Life After Emotional Abuse, Why Healing Feels So Confusing
A trauma-informed look at emotional abuse recovery, trauma bonding, and rebuilding self-trust after a controlling relationship.
Through the window of my counselling office, I noticed Maya sitting in her car, motionless. She sat there for fifteen minutes, hands gripping the steering wheel, staring at the door she wasn't sure she could walk through. When she finally rang the bell, her face told me everything: this decision had cost her something.
I've seen this hesitation many times. The courage it takes to seek help after emotional abuse is immense, particularly when your story has been silenced or minimised, even by yourself. When you've spent months or years being told your perceptions are wrong, your feelings are exaggerated, your reality is unreliable, the simple act of saying “I need support" becomes an act of quiet rebellion.
Maya had left her boyfriend six months earlier. But leaving physically is only the first step. The harder work, the work of untangling who you are from who you were told to be, was just beginning.
Note: Maya is a composite vignette drawn from common patterns I see in practice. Details have been changed to protect privacy.
Session One. When You Don't Have Words for What Happened
When Maya finally sat down across from me, her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, her eyes uncertain. “I left my boyfriend six months ago", she said softly, “and since then… I haven't felt like myself".
She described how, at first, Jack was charming and attentive. He made her feel special, chosen, seen in ways she hadn't experienced before. But over time, something shifted. The charm became criticism. The attention became surveillance. He began commenting on her clothes, her friends, the way she spoke. He questioned her decisions, undermined her judgment, and slowly convinced her that she wasn't capable of managing her own life without his guidance.
“He never hit me," she said, as if trying to talk herself out of her pain. “It was just… hard. I don't think I belong in the same category as women who have been really abused."
This response is so common. Emotional abuse rarely matches the stereotypes we're conditioned to expect. But that doesn't make it any less real.
I've heard variations of this statement countless times. The belief that abuse only “counts" if it leaves visible marks. The guilt of feeling traumatised by something that seems, from the outside, like “just a bad relationship." The internalised voice that says: Other people have it worse. I'm overreacting. I should be grateful he wasn't violent.
But abuse isn't always loud or visible. It's often subtle, a slow erosion of self-worth that happens so gradually you don't notice until you're standing in the ruins of who you used to be. It can sound like criticism masked as concern. It can feel like love, distorted by control. It can look like someone who says they care about you while systematically dismantling your confidence, your friendships, your sense of reality.
I gently explained this to Maya. I told her that what she experienced, the constant criticism, the isolation from friends, the way he made her question her own perceptions, these are forms of emotional abuse. And they cause real harm, even without physical violence.
When I named what she'd experienced as abuse, Maya became very quiet. She started to cry quietly.. “I thought it was just me, that I was too sensitive. That I couldn't handle a normal relationship."
That's what emotional abuse does. It convinces you that your pain is your fault.
We sat with that realisation for a while. Sometimes the most healing thing therapy can offer isn't answers or solutions, but simply the experience of being believed. Of having someone witness your story and say: Yes, that was real. Yes, that was harmful. No, you didn't imagine it.
Session Two. The Confusing Grief of Leaving Someone Who Hurt You
By her second session, Maya felt a little more at ease. The room was beginning to feel safer. But as she talked, a different kind of pain surfaced, one that confused and shamed her.
“I don't understand why I still miss him," she said, “I know he was bad for me. I know leaving was the right decision. But part of me still wishes we could've made it work. Part of me still hopes he'll change."
She asked me: "What's wrong with me? Why can't I just… let go?"
Nothing is wrong with you. This is what happens when love and harm become entangled.
This emotional confusion is one of the most difficult aspects of leaving an abusive relationship. We talked about the cycle of highs and lows that characterise many controlling relationships, how the fleeting moments of tenderness, affection, and the “old him" can keep you emotionally hooked. When someone alternates between warmth and cruelty, between making you feel loved and making you feel worthless, it creates what therapists call a trauma bond.
A trauma bond isn't the same as love, though it can feel like it. It's an attachment formed through intermittent reinforcement, periods of pain punctuated by moments of relief and connection. Your nervous system becomes wired to crave those moments of reprieve, to wait for the next time he's kind, the next time things feel “normal" again. And because those moments are unpredictable, they become even more powerful.
This is why leaving doesn't immediately bring relief. Your body is still oriented toward him, still searching for the connection it was trained to need. And your mind is still trying to reconcile two incompatible truths: that you loved him and that he hurt you.
We explored the mourning she was experiencing, not just for Jack, but for the version of him she had once believed in. The person he was at the beginning, or the person he promised to become. She was also grieving the future she had imagined: the life they might have built, the person she thought she'd grow into alongside him.
And perhaps most painfully, she was grieving the version of herself who had been slowly erased in that relationship. The confident, independent woman she used to be, who had been silenced, sidelined, shaped to accommodate his needs and his moods.
You're not missing him. You're missing who you were allowed to be before you had to shrink yourself to survive him.
Maya cried. Not the quiet, contained tears of the first session, but deep, body-shaking sobs. The kind of grief that had been waiting for permission to exist.
“I just feel so stupid," she said between breaths. “I should have seen it sooner. I should have left earlier."
“You left," I said. “That's what matters. You saw it, and you left. That took extraordinary strength."
Self-blame is the last form of control the abuser maintains. It's the voice he left in your head, convincing you that his behavior was your fault.
If you're struggling with similar feelings, you might find this blog helpful: Why You Still Love Them: Understanding Trauma Bonds.
You can rebuild yourself.
Sessions Three and Four. Learning That Boundaries Are Not Cruelty
By the third session, Maya admitted something she'd been avoiding. Jack had been calling and texting her, not constantly, but persistently. Apologies, promises to change, reminders of the “good times". Questions about why she wouldn't just talk to him, give him another chance, at least let him explain.
She hadn't blocked his number. She'd been reading every message, agonising over whether to respond. Part of her felt guilty for ignoring him. Part of her wondered if maybe, this time, he really had changed.
So we began talking about boundaries. Not as punishment, but as a form of self-protection.
This concept was difficult for Maya. She had spent so long managing Jack's emotions, preventing his anger, soothing his insecurities, that the idea of prioritising her own needs felt foreign. Selfish, even. She worried that blocking him would be cruel, that refusing contact would make her “just as bad" as him.
This is what emotional abuse does. It teaches you that caring for yourself is an act of violence against someone else.
We explored what boundaries actually are: not walls meant to hurt others, but limits designed to keep you safe. I explained that she didn't owe Jack access to her emotional energy, her time, or her life. That saying no, even to someone in pain, was not the same as causing that pain.
We discussed practical steps: blocking his number, adjusting privacy settings on social media, and limiting contact with mutual friends who were pressuring her to reconcile or “just hear him out." We also talked about safety planning, not because we expected his behaviour to escalate into physical violence, but because giving her a sense of control and preparedness helped reduce the anxiety that came with every notification on her phone.
“You don't owe him a response," I said. "You're allowed to protect yourself."
It took several sessions for Maya to internalise this. We practiced together. She wrote responses she'd never send, just to process her feelings. She role-played conversations where she said no firmly, without justifying or over-explaining. Slowly, she began to believe that her boundaries were not cruelty. They were care - for herself.
Protecting yourself from someone who has harmed you is not the same as harming them. It's choosing not to keep harming yourself.
Eventually, she blocked his number. And while part of her still felt guilty, another part felt something else: relief. Space. The ability to breathe without waiting for the next message that would pull her back into the cycle.
Sessions Five Through Seven. The Slow Work of Trusting Yourself Again
As therapy continued, we moved beyond crisis management and into the harder, slower work of rebuilding. Because emotional abuse doesn't just damage your relationship with the other person, it damages your relationship with yourself.
Maya had stopped trusting her own judgment. Every decision felt fraught with doubt. What if I'm wrong? What if I'm overreacting again? What if my instincts can't be trusted?
This makes sense. When someone spends months or years telling you that your perceptions are flawed, that you're “too sensitive," that you're making problems where none exist, you internalise that message. You begin to second-guess every feeling, every reaction, every boundary. You lose the ability to know what's real.
So part of our work was helping Maya reconnect with her own inner voice the one that had been shouted down, dismissed, and overridden for so long.
We practiced tuning into her body. When something felt off, where did she notice it? A tightness in her chest? A knot in her stomach? A sudden urge to flee or freeze? We talked about how the body often knows before the mind does. That intuition isn't mystical, it's your nervous system recognising patterns of danger before you can consciously articulate them.
We also worked on differentiating between past and present. When Maya felt anxious about a situation, we'd pause and ask: Is this situation genuinely unsafe, or does it remind your body of something that was unsafe? This practice helped her begin to trust that not every moment of discomfort was a red flag, and that discomfort itself wasn't something to be feared or suppressed.
Slowly, Maya started making small decisions without seeking validation from others. She chose a new apartment she loved, even though her mother thought it was too expensive. She declined social invitations when she needed alone time, without apologizing or justifying. She began to trust that she could make choices, and even if they were "wrong," she would survive them.
Healing isn't about never making mistakes. It's about trusting yourself enough to handle the consequences when you do.
Session Eight and Beyond. Reclaiming the Parts That Were Buried
By our eighth session, Maya was ready to shift focus, from surviving the past to imagining a future.
We began exploring the parts of herself that had been buried under years of criticism and control. Her creativity. Her love of painting, which she'd given up because Jack called it “a waste of time." Her independence. and her friendships. Her sense of humor, which had been slowly extinguished by the constant need to manage his moods.
She signed up for an art class. She reconnected with an old friend she'd distanced herself from during the relationship. She started going for long walks again, something she used to love but had stopped because Jack didn't like her “disappearing" without him.
These weren't dramatic transformations. They were small, quiet acts of reclamation. Each one a step toward becoming someone she recognized again.
We also talked about trust, not just trusting herself, but trusting others. “What if I miss the red flags again?" she asked. “What if I choose wrong?"
This fear is common. After abuse, the world feels unsafe. Every new person, every new relationship, carries the potential for harm. And so some survivors swing to the opposite extreme: hypervigilance, avoiding intimacy entirely, or testing potential partners in ways that push them away.
So we talked about balance. About recognising that not everyone is Jack. That there are green flags to look for, not just red ones. Qualities like emotional availability, consistency, accountability, and mutual respect. We practiced noticing when her fear was protective versus when it was keeping her from connection she actually wanted.
You don't have to choose between being vulnerable and being safe. You can learn to be both.
Maya is still healing. She probably will be for a while. Trauma doesn't have a clean endpoint, a moment when you're “done" and can move on completely unscathed. But she's no longer the woman who sat frozen in her car, unsure if she could walk through my door.
She has language for what happened to her. She has boundaries that hold. She has a growing sense of self-worth that isn't dependent on someone else's approval. And she has hope, not naïve hope that everything will be easy, but grounded hope that she can build a life worth living.
If This Feels Familiar
If you're reading this and some part of Maya's story resonates, if you're wondering whether what you experienced “counts" as abuse, if you're struggling to let go of someone who hurt you, if you're questioning your own judgment or feeling guilty for protecting yourself, please know: you're not alone.
Emotional abuse doesn't always look how we expect it to. It doesn't always announce itself. It can hide behind love, behind concern, behind someone who insists they're trying to help you. But the confusion, grief, and self-doubt it leaves behind are real. And so is your right to healing.
You don't need to have all the answers before you reach out. You don't need to be “ready" or have your story perfectly articulated. You just need to take the first step, the same way Maya did: uncertain, afraid, but willing to try.
Therapy didn't erase Maya's past. It couldn't undo the harm or give her back the time she lost. But it gave her something else: the tools to name what happened, grieve it, and grow beyond it. The space to be believed. The permission to prioritise herself. And the support to slowly, carefully, build a life on her own terms.
That's what healing looks like. Not perfection, but reclamation.
You Don't Have to Do This Alone
If this resonated, you don’t need to have the right words or be certain about what happened to seek support. Therapy can be a place to steady yourself, make sense of the confusion, and slowly rebuild trust in your own reality.
If and when you’re ready, you’re welcome to reach out.
📧 kat@safespacecounsellingservices.com.au
📞 0452 285 526
Recommended reading:
Relationship Red Flags: When Love Gets Complicated
Setting Healthy Boundaries: A Guide to Respectful Relationships
