Subtle signs of long-term psychological abuse:
- Intrusive belief that you have to do everything perfectly and flawlessly or you are no good, deep drop in self-esteem upon making a smallest mistake or being criticized, feeling that your value is tied completely to how well you can finish tasks, perfectionism
- Low self-esteem, feeling you’re less smart, less capable, less valuable or less lovable than the people around you; struggling to feel like you’re an equal part of something, worry that people don’t find your worth keeping around, always worrying about being left behind
- Over-taking responsibility for everything, bending backwards to make things go well for everyone, feeling guilty and ashamed if something goes wrong that wasn’t in your control, always taking tasks other people wouldn’t do, doing anything to feel useful
- Making excuses for other people when they hurt you, always being ready to ‘look at it from their side’ and assume they had a good reason to hurt you, or didn’t mean it, or didn’t realize they were doing it, or were ‘just lashing out’ and doing it because of their own pain – but you’d never make those excuses for yourself, or forgive yourself if you did that
- Double standards for yourself and others, you feel it’s okay for others to be selfish, unreasonable, short-tempered, assholes, hurtful, impatient, self-centered, but it’s not okay for you to be any of that, judging yourself way more harshly than others
- Constant fear of abandonment from your friends and loved ones, fear that you won’t be able to go on if you’re rejected and abandoned by them, over-pleasing them in fear they’ll leave
- Feeling there’s something deeply wrong about you, always looking for a way to blame yourself for anything that went wrong, feeling cursed, impostor syndrome
- Inclination to hide as much as possible about yourself, only showing an image to people you socialize with, fear that if anyone knew the ‘real you’ they would be repulsed and grossed out
- Shame for feeling pain, shame for crying, feeling weak and despicable for being vulnerable and hurt, urge to hide and isolate whenever you’re in pain, feeling others would hate you for it
- Constant pressure to prove yourself, never feeling like you’re ‘good enough’, rarely or never feeling happy or proud of yourself, every day is a battle to show that you’re still worth something
- Feeling you have to be always open to scrutiny and criticism, even if it comes from people who don’t know you and don’t wish you well
- Arranging your life only to please others, acting a role of support or a servant in other people’s lives, feeling selfish if you try to think of what would be best for you
- Worrying that every nice thing anyone has said about you was out of politeness, and every horrible thing someone said about you is secretly true; inability to hold a consistent self image that isn’t affected by everyone’s view of you, imagining that others are thinking the worst of you
- Spiraling into feelings of not wanting to exist anymore, wishing you weren’t born, not being able to find anything good about yourself, seeing yourself as a stack of flaws and past mistakes
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