Hear me out.
Let’s say you have a broken blender at home. Every time you try to make a smoothie, it tips off the counter and splashes your fruit purée all over the kitchen floor. Sometimes you can salvage some of the smoothie, but most of the time, it just leaves you hungry, flinching, and trying to block out the loud whirring, while covered in a mess of mangled fruit and yogurt. You end up feeling like you’ll never get that refreshing sip you came for!
Abusive relationships are similar in that they leave us with reflexive jumpiness, feelings of mistrust, emptiness, and hopelessness. Although instead of fearing fruit purée, we end up fearing people. Sometimes people we love deeply.
But your relationships don’t have to feel like a broken blender. Finding those healthy relationships may not always be as easy as driving to the store and picking up a new appliance, but there are steps you can take and principles you can follow to avoid the traumatic mess of unhealthy relationships. Here are some pointers to help you identify and avoid toxic relationships and the damage they leave behind.
What is an abusive relationship?
First, it is important to define what an abusive relationship is.
It’s not necessarily that you fight all the time, that you feel your needs aren’t being met, or even that you feel nervous around them. These phenomena may sometimes be explained by things like differences in attachment styles, how you handle conflict, or how/when you express your needs.
So what defines an abusive relationship? An abusive relationship is one in which one person consistently relies on power and control to manipulate another person.
Contrary to what Lifetime movies will have you believe, abuse isn’t always done willingly and knowingly, it isn’t always physical, and it happens with people of all genders.
There is often not a single event or characteristic that we can point to, in order to define whether something is abusive or not.
Additionally, people in these relationships may not see things objectively and often don’t realize they are in one. While others looking at a “happy couple” from outside also may not know.
So, how can you tell if this is happening?
This is where a skilled couples therapist comes in.
Best practices in relationship therapy include starting by meeting with each couple together and individually to get a clearer picture of the relationship. At Prospect Therapy, we do this assessment with 100% of the couples who come to us, whether abuse is reported or not. Because of the often elusive nature of abuse, it takes a thorough analysis of your relationship patterns to know how best to proceed. All of our couples therapists do specific couples therapy training, including how to detect intimate partner violence in LGBTQ+ relationships.
Tactics Abusers Use to Maintain Control
If your partner tried any of these in your relationship, you might be feeling the effects of trauma:
· Verbal assaults, like belittling comments or direct insults.
· Threats to harm you or one of your loved ones.
· Attempts to limit your interactions with friends, family, and other people outside the relationship; denying you a support system.
· Manipulating you into feeling too insecure about being independent until you’re almost entirely dependent on them.
· Attempts to control your finances, meals, clothes, or other personal choices.
· Intimidation by flashing weapons or destroying your personal belongings.
· Denying you the opportunity to seek professional help.
· Gaslighting you. (Making you question what you thought to be true, what you thought actually happened)
· Using the “silent treatment” during arguments instead of communicating healthily.
· Love-bombing. (Balancing out acts of abuse with shows of intense affection through gifts, compliments, profuse apologies, etc.)
What Is Relationship Trauma?
Relationship trauma is a more specific kind of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). (Though it is not recognized as its own illness in the DSM-5, the diagnostic handbook mental health professionals use.)
The phrase “Relationship Trauma” is growing in diagnostic popularity because of research that suggests people who leave abusive relationships share many characteristics with those affected by PTSD. If you have ever been in an abusive relationship, you probably know just how long-lasting its affects can be, with symptoms rearing their ugly heads long after you have left the person in question.
Some symptoms of relationship trauma include:
· Rage and anger toward the abuser.
· Distressing and vivid flashbacks to the relationship’s most stressful moments without warning.
· Intense avoidance of anything relating to the relationship to put off overwhelming feelings of anxiety and fear.
· Feelings of guilt and shame for leaving, staying, or getting into the relationship in the first place.
· Self-isolation from loved ones due to feeling misunderstood and hopeless.
· Trouble sleeping, whether that’s falling asleep, staying asleep, or dealing with disturbing nightmares.
· Newfound mistrust and suspicion of others.
· Constant hyper-vigilance of their surroundings.
Lasting Impacts of Relationship Trauma
Trauma Bonding
In some cases, the partner who went through abuse can still feel a deep attachment to the abuser. This is known as “trauma bonding” and can restart the cycle of abuse in your life. Feeling sympathy for someone who severely wronged you can cause you to rationalize their behavior. It can cause you to gaslight yourself until you wind up in the same situation all over again as you unconsciously mistake this abusive behavior for appropriate love and affection. Trauma bonding is more likely to happen in long-term cases of relationship abuse and is seen across a wide spectrum of abusive scenarios, from parent-child relationships to prisoners of war and their prison guards. Whatever the specific case may be, trauma bonding can lock us into painful cycles of abuse and loneliness, until we can learn to identify the mistreatment and finally break the pattern.
Read more: Trauma Bonding
Newfound Mental Health Concerns
Survivors of abuse can go on to live fulfilling lives, but it can often be difficult for some folks to move past the effects of the trauma, even after they find healthy, supportive relationships of their own. This is no fault of their own, and we have to extend ourselves and others gentleness during the healing process. During this process they may develop major depressive disorder, an eating disorder, substance abuse problems, or thoughts of suicide. Abusive relationships can be deep, dark holes we tumble into and the work of climbing out is often long and complicated. There will probably be hiccups along the way, but seeking professional help, holding gentle space for yourself and your pain, and surrounding yourself with healthy relationships can help make the journey toward the light just a little bit easier.
Challenges in New Relationships
Whether you want it to or not, unhealed trauma is going to show up, uninvited, to your new relationships. It’s important to see it as a working variable in your life, going forward. It can show up in arguments as aggressive accusations, overwhelming breakdowns, or intense panic attacks. It might feel like this trauma is a monkey on your back, throwing off your balance and dragging you down at the worst possible moments. People with unhealed PTSD tend to experience more heightened emotions than others, so the natural ups-and-downs of relationships tend to feel more like scaling up mountains and free-falling back down to Earth.
But it’s okay! Getting up, falling down, trying again is all part of this wild world we live in. The pain and frustration won’t always be overwhelming and you will find new ways to move forward with confidence and grace. Just be patient with yourself, and remember that others have been here before you and found their way out. So you can too. Promise.
It’s true that learning to manage these feelings and reprocess your trauma into a healthier brain space can be hard work, but you can make the process a bit easier by working with a therapist. Bringing along a friendly helper for your journey is irreplaceably helpful. You don’t have to do this alone. Schedule your first appointment today and request a consultation below.
Couples Therapy for Relationship Trauma in Long Beach and California
Prospect Therapy is a queer + trans affirming therapy practice based in Long Beach, CA, with a focus on mental health for first-generation, immigrant, and bicultural communities. We continue to provide online therapy for a variety of mental wellness and relationship concerns to clients throughout the state of California. Learn more about how we bring lived experience to our work with people of all ages in our communities by requesting a consultation below.