Warning Signs of Abusive Relationships

[CherylNYC]

Originally Posted by TruTexan

I am learning in therapy that I've had a lot of manipulation and gaslighting done to me. I don't know how I just didn't see that, I guess because my father did it as well. I"m learning a lot in therapy and I feel much better going. I've also learned that my reactions were rational and normal for situations that were irrational; and when my ex called me crazy it was her gaslighting the situation and being emotionally abusive to me.

I watched a close friend get horribly emotionally abused by her then partner. Every single thing that nasty little twerp, (from now on to be identified as 'tnlt'), used to falsely accuse my wonderful friend of doing were things that tnlt was guilty of herself. Every. Single Thing. It worked well to keep my friend unbalanced and to distract her from the very obvious shortcomings of tnlt. I was especially active in pointing this out, but it only caused stress between my friend and I. She just had to keep living with the hurt until even her legendary loyalty was strained past the breaking point. I was thrilled when she finally tossed that baggage out. Ever since then I've noticed that emotional abusers almost always accuse their victims of doing exactly what they themselves have been doing.

Fast forward to my own recent experience with an emotional abuser. She accused me of being manipulative, among other things, when she was the one doing all the manipulating, etc. Now I almost feel as if I could write the script whenever one of my friends starts to tell me details about their emotionally abusive relationship.