- Abuse is often misunderstood,
and people can assume that those in abusive relationships
knew they were going to be that way from the beginning.
But most people don't know about the cycle of abuse
or what narcissistic abuse looks like,
which is why today I wanna talk about the cycle of abuse,
why we can get stuck in it, why it's so stigmatized
and what we can do to free ourselves.
If you're new here, my name is Katie Morton.
I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist,
and I talk about abuse, trauma,
eating disorders, depression,
all things mental health related.
So if you'd like to subscribe, we would love to have you.
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or for someone that you love.
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Okay, let's jump into this topic.
(upbeat music)
The cycle of abuse was a theory that was developed
in 1979 by Lenore Walker.
And what you should know about it is it's a cycle,
so it's a circle.
And briefly, I'm gonna explain to you how it works.
Now there's this tension building phase,
and that's actually the longest phase,
because this is when we feel like
we're walking on eggshells, like trying not to upset them,
trying not to cause the abuse to happen again.
And it will build and build and build and build
until we reach the precipice and the incident occurs
which is when the abuse happens.
Okay, so something happens, they've harmed us in some way.
Let's say we're in a domestic violence type of situation.
So let's say my partner hits me.
So that incident happens,
and then immediately we fall into what's known
as the reconciliation or honeymoon period
where, oh he says, "I'm so sorry, it'll never happen again,"
and maybe make some excuses,
like "Things have just been really stressful,
and I didn't realize I was under so much pressure,
and I took it out on you just because I love you so much."
They might even shower us with gifts
or take us out to dinner,
take us on dates and things like that.
That's why they kind of call it
this honeymoon period right?
So we've gone from tension building, incident,
honeymoon period, and then the last is calm.
And as things progress, there's a lot of conversation
around whether calm is a stage of it or not.
And some people, it is gone, there's no calm.
We go right back into tension building.
But for many, there is this calm phase
when things kind of return, you know,
quote unquote back to normal.
The one part that's the hardest for people to understand
is how can we get stuck in this cycle, right?
If I feel this tension building my relationship
and then they harm me, why wouldn't I just leave?
Well, the thing that we're forgetting
is that having someone we love hurt us
really erodes at our self-esteem and our confidence.
Not to mention, think of like love bombing.
We've talked about love bombing in the past
in relation to narcissistic abuse.
And that is when someone showers us
like over the top with affection, attention,
words of affirmation.
They compliment us, they give us gifts,
they take us on expensive trips,
they can do all of this stuff.
It's like it's a love bomb, right?
It can be like a fog, we can't even see out of it.
And it's done as a manipulation tactic.
And that's an important key,
because people can be loving and affectionate.
There's nothing wrong with that,
but love bombing is done
so that we essentially can't see straight,
and we just are so overwhelmed
with all the attention, affection, the gifts, everything
that we just can't help but think
that that person's amazing, right?
So we can be kind of in this fog, not able to see clearly,
and then when that person
that we think loved us so dearly harms us,
we can believe 'em when they say it won't happen again.
Or we can think that we've done something wrong, right?
And as this abuse continues,
it slowly erodes at our self-esteem and our confidence.
If we grew up in an abusive home,
we're almost used to this cycle
and that tension building feeling,
and even though it is unhealthy,
but it might be comfortable to us, right?
And so we can find ourselves in those patterns of behavior
finding the same relationships
that we honestly tried to probably get away from growing up.
And I also wanna mention that a lot of times
when we're in these types of abusive relationships,
they will try to isolate us from our friends and family.
A lot of times they'll tell us
"They don't have your best interest in heart."
Or they'll bring up like an old hurt
because you've told them about something
maybe a friend said or did,
or a family member "didn't show up for me
and it really hurt my feelings."
They'll use these secrets or past events as like weapons,
so that you end up without anybody around you
and are fully dependent upon them.
Now being in an abusive relationship, unfortunately,
is incredibly stigmatized.
Now I know a lot of you are thinking, what?
That doesn't make any sense, but just take a minute with me.
Consider what you would think
if one of your close friends came to you
and told you that they were in an abusive relationship?
What would your reaction be?
What if they then told you that they loved that person
and they weren't ready to leave them?
Would you judge them?
You might.
And I think a lot of us don't recognize
our assumptions that we make about these types of situations
because we haven't been in them ourselves,
and we don't know what it's like to have someone
that we care for deeply,
who we think cares for us deeply, harm us.
That type of pain and kind of like incongruence, right?
Things aren't making sense.
It just doesn't make sense, right?
We have that cognitive dissonance.
It's just like battling it out.
It can be hard for us to see straight,
and we can believe them when they say
they won't do it again.
So just pay attention and be aware of the fact
that when someone is in an abusive situation,
it's not because they want to be.
It's not that they made this choice.
They found themselves in this situation
and they don't know how to get out.
Because I hear all the time people saying,
"Oh, I would never let that happen to me."
Or like, "They just must be so weak."
I've even heard some of my friends say like
"If someone ever laid a hand on me,
I would make them rue the day," right?
We don't quite understand how they feel.
We don't know what's really going on.
So just consider any assumptions
or judgements that you might have around abuse
or someone who's been in an abusive situation,
because if someone does decide to share
what they're going through, that's a huge step.
And what we need to meet them with is
"I'm so sorry you're going through that, how can I help?"
So just try to be aware,
and then offer your assistance however they need it.
And finally, and arguably most importantly,
how do we free ourselves from this situation
if we find ourselves in it?
And the first is to make a plan,
and do so as safely as possible.
Don't write it down and put it somewhere
where they could find it.
Don't keep it on your phone
in a place where they can just tap and open it.
We wanna make sure that as we put these plans in motion
that it's done safely and securely.
We wanna make sure we have a financial plan.
How are we gonna get out if we had put gas in the car,
if we have to feed our children,
or if we have to get into a hotel,
or just consider the cost
so that you can slowly and hopefully without them noticing,
save up some money.
Is there anybody else we can ask for support?
Let's put this plan together.
Think it through in as many ways as possible
so you can safely get out.
The next step is gonna be to get safe support.
That might just be a therapist
at a domestic violence clinic.
There's a lot of those.
There's a lot of safe houses around in communities.
We might find support that way.
Or we might if we feel like we can wanna reach back out
to those people that they originally isolated us from,
like friends or family members.
Can we reach out to people and get the support that we need
so that we're reminded,
because we're gonna question ourselves.
Maybe I'm making this into more than it is.
Maybe it's really not that bad.
This is gonna be scary.
I don't know if I can do this.
I don't wanna be alone.
There can be a lot swirling.
I still love them.
We wanna make sure that we have other people there
to validate and support and acknowledge,
let us know, kind of remind us,
"Hey, you're minimizing this.
This was a big deal.
You do deserve to get outta there and feel okay."
We're gonna need that support around us.
And finally, we need to keep getting support
even when we're out of that relationship.
Because unfortunately, if we aren't working through it
and aware of our role,
I'm not saying you're responsible for the abuse.
I'm just saying we each have our own role in a relationship.
And your role might be, I only know abuse,
and so I keep, for some reason
seeking out people that are abusive.
We need to be able to acknowledge that
and work through the reason that exists,
which might mean we have to heal from some past trauma,
and maybe it's safer for us for a little while to not date
and to just spend time with friends and family.
We're gonna need that extra support
so that we can break the cycle.
That's kind of why they call it the cycle of abuse.
It's not just that like tension building, incident,
honeymoon phase, and calm.
It can also be the cycle we can find ourselves in.
We're like, oh, I keep getting in the same relationship
and it keeps turning out the same.
We can't keep doing the same thing
and expecting a different result.
We're gonna have to acknowledge
our own behavior and role in it,
because that's all we have control over,
and then we can take the ownership back.
We can change the things that we used to do.
We can pick people that maybe aren't our type,
and find ourselves in what we deserve,
which is a healthy, happy, abuse-free relationship.
I hope you found that helpful.
At the very least, I hope it just made you more aware
of maybe your own assumptions or stigmatizations
that you had associated with abusive relationships.
But if you think I left anything out
or you wanna share your own story,
please feel free to do that in the comments down below.
Thank you so much for watching,
and I will see you next time.
(upbeat music)