“Emotional abuse is any pattern of behavior that undermines a person’s sense of self-worth and reality.” ~Beverly Engel
At first, the changes were small.
I stopped wearing that outfit everyone liked because they said it didn’t look good on me. I let certain friendships fade because it made him uncomfortable. I laughed less at things he didn’t find funny.
I face-checked myself to make sure my expression was pleasing to him. I shrank just slightly, in ways no one else would notice.
Then it got bigger.
I stopped trusting my own judgment because he told me I was too sensitive. Or that what he did, he didn’t do. Or that he didn’t say what he said. Or that he didn’t remember.
It happened so many times that I started believing his version of reality.
I second-guessed every decision. I asked permission for things I used to do naturally. I drafted and edited everything I thought about saying, trying to get it just right before it came out of my mouth.
I even caught myself editing my own thoughts before they were fully formed.
I learned to read him the way a sailor reads the sky. A slight shift in his tone. A gesture. A certain look. The way he set down his phone.
I became exquisitely and painfully tuned to his moods, needs, and expectations.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped asking, “What do I need? What do I want? What is true for me?”
Instead, I asked, “What’s the exact thing he wants to hear? What does he need right now? What would keep things calm?”
I stopped listening to my own internal compass because I replaced it with something else. His approval. His acceptance.
Everything was structured around his comfort, his liking, and his convenience. We went to the places he wanted to go, did the things he wanted to do, at the time he wanted, in the way he thought best.
From home projects to outings, my life became a reflection of his preferences.
Then one day, years in, I looked at myself in the mirror and realized I didn’t know who I was anymore.
The things I loved? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done them.
The opinions I used to have? I wasn’t sure what they were anymore.
The person I’d been before this relationship? It felt like she had died. Or maybe she was never real at all.
It wasn’t by accident. This is what toxic relationships do. They don’t just take your time, energy, or peace. They take your identity and drain you.
Slowly. Quietly. One small surrender at a time.
Until the person who entered the relationship and the person still standing in it barely recognize each other.
It’s not just that you lose yourself. It’s that you lose the ability to find yourself. Because the compass you used to navigate with (your gut, your intuition), that quiet voice inside that tells you what’s true—it’s gone.
I didn’t fully realize what I was under until I started doing research.
I hated the word “people-pleaser,” so I tried to distance myself from it. But the research forced me to look at the root of my own patterns.
I also had to accept that his behaviors were not situational or one-off incidents. They were patterns I could not deny.
Cognitively, I knew that his rants and outbursts—which absolutely terrified me—had to do with whatever he was going through at the time or the trauma he carried, or at least that’s what he said.
But because I never saw him react that way with anyone else, I began to believe there was something wrong with me.
That I was somehow provoking him, and I just couldn’t hadn’t found the right way to turn off his mistreatment.
His behavior was such a stark contrast to the image he presented publicly that I thought for sure people would assume I was the cause.
When I tried to speak up or advocate for myself, no matter how gentle and careful I tried to be, I was met with rage.
In the moments I wanted to scream, defend myself, or run from, I smiled or apologized to end the rage. I overrode my own reactions and focused only on calming him, saying whatever I needed to say to turn his anger off.
When you’re told enough times that your perception is inaccurate, you eventually stop trusting your own eyes.
You say yes to things you don’t have the bandwidth for because saying no feels dangerous.
You feel exhausted all the time, not just from the relationship, but from the constant mental load of second-guessing every thought, every feeling, every decision.
You become so consumed with their voice that yours goes silent, and you almost don’t realize it’s happening.
That’s what makes it so hard to recognize from the inside.
You don’t wake up one day and think, “I’ve lost my ability to trust myself.”
You just… stop trusting yourself.
You think maybe everyone feels this unsure, or everyone needs to check with someone before deciding.
But your intuition isn’t gone. It’s been buried under countless moments of invalidation, someone else’s reality, and the exhaustion of constantly adapting.
You’d think that the more someone loses themselves, the easier it would be to walk away. That the pain would eventually outweigh the pull.
But that’s not how trauma bonds work.
There are many reasons people stay for years, sometimes even decades, in relationships that are slowly destroying them. It’s not because they’re weak or don’t know any better.
One of the main reasons is something called the sunk cost fallacy.
Sunk cost fallacy is an economic term that means the more you’ve invested in something, the harder it is to walk away.
I had invested so much time, energy, love, hope, and even my dreams. I had defended the relationship to people who loved me and made excuses for him.
I believed in the potential and stayed through things that would have quickly ended other people’s relationships.
The few times we broke up, I was met with desperate pleas to come back. Grand gestures. Promises that things would change. I didn’t want a project. I wanted a partner. I didn’t want to fix him or anyone. I just wanted out! But he had a way of making me feel so guilty.
One moment he’d be steeped in sorrow, the next angry at me for leaving, telling me how I was yet another source of trauma in his life.
So I’d stay a little longer. Because maybe it would get better. Maybe if I just tried harder. Maybe if I became smaller, quieter, more of what he needed.
Maybe if I proved my undying love and loyalty in ways that diminished me, then it would finally work. Then he’d finally see.
The longer I stayed, the more I lost. Not just more time. More of myself.
And one day, I realized that the cost of staying felt unbearable because I’d already paid for it with everything I had.
If you’re reading this and recognizing your own experience, and thinking, “But I’m smart. I’m successful. I should have known better. How did this happen to me?”—stop right there.
Because that’s just the shame talking. And it’s lying to you.
Trauma bonds don’t exploit your weaknesses. They exploit the very qualities that make you who you are. Like your capacity to love deeply. Your ability to see potential in someone. Your willingness to believe someone’s words, even when they don’t match their actions.
Your hope that the loving way they treat you around their family and friends is who they really are, and that the version you experience behind closed doors is temporary. Situational. Fixable.
You believe that if you could just understand them better, focus on their heart, love them harder, or communicate more carefully, the person they show the world would finally show up for you too.
But these aren’t weaknesses. They’re the best parts of you, used against you.
This is why intelligent, high-achieving, successful people get caught in these patterns.
Not because they were naïve or weak. But because they believed in someone’s potential more than they trusted their own discomfort.
Sometimes the only proof you’ll ever have is a feeling.
And your brain can’t think its way out of this. The cycle of tension and relief (the unpredictable mix of warmth and withdrawal) trains your system to crave the pattern. Your body becomes accustomed to the stress response. What’s healthy starts to feel unfamiliar, and your survival mode kicks in. This is why you can know someone is wrong for you and still feel unable to leave.
But the person you were before this relationship is not gone.
Every little step you take toward yourself—every boundary you set, every moment of clarity, every time you choose own well-being over that familiar pull—you’re finding your way back.
You don’t have to leave today. You don’t have to have it all figured out.
Just remember this.
You were someone before this relationship. And you will be someone after it.
The cost of staying will keep rising. But the cost of leaving is the price of becoming yourself again.
And you are worth that cost.
Thankfully, intuition doesn’t die. It hibernates.
Start with those tiny moments.
A small choice. “I want tea, not coffee.” A little boundary. “I can’t do that today.”
A tiny observation. “That felt off to me.”
You don’t have to act on them. You don’t have to announce them. Just let yourself be right about your own experience without threat, even if it’s only in your own mind.
Over time, these small moments add up, and they become the thread you can follow back to yourself.
Then one day, someone will ask what you think, and without hesitation, you’ll say what’s true to you and you’ll trust it.
If you find yourself here, you’re not weak or broken.
You are someone who survived an environment where trusting yourself was dangerous. And your brilliant, adaptive mind did exactly what it needed to do to keep you safe.
But that environment is not forever. That survival strategy is not who you are.
Your intuition is still there. Quiet, yes. But still there.
And it’s waiting for you to listen.
About Chioma K Iheanacho
Chioma K Iheanacho writes about reclaiming yourself after loss of identity, trust, or voice. A former corporate executive turned Grace Navigator, she creates programs for high-achievers navigating perfectionism and burnout. She writes from the inside out, offering what she wished she’d had when she was searching for answers. She’s the author of Forgiving You: 23 Keys to Unlock Your Freedom and Heal Your Soul. Visit forgiveness.plus.
