Because it is normalized

When someone else tells you what they are going through, its a summary. “They said this, they did that, then they said this” etc. so it’s easy to spot all the telltales and red flags, it’s obvious it’s abuse.

When it happens to you it’s happening alongside everything in your life. Work, family obligations, cooking, life admin. No one is summarising your life for you to tell a concise story. Its “just life”, there’s no narrative.

Plus many of us don’t show ourselves the kindness, patience, forgiveness or support we show others. “Its happening to me, not someone I care about, it isn’t as important”

Its a fucked combination even before the actual abuse that primes us to downplay it.

For me, the lovebombing masked it. The rare occasions where they were super supportive and affectionate and said they loved me? That’s the real them; that’s how they really feel. All the bad stuff is just because they’re really stressed out and I’m not being helpful or good enough. So it’s okay, and I can deal with it.

I was in a really bad headspace. Self-destructive, suicidal, and isolated from everyone but my partner. Even when they eventually escalated to physical violence, I never even considered leaving because they were all I had and they convinced me I was all they had. I literally had no friends or family, no desire to keep living, just a sense of responsibility for their wellbeing. If they hadn’t gotten bored and left me for someone else, I probably never would’ve been able to get myself out.

Doing much better now. Still not great, but at least I have a modicum of self-esteem these days.

I know when I was experiencing it most recently it was because the perpetrator was keeping me tired, at high emotions, and primarily focused on her wants and needs as well as because she was doing an excellent job of keeping me questioning myself.

She was actually pretty bad at all this and only kept me stuck for like 2 months, and I was a really easy target at the time. But by keeping me questioning my feelings and needs and focused on soothing her emotions she was able to keep me from noticing “wait a minute this is really abusive and I didn’t agree to any of this without being worn down”

Also vital for that incident and the household I grew up in, it can be easy for victims who’ve been victims before or grew up in unhealthy households to struggle to see emotional abuse when it happens to us.

Only writing for my experience, but it took a while for me to figure out when my mum and dad fight its sometimes verbally abusive. It was just a norm i grew up with, so sort of had to figure out what a positive relationship looks in theory, mainly through the internet and talking to a couple friends.

I could imagine finding myself in a similar relationship and not identifying if I had not realised this.

You spend every hour of every day playing defense and everything is somehow your fault. You’re not allowed to vent to others about it, and they’ll know when you do because they go into your phone/computer, so you become out of touch with what’s normal. You’re probably also extremely sleep-deprived because falling asleep before they say it’s okay will also get you in trouble, so your reasoning skills and executive function don’t work.

You don’t get to decide how you spend your free time anymore, and you aren’t allowed to be alone for the most part, or with other people, because they’re insecure but frame it as you neglecting them. If you try to ask for even small amounts of space, it leads to a huge fight.

Everything about your personality is bad to them and they tell you what you should like and how you should feel and how you should act and look. You’re constantly keeping a thousand different arbitrary procedures memorized to avoid getting in trouble. (Oh, you didn’t switch the car lights off on a car that automatically does that anyway? That’s bad. Oh, you’re drinking coffee instead of eating an apple to not feel tired? That’s bad. You’re wearing the emo clothes instead of one of the bright pink sweaters I bought you? That’s bad.)

If you try to say you followed procedures or try to broach difficult relationship topics where they’re at fault, you’ll be told you’re misrembering. They may also tell lies about to all of their friends/family and yours to further dismantle all of your support networks.

So it’s definitely some combination of emotional manipulation, isolation from others, and sleep deprivation that puts the victim in a defenseless place, and not being able to identify red flags before it’s too late. A lot of people don’t know what abuse actually looks like until it happens to them, sadly.

Frog in the pot. You’re eased into it and you lose sight of reality, usually made worse by gaslighting.

I’m not a women, but if you grew up with it, it seems normal.