There comes a moment in every survivor’s healing when the veil lifts — and we finally see it clearly: the person we loved never really existed. Not in the way we believed. What we were engaging with was a constructed version of a person — a False Self — built entirely on control, performance, and image.
🪞 The Collapse Begins When Control Ends
For abusers, control isn’t just a habit — it’s a lifeline. Their identity is so fused with dominance and external regulation that the moment they lose their emotional outlet (you), they begin to unravel. This unraveling is not always visible at first — it may look like a health crisis, an existential meltdown, or even a dramatic self-pity campaign designed to lure people back in. But at its core, it’s the collapse of the False Self — the persona they’ve carefully crafted to maintain power.
Without someone to project onto, control, or blame, they are left face-to-face with a terrifying void.
And they will do almost anything to fill it.
🧠 What Lies Beneath the Mask?
Behind the False Self is often:
- Unprocessed trauma (that they refuse to take responsibility for)
- No stable identity beyond manipulation and dominance
- An inability to self-soothe or emotionally regulate
This is particularly common in narcissists, sociopaths, or individuals with deeply ingrained emotional wounds who have never chosen to heal — because healing requires humility, accountability, and vulnerability. And those are traits they work hard to avoid.
Instead of healing, they pursue relief — temporary fixes for inner turmoil, always at someone else’s expense.
⚠️ The Trap: Becoming Their Soothing System
Many survivors fall into the trap of trying to “help” or “heal” their abuser, especially if they believe love can redeem or change someone. But the truth is uncomfortable:
Abusers don’t want healing. They want a host.
They don’t want growth. They want relief.
They are not looking to transform — they are looking to transfer. To offload their pain onto someone else, to use others as their emotional punching bags, caretakers, cheerleaders, or therapists — never seeing them as full people with their own needs.
And for years, you might have played that role. Not out of weakness, but out of compassion. Out of love. Out of the hope that maybe if you held on long enough, they’d see the damage they were causing.
They didn’t.
✋ But This Ends Now
You are no longer a dumping ground for unprocessed rage.
You are not an emotional sponge for someone who refuses to evolve.
You are not their therapist, their mother, their savior, or their doormat.
You are not here to be anyone else’s relief.
And you are certainly not here to carry the weight of someone else’s False Self — not when it costs you your peace, your health, your freedom, and your joy.
💡 The Difference Between Healing and Relief
- Healing is a choice. It requires inner work, accountability, humility, and consistency.
- Relief is a quick fix, often sought externally — through control, addiction, drama, or new victims.
They seek relief.
You seek truth.
They avoid themselves.
You’ve begun to rediscover yourself.
🕊️ A Closing Truth
When someone cannot survive without control, it’s not love they’re offering. It’s dependency. It’s manipulation disguised as affection. And when you walk away, you are not being cruel — you are refusing to be consumed.
Let them spiral.
Let the False Self collapse.
It was never yours to maintain in the first place.
