I think it takes knowledge (what abuse is, what kind of people that have red flags, and what does abusive situation do to our sanity) and understanding (what happened to us in past, how it affects our way of thinking, who we really are, and what kind of people we want to surround ourselves with). With both knowledge and understanding we can break the cycle.

I think one of the hardest thing to do is to love ourselves enough to not let it happens again. Abusers mess with our self-esteem and self-worth that makes us tend to think “I deserve to be abused, I’m a bad person, I don’t deserve happiness, I’m afraid of change, I’m afraid to be alone”. While in fact, scientifically stated, that people who are kind and have high empathy are people who are more prone to be abused. Abusers use our kindness and empathy to manipulate us. They are evils in human form.

I broke the cycle with knowledge and understanding (it was really hard and I’m still struggling every single day from C-PTSD symptoms). It’s not impossible to break the cycle no matter how hopeless we feel about it (hopelessness is also one of C-PTSD symptoms that I’m still struggling with).