manage the abusive person’s response by taking responsibility and blaming yourself when things go wrong.
You downplay the abuse or make excuses about your abuser’s behaviors to friends and family.
You continuously doubt and ask yourself questions like “Am I going crazy?”, “Am I the one to blame?”, “Am I overreacting?”, “Am I being too sensitive?”
You may remember the Gabby Petito case in the national news in 2021. Gabby was 22 and dating an abusive man. We came to learn that she was lost in the hidden abuse; it went unnoticed. We can even see footage of Gabby talking to police officers after a passer by called when he witnessed the two in a heated argument by the side of the road. Gabby maintained she was to blame for starting the argument and stated that she was physical with him too. She may have been gaslit so much that she thought everything was her fault, or she truly could have been afraid of his enraged response after the police left. The latter seems very believable since her boyfriend murdered her and tried to cover it up. This is an extreme example, but you may relate to feeling so lost in the abuse that some or all of the above descriptions above ring true.
So Why Does this Happen?
One reason is our brain chemistry. There are brain chemicals involved when our bodies feel, pleasure and stress. When we are in the love bombing or hoovering phase of a narcissistic relationship, for instance, higher levels of Oxytocin and Dopamine are released making us feel bonded to a person and we can experience a craving to be with them. And when we are in extreme stress, Cortisol and Adrenaline hormones are released which helps protect us when we’re in danger. This is what we have come to know as our “flight or fight” response. When we are in a constant cycle of fluctuation in these hormones, our bodies never have a chance to reset. Our brain chemicals and our central nervous system are always off balance causing the confusion, fear and feeling of being lost in the abuse.
In addition to the changes in our brain chemistry, another reason we get lost is in our desire to protect our children. We can’t imagine being separate from our children in a custody arrangement. We our rightly concerned that the abuser will try to alienate our children from us. We can’t imagine not being a buffer to all the toxic behaviors in a narcissistic or toxic family system. Of course you get lost in the abuse when you’re trying desperately to protect your children and the relationships you have with them.
A third reason is our conditioning and indoctrination into thinking we can’t make it on our own financially, professionally or emotionally. Or we’ve been conditioned to think this is the way it is because of how we were raised and how our parents interacted. These are all normal, valid and understandable reasons.
You may have your own reason you identify with for getting lost in the abuse. The next right step is to bring it into the light and lessen its power. Please reach out to talk to one of our coaches about how and why you feel lost in the abuse.
I one was lost and now am found - Amazing Grace
