emotional abuse Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Wholesome Badass: A Work in Progress

Black-and-white cartoon of a girl describing what she witnessed while a stern woman denies it. Villagers hold baskets of stones labeled liar, dramatic, selfish, ungrateful, and disrespectful, illustrating gaslighting and scapegoating.

When Harm Wears a Virtuous Mask

August 25, 2026

Whatever is said or believed about me does not change what was said and done. I keep coming back to the possibility that the golden child can occupy the position of a protected abuser. So much of my childhood was lost in the shadow of what happened with my female sibling, older than me by 7 years. Decades later, she came for my children. I am only beginning to recognize the correlation between the two. Not identical acts. A familiar code. She acts. I object. My objection is treated as the offense. My experience is displaced. Her version is granted authority. Others are drawn in. Her position remains protected. Mine grows increasingly difficult to hold without defending myself. She was afforded the identity and cover of “good,” while I was named a menace for directly objecting and emotionally reacting to behavior that was, in fact, objectionable by almost any standard. She was able to compromise me in plain sight from behind the protective shield of who everyone believed her to be. It was never-ending. From the outside, it must have looked as if I were crazy—boxing with ghosts. People could see my distress. They could not see the quiet dog whistles, unwanted touching, exclusions, implications, and positioning I was responding to. And I can say now that I was fucking crazed by what was happening—not only because it was harmful, but because the harm was denied and protected. The asymmetry was brutal: one person retained the cover of goodness while my visible distress was treated as if it had appeared out of nowhere- a thing I elected to do. My reaction was indeed spectacular. What preceded it remained invisible. Maybe that is part of what I am processing now. For decades, people must have thought, Yikes. What is wrong with her? I have spent years interrogating that question too. Only recently have I become more interested in a different question: What happened to her, to lil Magda? Why is it easier to ask what is wrong with someone than to ask what happened to them? The first question leaves the existing narrative intact. The second invites examination. It is a fascinating pattern: harm can be easily masked by a role, a reputation, even an act that looks virtuous from across the room. A person can be doing harm while being protected by the belief that they are good. Years later, I would be profoundly affected by a pastor whose attention felt like the most extraordinary care. I can see now how I had been groomed to mistrust my own perception, particularly when harm came through someone occupying a role presumed to be protective—a shepherd, someone understood to be good, trustworthy, and morally authoritative. I keep thinking of the line, “Not all villains wear black.” There is an almost absurd irony in that for me: I tend to dress mostly in black, while my female sibling favors white. hmmmm…. I don’t think clothing color informs us of character, of course. Have you ever watched harmful behavior happen in plain sight while others showed and spoke no objection – maybe because of the status, influence, or authority of the person doing it, or the lesser status of the person being harmed—so that neutrality itself functioned as permission? What is that even called? It reminds me of that scene in Boardwalk Empire where a priest appears to be baptizing a man in front of the entire church. What everyone else sees is a sacred ritual performed by someone occupying one of the most trusted positions in the room. What is actually happening is murder.

Chopped down tree symbolizing the lasting impact of family betrayal and parental alienation.

When Family Betrayal Pulls Young Children Into the Middle

August 22, 2026

At a very tense Mother’s Day gathering in 2016, I learned that my niece’s graduation was less than four weeks away and on the same night as a concert I had already committed to. The tickets had been a Valentine’s Day gift and the plans had been in place for months. It wasn’t that I chose a concert over her graduation. I simply already had plans by the time I was given the date. With no other way to get my boys to the graduation, and valuing the opportunity for family that being there would give them, I sent them with their dad. Even then, I sensed it could be a fatal choice. Later, my mother told me that while they were at the graduation, plans began for a birthday gathering for my son that would intentionally exclude me. Whatever was happening between the adults, I had directly and repeatedly asked that it stay there, and that we do the work of repair. Something in the fabric of my universe was torn beyond repair. Whatever else may be true, this also happened. I’ve been accused of being negative- always imagining the worst. Maybe I was never imagining the worst. Maybe I’m recognizing and recalling what I have lived. Have you ever been called negative for noticing a pattern that later proved real?

The Narcissist’s Prayer showing six statements that progress from denial and minimization to blame-shifting, beside an image of a cracked mask.

Gaslighting, Blame-Shifting, and the Absence of Repair

August 13, 2026

A person can know something experientially long before they can articulate it. They might know, for example, “After X is upset with me, I end up confused. I initiate communication thinking I had a legitimate concern, and somehow I leave apologizing and wondering whether I caused everything.” They don’t necessarily have words or concepts to process what happened. Once someone learns concepts like blame-shifting, triangulation, invalidation, stonewalling, double standards, DARVO, conditional approval, or refusal of repair, those concepts can provide handles for examining an interaction: Wait—was I actually heard? Did we each consider or examine our contributions? Was disagreement permitted? Did responsibility somehow become entirely mine? And importantly, language doesn’t have to supply the verdict. It can supply questions. That may be especially valuable for someone who’s been raised inside a particular relational system, because whatever happened repeatedly can simply register as this is how relationships work. Conflict is information, not a trial where somebody has to be found guilty. You can finish a disagreement still thinking, I was right about the original issue, and nevertheless learn: I interrupted you. I got defensive. I misunderstood what you meant. I didn’t realize that mattered so much to you. Or: I still disagree, but now I understand your reasoning. Or my most favorite of all: I think I understtand but I still do not agree. And the other person can do the same. Someone can be displeased with you without their displeasure becoming evidence that you’re bad. They can misunderstand you without their interpretation replacing your knowledge of yourself. And you can discover something uncomfortable about your own behavior without having to collapse into therefore I am the problem. In a healthy rupture, both people have something to metabolize. Not necessarily equal blame—sometimes one person really did behave badly—but both people still have an encounter to process. What happened? What did I do? What did you experience? What did I misunderstand? What does this change between us? What is needed for repair? In the archetypal dynamic, one person effectively exempts themselves from that process. Their internal work stops at: I was right to do or say X because of what you did. Everything downstream gets assigned to the other person. But the person on the receiving end doesn’t get to bypass metabolizing the rupture. They can end up metabolizing too much. They process the original conflict, the accusation, the other person’s certainty, the withdrawal, their own behavior, their memory, their motives, what they could have done differently, whether they’re actually the problem—and they do it without the other person’s participation. Then contact resumes without repair. All of that processing has nowhere relational to land. It can instead become adaptation: anxiety, self-doubt, vigilance, accommodation, rehearsing, overexplaining, trying harder, monitoring tone, becoming increasingly careful. The rupture isn’t unprocessed. The processing is asymmetrical. One person preserves their existing understanding of themselves. The other person is left reorganizing themselves around the unresolved rupture. Repair brings the information back into the relationship, where both people can examine it instead of one person having to carry and interpret the whole thing alone. One person is trying to understand what happened. The archetype is operating from the position that nothing happened that requires understanding. One person is asking, What happened between us? How did we get here? What needs to be repaired? And the answer—explicitly or through behavior—is essentially: There is nothing between us to repair. The problem is that you’re confused, anxious, sensitive, difficult, or unable to let things go. So the effect of the interaction gets reassigned as a characteristic of the recipient. The anxiety created by unresolved rupture becomes evidence that you’re “anxious.” The confusion created by contradictory interactions becomes evidence that you’re “confused.” Your attempts to get resolution become evidence that you “can’t let things go.” Your attempts to clarify what happened become evidence that you’re “overthinking.” The interaction disappears from the explanation. Then when ordinary contact resumes without acknowledgment, one person can experience that as moving on, while the other person is still carrying an unresolved event that supposedly never happened. There can be no repair when only one person is able to acknowledge that there was a rupture. You can say, “Something you did didn’t land well with me,” and get: Nothing happened. You’re misinterpreting me. You’re too sensitive. Or you can notice distance and say, “Something seems different between us. Did something happen?” and get: Nothing’s different. You’re imagining things. Why do you always do this? If you name an impact, you’re creating a problem. If you notice an impact, you’re creating a problem. If you ask about a rupture, you’re creating a problem. If you remain unsettled because there was no repair, that becomes the problem. The recipient isn’t just processing a conflict alone. They’re being asked to process a conflict whose existence has been denied. There isn’t even an agreed-upon event to work with. Something happened between us. I can observe the change. I’m experiencing the consequences. But I’m being told there is nothing here to discuss. Which may be why “nothing happened” is so consequential. It doesn’t merely refuse repair. It removes the shared reality from which repair would have been possible. Nothing happened. Nothing’s wrong. There is nothing to discuss. But then there’s silence. Distance. Withdrawal. Maybe coldness. You’re left alone with whatever the fuck just happened. That’s the contradiction. You’re experiencing the consequences of a rupture while being denied the existence of the rupture itself. Whatever else may be true, this is a defining structure within the archetypal dynamic.

Woman surrounded by flames with the words, “Don’t set yourself on fire to keep others warm.”

When Accountability Flows in Only One Direction

August 12, 2026

For more than 40 years, I didn’t really know how to exist inside a relationship unless I was the broken one, bowing in reliance to anyone gracious enough to let me hang around, no matter the quality of treatment. Could you stay with me? Could you help me? What have I done to be so lucky to have someone strong and knowing and right like you? Barf. Fangirl, fawning, degrading shit. I knew how to engage only that way. What I’m learning now is something different. I don’t want to have to be broken to belong. I am going off script. This is wildly unpopular with the patterned archetypes I have gone barreling toward at every opportunity. I no longer agree to that—to matter less so that a relationship may continue. I cannot abandon what I know and adopt someone else’s perspective in place of my lived experience. That is me gaslighting myself. I cannot accept someone else’s explanation of my motives when it isn’t mine. I can be wrong. I can fuck up. I can apologize. I can change. But I have to remain a whole person while I do it. And the relationships that have cost me the most have not been the ones where people hurt me or got things wrong. They have been the ones where somehow there was always something for me to examine, own, apologize for or change, and nothing on the other side of the relationship was ever available for the same examination. I welcome the responsibility to own my part. I cannot own yours too. My hunger for connection has kept me engaged in things long after I knew they weren’t feeding me. Hunger will do that. But if my body is asking for fiber and what’s being offered is refined sugar, eating it because I’m hungry doesn’t nourish me. It’s not nothing. But it’s not neutral either. I won’t keep feeding myself the opposite of what I’m hungry for and then wonder why I feel poisoned. And feel shame for my resulting condition. So yes. Some relationships may cost too much to keep. Not because they don’t matter to me. Because I finally matter too. Have you ever been tangled up with someone like this? Someone where every attempt to address a conflict somehow ends with you being the only person under examination? They didn’t misunderstand. They didn’t contribute. They didn’t hurt you. They didn’t get anything wrong. You did. Every fucking time….Whatever else may be true, this also happened.

A warmly lit room with an open closet, hanging clothes, photographs, books, keepsakes, boxes, and a ceramic mug surrounding a scattered pile of personal belongings. The image includes the quote, "Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know," by Pema Chödrön.

Making Sense of Life Through Patterns

August 5, 2026

With all of the therapy, writing, reading, reflection, and somatic work, a lot is coming up for me. Memories. Patterns. Correlations that I had not previously made. I am finding that this process is much less like the discovery of something new and much more like noticing something that has been there all along. I would describe it as so much stuff from the past lying in a tangled heap on a closet floor, too overwhelming to tackle or ignore. Slowly, I am making order of it, identifying items and events, and putting them in their places. The tangled mess shrinks, and the grip of it all is loosening. I am also discovering that memory is a strange thing. I don’t trust every detail, every conversation, or every interpretation. But I do trust patterns, especially those that repeat themselves in what seems like perpetuity. I am trying very hard to engage this with humility, admitting my blind spots. I recognize that other people have had different experiences and interpretations. I can’t know intent or motivation, but only I can name the impact they have had on me.

The Protected Position

August 4, 2026

Something began when I was four years old, and it was reinforced, repeated, normalized, and sustained over the course of decades. The injury wasn’t only the abuse itself. It was also the fact that the person who harmed me was favored, protected, believed, accommodated, and repeatedly restored to a position of legitimacy while I was not. Something bad happened, and the person who did it continued to occupy a protected position while my reality (moments of distress) was judged, minimized, and dismissed. When that happens over and over again, year after year, it makes sense that I began to feel as though my validity, agency, credibility, and even my right to define my own experience had been stripped away. For a very long time, I located the center of gravity in my mother. Now I am considering the possibility that my sister occupied a much more influential position than I had been able to discern. Six and a half years older than me, she was the first grandchild, the first niece, and the favored child. Then came Magda, the last grandchild: highly sensitive, tightly wound, easily activated, and in need of inconvenient soothing. My sensitivity was dismissed as performance. “Quit performing. Stop being dramatic, hysterical, manipulative. Stop trying to get attention.” Nobody taught me how to cope with difficulty, tolerate discomfort, or regulate my nervous system. I think my sister learned that there was power in being able to suck it up and may even have come to feel martyred by it. By keeping me dysregulated through taunting, provocation, and unwanted touching, she gained traction through the contrast in presentation. She appeared composed while I appeared reactive, and ours was a family with very little capacity for visible, observable, unhidable struggle. As I continue to heal, I find myself repeatedly encountering variations of this same pattern. There is a certain kind of personality that seems to require constant elevation, admiration, accommodation, and preferential treatment, and there is a predictable response to anyone whose presence threatens to divert attention from that arrangement. The archetype itself is hardly new. If only authority were evidence of integrity and virtue. If only age, status, confidence, accomplishment, popularity, or proximity to power guaranteed goodness. I was placed on this trajectory at the age of four, and now I am doing the work required to change direction. I am learning to recognize the pattern that I know so well and, without vigilance, continue to mistake for love, safety, familiarity, and home. The familiarity calls to me. Like an old glove, it simply fits. I recognize now that familiarity and safety are not the same thing. Whatever else may be true, this also happened.

One healthy green tree standing in the middle of a forest of dead trees beneath the quote, “A peak is a moment. A pattern is information.”

The Truth Is in the Pattern

August 2, 2026

Sheesh. How many more times will I have to navigate this particular circuit before I have learned everything I can from it? The turth is in the pattern, not the explanation. It almost feels as though I have been given a false map. There are things people say that, if I allow them to guide me, will take me completely off course because they don’t align with reality, their actions, or my lived experience. I am starting to recognize that the real story lives inside the patterns. Words do matter. Conversations matter. Moments matter. But patterns persist regardless of what is said. Sometimes there is an incongruency or lack of alignment between words, the suggested intent of those words, and actions. Sometimes things are not communicated directly at all, and yet they are communicated clearly through repeated behaviors. I am intentionally allowing patterns to inform me more than peak moments, conversations, or exchanges. If there is a pleasurable moment in a relationship, I can no longer hold onto that moment as though it represents restoration or the relationship as a whole. I will not waste energy trying to figure out how to get back to that place, as though I have somehow lost the thread. Perhaps it was the exception. Possibly, it was simply a moment. The information is in the pattern. That doesn’t necessarily tell me what is true in some absolute sense, but it does tell me what is real. And when I allow patterns to inform what I say or do next, I am able to remain aligned with my quest for sovereignty and radical neutrality. A thing has happened. I don’t get to change it, reinterpret it, or spin it into something else. I don’t have to lose myself reacting or trying to understand it from every possible angle. I don’t have to overexplain my experience or convince anyone else of it. I can simply acknowledge what is and decide what my actual options are, keeping in alignment with my North Star. Whatever else may be true, this also happened.