sometimes it takes years for you to even realize its happening

ravenclawdia:

It is so difficult to talk about emotional abuse because it is so much bigger than the sum of its parts. The everyday instances, when isolated, seem so insignificant and commonplace that you feel it’s not worth mentioning at all. When you do try to articulate it, it sounds so juvenile, and others will not hesitate to point this out to you.

But within the context of somebody with power over you, somebody you trust using these small moments as tools to strategically wear you down to absolutely nothing, it is suffocating. It overwhelms you and you find you cannot see the forest for the trees and when you try to fight back, try to tell them exactly what they are, the only thing you can do is cite isolated incidents. And they will laugh in your face. And you fear everyone else will, too.

This is why it takes years before you can speak up at all, years before you realize what it all added up to and how it has broken you.

Please listen to victims of abuse. Listen hard. And read between the lines.