Hi Nike,

I grew up with sexual abuse and a certain amount of "unintentional" neglect. As an adult I married someone physically abusive and left for that reason. I later remarried a covert narcissist whom I stayed with for 15 years. It was so hard to see my life experience with my second husband as abusive without the crossing of physical boundaries, but the emotional abuse I suffered was so much more intense and personal. I used to feel like my head was being torn into two.

I left my husband because my inner voice began to shout, "GET OUT! GET OUT!" but still I didn't think anything was abusive. The realization that I had been abused all those years, --the dread, the confusion, the systematic dismantling of my self -- was like floodgates opening and my entire world, the fake world I'd worked so hard to portray, came crashing down in pieces on my head.

Oddly, the precipitant was that I was in Marshalls getting myself a dress, something I hadn't done in a long time. A lady in the dressing room gave me a complement, and I hugged her, tearing up and saying I'd just left my husband and it'd been really bad for awhile. Back in my car everything suddenly connected: I. Was. Abused. I was flooded with all kinds of emotion. It's so mind boggling to think that you were being abused and you didn't know it. But without being hit, I just couldn't see it. Until I did.

Emotional abuse is like that. My first husband smashed my head into walls, but my second husband could make my head explode over and over again without touching me. The sheer reality-defying pain emotional abuse inflicts without the raising of a hand is enough to blow anyone's mind. Physical abuse is honest. You can describe it. You can measure it. Emotional abuse is so much more insidiously corrosive than that. Phew. Hard to even talk about.

Thanks for sharing. I hope my experience helps you.