Is This Abusive? began as a personal outlet during one of the most difficult periods of my life.
I had left a verbally and emotionally abusive marriage, but leaving the relationship did not immediately end the conflict. Because we shared a child, many of the patterns I had experienced during the marriage continued after the divorce in different forms. At the time, I was trying to understand what had happened to me, protect my daughter from being pulled into adult conflict, and make sense of situations that often left me questioning my own perceptions.
Writing became one of the ways I did that.
Many of the earliest posts on this site were written while events were actually happening. I documented conversations, emails, meetings, custody disputes, school problems, and the emotional aftermath of living through years of high conflict. Some of those early posts are raw. Some were written when I was angry, frightened, exhausted, or simply trying to understand whether what I was experiencing was normal.
I have intentionally left much of that history intact because it reflects what abuse and recovery can look like from the inside. Recognition rarely happens all at once. Sometimes we understand what happened only after we have enough distance to see the pattern.
Why I Did Not Recognize It Sooner
My experiences did not begin with my marriage.
I grew up around verbal and emotional abuse, and some behaviors that I later recognized as unhealthy had once felt familiar to me. When unhealthy dynamics are part of childhood, it can become difficult to recognize them in adult relationships because they do not always feel unusual at first.
For years, I questioned myself constantly.
I was told that I was wrong, overly sensitive, irrational, or “crazy.” Over time, I began distrusting my own memory, instincts, and interpretation of events. I often needed other people to confirm that what I was experiencing really was happening.
Learning to trust myself again became a significant part of recovery.
What This Site Has Become
Over time, Is This Abusive? became much more than a place for me to vent.
People began finding the posts because they were searching for answers to some of the same questions I once had:
- Is this normal?
- Am I overreacting?
- Why do I feel like I am always walking on eggshells?
- Why am I constantly questioning my own memory?
- Can a relationship be abusive even if no one is being hit?
- Those questions eventually became the real purpose of this site.
Today I write about verbal and emotional abuse, gaslighting, coercive control, manipulation, high-conflict relationships, post-separation conflict, boundaries, recovery, and the subtle warning signs that can be difficult to recognize while you are living through them.
I also write about the effect these dynamics can have on children and families. One of the things I understand much more clearly today is how important it is to keep children out of adult conflict and to give them places where they do not have to carry the emotional burden of the adults around them.
Looking Back With More Perspective
There are things I would handle differently today.
I did not respond perfectly to every situation. I sometimes reacted instead of responding. I sometimes overshared. I sometimes became so frustrated that my own behavior added more tension to an already difficult situation. I was learning as I went along. Once I realized what was wrong with my relationship, I began reading as many books as I could find on these topics.
Recovery has required me to look honestly at those things too.
One of the lessons I learned through years of personal work, including Al-Anon, is that accountability and self-awareness are not the same thing as accepting responsibility for someone else’s abusive behavior.
Both things can be true.
I can acknowledge the ways I wish I had handled certain situations differently while also recognizing that the relationship itself was unhealthy.
Awareness can be uncomfortable, but you cannot change a pattern you cannot see.
Why I Still Write About It
Some of the experiences described on this site happened many years ago.
They no longer carry the same emotional weight they once did, but I continue writing about them because I believe pain does not have to be for nothing.
If something I went through helps another person recognize a warning sign, trust their own perception, ask a difficult question, or understand that they are not alone, then something useful has grown from an experience I would never have chosen.
That has always been one of the guiding ideas behind this site.
I cannot change what happened.
I can decide what I do with what I learned from it.
The Is This Abusive? Podcast
That same mission has now expanded into the Is This Abusive? Podcast, where I revisit many of these topics in a more conversational format.
Episodes explore emotional abuse, verbal abuse, gaslighting, coercive control, relationship warning signs, generational patterns, high-conflict relationships, recovery, and some of the experiences that originally led me to create this site.
Some episodes are educational. Others may be deeply personal.
The goal is the same: to help people recognize patterns that can be difficult to see when they are living inside them.
Safety
If safety is a question, please take extra caution to protect yourself. Leaving an abusive relationship can often be the most dangerous time. Take steps to protect yourself and your children. Also, just because they have not hit you, does not mean they will not hit you. It is said that people often make decisions based on what hasn’t happen yet.
A Personal Perspective, Not Professional Advice
I am not a therapist, physician, attorney, or domestic-violence professional.
I write from personal experience and from what I have learned over many years of reflection, research, and recovery.
Every relationship and situation is different. Nothing on this site should replace professional legal, medical, mental-health, or safety advice when those services are needed.
What I can offer is one person’s perspective from the other side of an experience that once felt impossible to understand.
If only a few people find something here that helps them recognize what is happening, trust themselves a little more, or believe that life can exist beyond an unhealthy relationship, then I am glad I shared it.
You are allowed to question what does not feel right.
You are allowed to trust what you are experiencing.
And you are allowed to want peace.
— IsThisAbusive.com
Favorite Quotes
If someone makes you feel like less of a person than you know yourself to be. That is abuse.
Is This Abusive
Just become someone says something about you, does not mean it is true.
Is This Abusive
No matter what they do or say. You do the next right thing.
Is This Abusive
