Unsure and confused as hell

[Darknessallaround]

Can psychological manipulation / coercive control (I hate the word ‘abuse’) be kind of cyclical?

I know there is this thing called the cycle of abuse, but what I mean is can it be really full-on for a period of time, then disappear (perhaps for a long time), then suddenly come back again….and maybe repeat over a number of years?

This is what’s confusing me. That things could be considered normal for such a long time, you almost forget how bad they were – and if it does start up again, there is still that little voice of doubt in your head. The one that tells you you’re imagining it. That he doesn’t fit the profile, the pattern is all in your head.

It’s the uncertainty that makes it hard to decide if it’s abuse or not. Am I seeing things that aren’t there or not seeing things that I don’t want to see.

[Eggshells]

Hi Darknessallaround,

You have hit the nail on the head when you talked about the cycle of abuse. That is exactly what you are experiencing. The cycle can take varying amounts of time to complete and repeat so yes, it can take months or years. Equally, sometimes abusers can go through several cycles in one day.

I experienced some very long cycles just as you described. This can make it very hard for you to understand it as abuse because, as you say, you almost forget the bad times. You have to be quite astute to spot the abuse in these very long cycles.

There is a very good illustration of the abuse cycle. If you google Betterhelp trauma bonding, go down past the ad’s and have a look. For me, the correct page to click is the third one down.

Also please take a look at the Women’s Aid website. https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/recognising-domestic-abuse/

If you want to read more, I would recommend “Living with the dominator” by Pat Craven. This gives clear, easy accessible descriptions of abuse. If you read it, you might even recognise some behaviours that you hadn’t previously understood as abusive.

[Hetty]

I found that the cycles weren’t actually very long. Right before I left it went round at least every week and pretty much a lot of the time he was vile. What I would say is that I actually just tolerated a lot more as the relationship progressed, so it seemed longer but actually there were undertones of nastiness there. However, I was desensitised. I remember when he first called me the most horrendous name, I was wounded deeply but then later it was like water off a duck’s back. Then as you say you forget. I was just thankful when mr nice returned and I erased the bad from my mind – made excuses that he was tired, having a bad day etc x

[KIP.]

In the beginning the cycles were very long for me.,we could go for months of being happy although looking back he had a very busy job. As the years went by the cycles became shorter and the love bombing phase was far less intense until he didn’t even try to love bomb. Just became nasty and blamed me for his actions. Got out now is my advice. It always gets worse x

[Author]

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