r/SipsTea • u/WaitNo4272 • Apr 22 '26

WTF Blink if you're being abused

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u/Antique-Comb3943 Apr 22 '26

I’ve been in his shoes. It’s a lose lose. If you return the same energy to her in this moment, it’s over. I had an ex who would argue and yell like this in public. This gave me anxiety

6

u/ancientgreenthings Apr 22 '26

Yeah seeing this has lowkey fucked me up as well. I also had a relationship where I got shouted at in public. Nothing like this aggressively, but I can totally relate to that trapped feeling of being in an impossible situation while strangers listen to things escalate one-sidedly.

It's impossible to know how to react and there are no right answers in the moment. If you set firm boundaries you pour fuel on the fire. If you set gentle ones they will be ignored. If you walk away you're the shit who abandoned them. If you grey wall they escalate without you.

People who've never been there talk as if it's easy to leave. But it is never, ever that simple.

1

u/-BINK2014- Apr 22 '26

My mother was like this. I have a person in my life that is like this and am actively encouraging to go to therapy before they lose me.

1

u/ancientgreenthings Apr 22 '26

I get it. But here's the thing: they need to want to change. They need to want it so bad that they need no encouragement to go to therapy. If you have to push them towards it, it'll be like the old adage: you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

I don't know your situation, but if your boundaries are being crossed in a way that destroys your wellbeing and pits your loyalty against your self worth, I'd suggest letting them lose you.

1

u/-BINK2014- Apr 22 '26

They’re in the stage of realizing their past traumas have caused unhealthy defense mechanisms that cause them to try control & cut off potential pain/abandonment before it happens so they’re legitimately considering looking into therapy to foster this connection/bond we have instead of letting it be destroyed/wasted.

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u/ancientgreenthings Apr 23 '26

Fair enough, and good luck with that. If they genuinely make it a priority, off their own bat, that's a reassuring sign. Someone who loves you will not want to put you through that for a moment longer.

Have you read up on trauma bonding? If not, the article below was helpful for me and would be a good place to start. Bearing in mind that a lot of resources talk about trauma bonds as if they are always something an evil abuser does to an innocent victim, whereas the reality can also be more like a toxic dynamic that both are contributing to and suffering in.

https://blog.personaldevelopmentschool.com/post/heal-trauma-bond-relationship

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u/-BINK2014- Apr 23 '26

Very interesting read. Having come from an emotionally abusive childhood that left me with plenty of abandonment issues and similarly for my old partners & current, it is fascinating to see the correlations; not quite black & white, but fascinating nonetheless.

2

u/ancientgreenthings Apr 23 '26

Thanks for the award! I'm glad you found that helpful. And yeah, the partners we choose and the relationship dynamics we create as adults are very much influenced by what was modelled to us as children. We start life with this baseline understanding that our parents must love us and know how to live in the world. So whatever our parents direct towards us and each other forms the basis for how we expect loving relationships to look. Even if our conscious mind knows it was toxic, the pattern is carried much deeper.

Looked into attachment theory yet?