Meet Lis...

For many years I was confused as to what type of relationship I was in. I grew up thinking that an abusive relationship, was only concerned with whether or not you had experienced physical violence, and if there were no signs of such events it was impossible for this to be considered as abusive.

 

In my late teenage years this perception of an abusive relationship, in my mind held strong, because I never thought as myself as being weak (another controversial stereotype of what I perceived a woman to be if they are in an abusive relationship and remained). So my perception had a great disadvantage in my awareness of my experience. Therefore, the complexities of such a relationship were difficult to conceive as my lived experience.

It wasn’t until I started to speak out about it and have other people’s reactions that I decided to seek help and support, when the laws came into effect regarding Coercive control and its definition, I realized straight away what type of relationship I was in.

My subconscious beliefs or better still my subconscious programming gave me permission to ignore the warning signs of my abusive relationship. To not realize what was happening to me, incrementally for nearly two decades.

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By the time I decided to leave my relationship, I felt as though I just existed. I would always justify my experiences as ‘things are not that bad’ the very fact that I even felt this way showed early warning signs, but again these were ignored...