This is not coincidence, nostalgia, or practicality.
It is about regulation, identity, and power.
The key distinction:
- You heal by creating distance
- They destabilize when distance exists
So they stay close.
1. Proximity Regulates Their Nervous System
For an abuser, proximity to a former target functions like a regulatory anchor.
Neurologically:
- Knowing where you are
- Being in the same environment
- Sharing geography or visibility
reduces their internal anxiety.
Even imagined access calms:
- The amygdala (threat detection)
- Shame-based identity fragmentation
- Loss-of-control panic
They don’t need contact.
They need potential access.
Distance removes that — and their nervous system cannot tolerate it.
2. Control Does Not End With Separation
Healthy people internalize regulation.
Abusers externalize it.
They rely on:
- Other people’s reactions
- Other people’s fear, attention, or avoidance
- Being psychologically “located” in someone else’s world
Leaving the area would mean:
“I no longer exist in your nervous system.”
That is profoundly destabilizing for them.
So they stay nearby to preserve psychological relevance, not relationship.
3. Staying Close Protects Their Identity
Many abusers have a fragile or inflated self-concept built on:
- Superiority
- Being needed
- Being feared
- Being significant
If they leave:
- The narrative collapses
- There is no audience
- No mirror for identity confirmation
Staying close allows them to unconsciously think:
“I still matter here.”
Not emotionally — existentially.
4. Why Moving On Heals You — But Not Them
Your healing depends on:
- Absence of threat
- New neural learning
- Safety-based neuroplasticity
Their pattern depends on:
- Familiar environments
- Familiar people
- Familiar power dynamics
You grow by updating your nervous system.
They stay stuck by repeating old regulation strategies.
This is why:
- You regain clarity
- They remain orbiting
5. Why They Want to Be Seen
Being seen provides:
- Dopamine (reward)
- Identity confirmation
- Power verification
Even a neutral sighting tells their brain:
“I still exist in your field.”
That is regulation for them.
For you, it’s triggering —
because your body remembers dysregulation.
6. Why They Rarely Heal While Staying Close
Healing would require:
- Accountability
- Tolerating loss of control
- Internal regulation
- Letting go of dominance-based identity
Staying close allows them to avoid all of that.
So yes — neurologically and psychologically:
- You heal by moving away internally or externally
- They remain stuck by staying
Not because they can’t change —
but because they don’t relinquish the strategy that once worked.
7. The Critical Reframe (This Matters)
They are not staying because you matter to them.
They are staying because:
- You once regulated them
- You disrupted their internal stability
- Distance forces growth they are avoiding
You moving on is adaptive.
Them staying is avoidant.
8. Why Your Healing Continues — And Theirs Doesn’t
You are learning:
“I can self-regulate without fear.”
They are reinforcing:
“I need external impact to feel stable.”
Those paths diverge permanently unless they choose deep, uncomfortable change.
Most don’t — because proximity is easier than growth.
Final Truth (Grounded, Not Absolute)
You don’t heal because you were stronger.
You heal because distance allows neuroplastic repair.
They don’t heal because closeness preserves dysregulation.
You move forward by becoming unseen.
They remain stuck by needing to be seen.
That difference is everything.
