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.