I remember the moment with a kind of quiet shock. I had carried so many doubts, questions, and rationalizations for years. Maybe it wasn’t that bad. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe I really was the problem. That was the loop in my head, on repeat.
But then I sat in the psychologist’s office — a calm, neutral space — and something shifted. As I described what had been happening, piece by piece, I watched their face. They weren’t confused. They weren’t dismissive. They weren’t telling me to try harder or be more understanding.
They said words I had never dared to let myself think fully:
“That is abuse.”
It was as if a thousand puzzle pieces suddenly snapped into place. Memories I had twisted around in my mind to make excuses for… suddenly made terrible, undeniable sense. The cruelty, the manipulation, the fear, the way I kept bending myself smaller — it wasn’t love, and it wasn’t me failing. It was abuse.
I felt two things at once:
- Relief. I wasn’t crazy. My instincts hadn’t been wrong. Someone finally confirmed what my body had been screaming all along.
- Grief. To call it abuse meant accepting how much I had lost, how many years were shaped by someone else’s harm.
It was like a veil lifting — painful and freeing at the same time. That was the day I stopped carrying his story of who I was, and started reclaiming my own.
That day was the beginning of healing. I didn’t suddenly feel better; in fact, it was harder before it was easier. But the seed was planted: I deserved better, and I always had.
