Abusers make you feel crazy

I remember these feelings too, it’s the loneliest place in the world to be. 

I noticed my abusive ex had kind of hijacked a part of my mind. It sounds very over dramatic to put it that way, I know, but, never mind. 

Other people noticed it too when they started to read his messages to me. They were creeped out by the tone he used with me. 

How can I describe it. It was almost like a parent. It was as if I was a child. 

When he wasn’t getting his way it was a relentlessly critical, nasty, displeased, judgemental, parent. 

A parent who was at the end of his tether, had just had it, was fed up with telling me, at his wits end, couldn’t be blamed if he lost it because I just wasn’t getting it, just wasn’t listening and was too pig headed or stupid to understand what I was being told. 

His voice was endlessly about how I wasn’t doing things correctly, couldn’t be trusted to know what to do, couldn’t behave properly, was incapable, naieve, ignorant, inept, gullible, disregulated, uncontrolled. 

Strangely, I wouldn’t say that his voice said that I was evil or bad or purposefully wicked, no, it was more about me just being incapable of knowing the difference somehow between right and wrong. Like a kind of idiot who needed him to spell it out to me. 

And because I was all these things, I was automatically untrustworthy. 

I don’t know how he managed to install this overbearing nasty parent voice in my head. I haven’t really thought about the ‘how’s’ of it. But I know he did it, and it was so loud that it drowned out my own voice. 

I could hardly even hear my own voice any more. 

Towards the end of our (long) relationship I started to reclaim my own voice but it was hard. 

I think he picked on my specific weaknesses to make a bespoke critical voice that targeted my specific fears.

The critical narrative was slightly different for his previous girlfriends. (Of course I heard all the criticisms of the previous exes! but just took them as reality.)

There are very real similarities running through, because, of course, the truth is that he’s talking to himself, but slightly tweaked to fit each new partner. 

What did this voice have to do with me?

Absolutely nothing.

Are any of these things true. Not really. Some are, some aren’t. That’s not the point. The point is that I don’t need a parent, I don’t need a boss.

I’m an adult, I’m perfectly capable of making my own decisions. Right or wrong. 

But he infantalised me. He installed this voice in me and relentlessly reinforced it. 

I believe it’s why they are so desperate to keep bombarding us after we’ve left. And why no contact is the real key to breaking their hold.

I had a few powerful phrases that helped me begin to unravel this.

My favorite was:  (directed at him) “ it doesn’t matter what you think”. 

This one I repeated. It had a slight magic effect over time. It broke the spell. I’m sure we all find one that works for us. 

Another one was “ So What?”

I hope you don’t mind me saying this, it’s said with love and compassion. When I read your post I didn’t hear your voice speaking. I heard a voice that has been transplanted into your head by someone else. 

Let me repeat what you said back to you:

Nobody will believe you

People are sick of listening to you

People are all turning against you

You won’t be believed

You are over sensitive 

You don’t deserve any better.

EvenSerpentsShine,

Wow you just described most of my relationship of a few decades to a tee. How can they do this? This behaviour had started to be show in front of children aswell which was making me even more anxious. He eventually lost it got arrested and no contact since, though I have just heard he has another partner already, probably had that one the who time.

Angry, upset, heartbroken, angry devastated never felt so many emotions. Been the worst year of my life.

Sorry for rant having a very bad week.

Hi Br0kengirl and Happiness

its funny how we leave and are ready to get on with our lives and move on and then find that their voices don’t go away just because they’re not there. Somehow there’s a big pile of baggage that we have to unpack while they seem to just shake it off and move on!
Maybe they aren’t really experiencing relationships in the same way as more empathic people, or maybe just see people as a means to an end, and that makes it easier for them to just replace one person with another so easily.

that is part of the abuse – making you feel as though you are the crazy one, when actually it’s them. this is how they project onto us, and it’s awful. and then it’s even more awful when other people don’t believe us, and we are gaslit further. it is simply terrible that one human being can do that to another. I have felt similar ie completely isolated in that nobody understands, he is charming and nice with everyone else, and my wider family don’t seem to care and just want to maintain the status quo, even though I am suffering greatly. (there are unfortunately abusive people in my wider family also). I wonder if I did something terrible in a past life to be treated in this way. Please remember that it isn’t you that is crazy, it is all on him, he is projecting onto you. You are not alone, many people are in a similar situation to you. Sending you strength and positivity. Please find something that gives you joy, and hold onto it.