Loving an emotionally healthy partner

Here is Part 1 of this series.

If the adult child finds an emotionally healthy partner, they might feel uncomfortable because this person can challenge everything they learned about love. For the adult child, love was historically mixed with criticism, guilt, disappointment, and control while unconditional love and kindness can make the adult child suspicious and distrusting.

The adult child might wonder, “what does this person really want?”; “why are they so nice to me?”; “why do they love me like this?”; “when will the criticism come?” The absence of criticism can feel unfamiliar and unfamiliar doesn’t always feel safe.

The emotionally healthy partner may express appreciation, affection, gratitude and admiration. The adult child might hear the words, but struggle to internalize them because they might think to themselves, “if they really knew me, they wouldn’t feel like this.” Years of criticism can create a deeply rooted belief that love must be earned. However, the adult child’s difficulties with emotional regulation, if not recognized and handled through interventions, risks negative effects to their romantic relationships (Riggs, Cusimano & Benson, 2011).

Researchers have found links between childhood emotional maltreatment and reported difficulties in communication, relationship satisfaction, intimacy, empathy, hostility, defensiveness, and overall relationship quality (Vaillancourt-Morel et al., 2024).

Specifically, some research has discovered that men who grew up with parents who were chronically critical or did not provide a healthy emotional environment are found to provide their partners with less support, engagement, and positive communication skills and have a greater observation of negative traits like high levels of conflict (Malek & Papp, 2015).

The risks of refusing to recognize the unhealthy patterns

If the healthy partner is trying to hold up a mirror to their emotionally injured partner, that person will have to answer to their partner’s insistence that they’ve been unfairly treated, how much they’ve sacrificed, how very little recognition they received, and how long they’ve tolerated this treatment. Sometimes these adult children get angry at the messenger showing them the truth.

If you happen to be one of these people, you are potentially sacrificing your relationship to hold on to your old coping strategies with your parents. That is very direct, I know, but it is true. While you’re feeling tremendous pressure to remain loyal to your parents and the criticism dynamic, you’re putting your partner in the position of being second and ignoring the pain they feel on your behalf, or pain they get if they are also in the line of criticism fire.

If you are the partner in this situation, understand that your partner might feel a great sense of shame beneath the defensiveness, irritation, and anger. They grew up in a family where emotions were not processed in a healthy way, so they didn’t learn how to handle anger, grief, disappointment, and shame in healthy ways. Instead of saying to you, “I’m angry with my parents,” they say, “why are you making such a big deal out of this?” Understand that your partner’s frustration might be understandable, but that doesn’t make it something you must inherently accept.

Because of the environment in which the adult child grew up, healthy partners may see the unhealthy relationship patterns when they participate in family events. That healthy partner will notice how the adult child is treated by seeing and likely mentioning the criticism, double standards, manipulation, and lack of appreciation. A healthy partner will want the adult child to be treated differently.

The adult child, when confronted with this information, will feel conflicted because part of them will agree with what the partner sees, but part of them feels strongly compelled to protect their parents. This can create tension because the partner sees and hears harm while the adult child feels the need to remain loyal to their family and defensive of those unhealthy family dynamics.

Healthy and unhealthy conflict

The healthy partner might model healthy arguments and quick attempts to repair after a fight. In unhealthy households, disagreements don’t get discussed. Feelings run high and hot, but efforts to repair are not done. The adult child does not learn how to disagree in a healthy way. The adult child has not had modeling of emotional maturity, so they might struggle with the skills needed for healthy discussions, especially around disagreements or hurt feelings.

What also tends to happen in this dynamic is the overly criticized, unappreciated adult child takes their frustrations out on their partner. The partner might think, “your parents are the ones criticizing you all the time, but why do you seem angry with me?” From the adult child’s perspective, a lot is happening under the surface. The real reason is often this: his parents feel unsafe to confront.

For someone who grew up with chronic criticism, challenging the parent might feel emotionally dangerous, even in adulthood. Their nervous system learned not to argue, not to upset them, not to challenge them, and keep the peace. Unfortunately, those hurt feelings will often get redirected towards their partners. This is not because the partner deserves it, but because they’re the person least likely to abandon them (Finzi-Dottan & Abadi, 2024).

Healthy partners understand that conflict is just a part of being in a relationship. Relationships require work and sometimes compromise. Adult children of unhealthy family dynamics may not have the skills they need to participate in healthy conflict resolution and tend to be afraid of rejection and fear they won’t ever get true acceptance (Finzi-Dottan & Abadi, 2024). This is not a put-down for these people. It’s reality. Growing up in emotionally immature environments and then having potential relationships with emotionally immature people does not equip these people with the skills needed for healthy discussions and arguments.

In healthy relationships, disagreements can happen without the relationship being threatened. Many people who grew up in the unhealthy dynamics tend to result in insecure attachments to romantic partners (Riggs & Kaminski, 2010). A healthy partner should be able to have constructive conversations that might be difficult, without fearing the other person will shut down and threaten them to leave. Someone raised by highly critical parents may unconsciously expect rejection, withdrawal, punishment or humiliation and because of that, a simple disagreement can trigger intense anxiety because their nervous system learned long ago that conflict equals danger.

A thinking myth might be at play here and that is the healthy partner believes that the person they’re dealing with is their present-day partner. However, if this partner is in the family environment that is filled with emotional dysregulation and criticism, or in moments of high stress, they may actually be encountering old survival strategies that were formed decades before. The partner that becomes defensive, shuts down, redirects anger, blames the healthy partner, or chases parental approval is not consciously choosing the childhood patters, but reverting to those strategies that once helped them survive.

Understanding this does not excuse the behavior and, if the adult child wants to improve their relationships, they need to first recognize what they’re doing, forgive themselves for that, and learn how to behave and respond differently to preserve or create a healthy partnership.

You do not have to keep engaging in these disrespectful interactions

If you are the criticized adult partner, it is your responsibility to recognize it and stop it, and if you cannot stop it, then you learn how to function in that dynamic by learning new ways of responding to parental criticism without internalizing it and processing difficult emotions. The technical word for this is learning emotional regulation and if you grew up in the chronic criticism, then you grew up in an emotionally dysregulated environment (Riggs, 2010).

Learning HOW to regulate emotions might require reading about it and seeking therapy. I know, I know… so many people say therapy is the answer, but this is something serious and severe that needs someone outside of you to help navigate and learn coping skills. Therapy does not mean you are broken. It does not mean you are weak. It does not mean your relationship with your partner is breaking apart. It means you’re taking ownership of your situation and trying to improve it for you, your partner, your current or future children, and, what’s even better, every single generation after them. Your partner will be very grateful and likely even help you in that process with a generous and loving heart.

References

Finzi-Dottan, R., & Abadi, H. (2024). From Emotional Abuse to a Fear of Intimacy: A Preliminary Study of the Mediating Role of Attachment Styles and Rejection Sensitivity. International journal of environmental research and public health, 21(12), 1679. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21121679

Maleck S., Papp L. M. (2015). Childhood risky family environments and romantic relationship functioning among young adult dating couples. Journal of Family Issues, 36(5), 567–588. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513×13491749

Riggs, S. A. (2010). Childhood Emotional Abuse and the Attachment System Across the Life Cycle: What Theory and Research Tell Us. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 19(1), 5–51. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926770903475968

Riggs, S. A., Cusimano, A. M., & Benson, K. M. (2011). Childhood emotional abuse and attachment processes in the dyadic adjustment of dating couples. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 58(1), 126–138. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021319

Riggs, S. A., & Kaminski, P. (2010). Childhood Emotional Abuse, Adult Attachment, and Depression as Predictors of Relational Adjustment and Psychological Aggression. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 19(1), 75–104. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926770903475976

Vaillancourt-Morel, M.-P., Godbout, N., Bigras, N., Sabourin, S., & Bergeron, S. (2024). Partner effects of childhood maltreatment: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 25(2), 1323–1343. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380231173427

Photo Credit: Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: This guest post is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing shared here, across CPTSDfoundation.org, any CPTSD Foundation website, our associated communities, or our Social Media accounts, is intended to substitute for or supersede the professional advice and direction of your medical or mental health providers. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CPTSD Foundation. For further details, please review the following: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer

The invisible wound

When people think about childhood trauma, they might imagine bruises from physical abuse, scars on skin that remain red and thick, stories of children left alone to fend for themselves without food or comfort, or various forms of sexual assault.

Many children grow up in homes where their basic needs are met, and they aren’t beaten or sexually assaulted, but they grow up with chronic belittling, nit-picking, and criticism. For those parents, nothing is ever quite good enough, and the child is reminded of it regularly. When the young one tries to achieve or perform to please the parent, it’s followed by a parental judgment or correction. The parent reminds the child of what they missed, lack, or didn’t do right.

As a child, I learned at a very young age that I was not measuring up to my mother’s expectations. When I was younger, it started out with my physical appearance. My mother was born a small person, with small bone structure, which kept her petite all her life. While I was short, I had a very different structure. It seemed to me like my creator was confused, thinking I needed to be built like a linebacker as a 5-foot 4-inch female.

That difference displeased my mother, and I could not measure up to her physical expectations of me. For her, grades and academic performance were irrelevant compared to how I looked or behaved, because what other people thought meant more than my own achievements outside of having a “perfect” body.

As I aged, I was reminded even more regularly that my body just did not measure up, and her expectations (outside of academics) were that I took care of all household chores. Even when I was working two jobs and going to school, while earning good grades, if the house wasn’t spic and span, I was punished. My brother had no expectations laid upon him. I consistently disappointed my mother, and nothing I could do could earn her praise, except the time that I lost 30 pounds. Her praise then was endless, albeit temporary, as the weight came back.

Over time, the child learns a valuable but painful lesson: “I am only as valuable as my performance,” or “I am only valuable if I meet the expectations my parents have of me.”  For many adults living with complex trauma, the wound isn’t what the parent did to them; it was what the parent repeatedly said.

What does an overly critical parent look like?

A healthy parent teaches their children. They use constructive criticism and redirection if the child needs it, and do so with the goal of helping and nurturing the child’s growth. On the contrary, overly critical parents do not teach; they evaluate. They judge.

Common patterns look like: constant fault-finding, unrealistically high expectations, rare or non-existent praise or acknowledgment, comparing a child to their siblings, dismissing emotions or shutting down the child’s emotions, labeling their children (lazy, dramatic, difficult, ungrateful), and focusing on mistakes and overlooking successes and efforts to please the parent. The message is explicit or implied: “You could have done better.”

Why chronic criticism is so harmful

Children develop their sense of self through their relationship with their caregivers. When their caregivers repeatedly communicate disappointment, rejection, or conditional acceptance, children often internalize those messages as truths about themselves.

Research suggests that persistent parental criticism can contribute to negative self-image, depression, anxiety, and difficulty with emotional regulation (Spinazzola et al., 2014). Harsh and rejecting parental behaviors are also linked to increased psychological distress and poorer mental health outcomes (Cruz, et al., 2022). Children aren’t simply hearing criticism–they are building their identities around it.

The adult child’s hidden beliefs

Many adults raised by highly critical parents continue carrying harmful, unconscious beliefs like: I must earn love; my worth depends on what I do or accomplish; mistakes are dangerous; other people’s needs matter more than mine; I am responsible for maintaining my family’s peace; if I just try harder, I will finally be enough.

When criticism becomes trauma

Trauma is shaped by what happened to someone repeatedly. Developmental trauma research suggests that chronic interpersonal stressors in caregiving relationships can alter the way people handle their emotions, their self-concept, attachment patterns, and social functioning. Psychological maltreatment, which is what chronic criticism is, has been associated with depression, anxiety, shame, dissociation and relationship difficulties (Lippard & Nemeroff, 2020).

Chronic parental criticism, emotional abuse, and harsh parenting are also associated with increased risk for emotional distress, adverse childhood experiences, and substance use problems. For some people who grow up in this environment, alcohol or drugs become a way to cope with the pain of feeling perpetually inadequate, rejected, or unseen (Felitti et al., 1998).

Sometimes trauma looks less like a single event and more like thousands of moments that communicate to the child, “who you are is not enough.”

Why adult children keep trying to earn approval and what happens later

One of the most painful realities for children who grow up with chronic criticism is that the pursuit of parental approval carries long into adulthood. These children grow up to be high achievers, caregivers, helpers, people-pleasers, and perfectionists. They hope that enough success, sacrifice, and service will finally produce the validation they long for, yet many discover that the goalposts continue to move.

Adults who are raised by chronically critical parents might find themselves in relationships with people who do the same thing to them, because it feels like home. It’s familiar. They go from one unhealthy environment into another and maintaining a healthy relationship is difficult when they choose unhealthy partners (Vaillancourt-Morel et al., 2024).

The adult child might struggle with perfectionism, fear of failure, self-doubt, difficulty setting boundaries (especially with the parents), anxiety, depression, sensitivity to criticism (overreacting to it), and relationship problems (Kuo et al., 2011).

They may keep trying to prove their worth                     

One of the most common patterns is over-functioning that looks like becoming: the helper, the fixer, the provider, and/or the caretaker. This happens not because their partner demands it, but because that’s what the adult child learned:  contribution is how they secure connection. However, their healthy partner might say, “you do not have to earn your place here,” but the adult child doesn’t know how not to do that.

The adult child might have difficulty needing anything from their partner because receiving feels vulnerable. If their healthy partner offers comfort, support, or help, they might feel guilty, indebted, weak, or exposed. The adult child might react strongly, in a negative way, becoming defensive or even angry because they learned early that needing someone felt dangerous.

References

Cruz, D., Lichten, M., Berg, K., & George, P. (2022). Developmental trauma: Conceptual framework, associated risks and comorbidities, and evaluation and treatment. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13, Article 800687. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.800687

Felitti, Vincent J., Anda, Robert F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., Koss, M. P., & Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245–258. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-3797(98)00017-8

Kuo, J. R., Goldin, P. R., Werner, K., Heimberg, R. G., & Gross, J. J. (2011). Childhood trauma and current psychological functioning in adults with social anxiety disorder. Journal of anxiety disorders, 25(4), 467–473. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2010.11.011

Lippard, E. T. C., & Nemeroff, C. B. (2020). The Devastating Clinical Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect: Increased Disease Vulnerability and Poor Treatment Response in Mood Disorders. The American journal of psychiatry, 177(1), 20–36. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2019.19010020

Vaillancourt-Morel, M.-P., Godbout, N., Bigras, N., Sabourin, S., & Bergeron, S. (2024). Partner effects of childhood maltreatment: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 25(2), 1323–1343. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380231173427

Photo Credit: Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: This guest post is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing shared here, across CPTSDfoundation.org, any CPTSD Foundation website, our associated communities, or our Social Media accounts, is intended to substitute for or supersede the professional advice and direction of your medical or mental health providers. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CPTSD Foundation. For further details, please review the following: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer

During that stay my psychologist tried to get me to hug my mother during a session. I was sitting in my sparsely furnished room, on top of my bed with the reversable pink and blue comforter, and I was gripping the fabric so tight in my fists that my knuckles went white.

I told the psychologist, “I can’t remember the last time anyone hugged me.” Facts. I never did hug my mother, even though the psychologist kept insisting, session after session. My mother was putting on a show for the clinician, and I saw right through it.

Some kids grow up surrounded by physical affection and closeness, but some don’t. I was one of those children. My paternal grandmother showered me with love and I was addicted to it. That feeling was stripped from me when we moved 5 hours away to Northwest Indiana.

I don’t think any of my teachers had a clue in what type of environment I was getting raised. I don’t think any alarm bells were going off for anyone because no one notices what happens to a child who never gets tucked in or kissed on the forehead. No one notices what happens when a child grows up without getting hugged or consoled when they’re hurt. No one notices because nothing visible happens to that child.

What happens is the child’s body notices. The child’s body keeps notes. The nervous system is keenly aware of what’s going on. Long before we have words for loneliness, we learn what comfort feels like or what it doesn’t feel like.

We are wired for touch

Touch is not a luxury, it is a developmental need. Attachment theory demonstrates that children rely on caregivers for the basic life necessities like shelter and food, but they also rely on caregivers for emotional and physical comfort.

Harry Harlow’s famous monkey studies showed that infant monkeys consistently preferred a soft, comforting ‘mother’ over a wire mother that just provided food. Modern research continues to demonstrate that affectionate touch supports emotional regulation, social development, attachment security and overall well-being. Children who long for touch are not needy; they are responding to a basic human need.

When affection is missing

Children will often adapt to what is available to them, to what their environment provides, rather that recognizing that something’s missing, or what they’re experiencing is wrong. They may grow up thinking that parents weren’t supposed to provide anything other that what is needed for basic survival. They may not understand that their parent was emotionally distant until they have the exposure to families that are different, and it will cause a great deal of confusion for children from families where affection was absent.

As a child you cannot miss what you never knew existed, but your nervous system still knows that something’s absent that you developmentally require. The absence of affection is generally an invisible loss because, to these children, it just feels normal.

Research suggests that experiences of affectionate touch during childhood are associated with specific attachment styles and comfort with touch later in life.

Looking for love in all the wrong places

Children who grow up emotionally and/or physically deprived often become adults who hunger for connection. This might manifest itself in various ways, like becoming attached too quickly to people who show you the kind of affection you did not experience as a child. Sometimes those people aren’t the best people from whom to receive the affection.

Sometimes the energy we have attracts people who feel comfortable, familiar, and if your childhood environment was traumatic, filled with emotional instability and abuse, you might be attracting someone who behaves the same way, even though initially the attention received feels good.

Emotionally neglected people will feel intensely attracted to people who give them warmth and validation, even though that person might be emotionally immature and even abusive. The unprotected adult survivor might ignore relationship red flags.  Doing so is not evidence of weakness; it’s evidence that you’re trying to fill an unmet need. When you’re starving, receiving crumbs can even feel like a feast.

When touch becomes entangled with pain

For some people, love and sometimes friendships can arrive wrapped inside emotionally abusive packages. The person might ‘love bomb’ you, might give you validation and affection that’s followed with criticism, their safe and loving touch might end up conditional over time and emotional abuse might reside alongside physical affection.

Over time, choosing someone who feels familiar and comfortable might become someone who is not emotionally safe. Once that occurs too often, your body will perceive the person as a threat, and the closeness with that person that used to feel wonderful becomes dangerous and your body knows before your mind does because it recognizes a familiar pattern it has felt before.

Studies on attachment and childhood emotional maltreatment indicate that early neglect and later harmful relationships can affect future relationship quality, trust, and emotional regulation.

From Touch-Starved to Touch-Afraid

The heartbreaking twist is that many people who once desperately wanted affection might recoil from it later because the body senses danger. The reaction becomes instantaneous, even if the mind doesn’t want to, even if the relationship partner doesn’t like it and you fight about it, repeatedly. An unsafe partner that you are committed to stay with will undoubtedly affect your nervous system’s ability to accept touch and intimacy without fear.

Over time, touch with your partner will feel uncomfortable. Without even thinking, you might flinch when the partner reaches for physical connection because you are now uncomfortable with affection from someone your nervous system knows to be unsafe. You might become hypervigilant about emotional and physical attention with your partner. Your inner child that once craved affection and attention becomes the adult who no longer trusts it.

Avoiding touch isn’t always about not wanting closeness. Sometimes it’s about not feeling safe enough to receive it.

Learning That Safe Touch Exists

Healing often begins when affection is no longer tied to conditions, manipulation, or performance. It is vitally important to remove yourself from unhealthy relationships. That might be very difficult because if you have children, that becomes complicated. If your unhealthy partner recognizes his or her contribution to your distrust in them, and is willing to work on their abusive tendencies, then there might be hope to maintain the relationship.

However, your nervous system will not be duped. It will take a great deal of time and work on both sides. Your partner must work on their abusive tendencies and become consistently safe. You need to set boundaries to what you will accept and what you will not and you must hold your partner to those boundaries. They must experience consequences of breaking those boundaries. This healing work will be very painful; I’m not going to sugar coat it.

What to strive for

Adult survivors of emotional abuse and complex trauma need to find relationships (romantic and otherwise) with people who are consistently safe. The partners need to know, on an intimate level, the trauma you experienced so they know how to encourage connection, affection, and intimacy in ways that feel safe to your nervous system. If you’ve been in unsafe adult relationships previously, your nervous system will be skeptical and distrustful like a dog that has been chronically beaten by a previous owner.

The goal is not becoming more affectionate. The goal is feeling safe enough to choose it. Small steps, small efforts, and micro affections will help, but your partner must feel safe to your nervous system. Be kind to yourself because your nervous system wants the best for you. Sometimes healing looks like allowing yourself to lean into a hug instead of bracing for what comes next and having a partner who is informed and patient is paramount to your comfort level with touch.

Some children grow up hungry for touch, and some adults spend years searching for it. Sometimes adults spend years learning to trust touch again. Beneath these experiences is the same truth: we were never designed to survive without connection. The part of you that still longs to be held in safe, familiar, and comfortable arms is not broken, it’s just part of being human.

Resources

Book: Running on Empty by Jonice Webb

Book: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Book: Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller

Book: Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson

References

Beltrán, M. I., Harrison, N. A., & O’Brien, J. T. (2020). Affective touch experiences across the lifespan: Developmental and individual differences. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 118, 659–669. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2020.08.018

Narvaez, D., Wang, L., Gleason, T., Cheng, Y., & Lefever, J. B. (2019). The importance of early life touch for psychosocial and moral development. Psychology, 10(11), 1443–1466.

Packheiser, J., et al. (2024). A systematic review and multivariate meta-analysis of the effects of touch interventions. Nature Human Behaviour, 8, 1060–1077.

Simpson, J. A., & Rholes, W. S. (2017). Adult attachment, stress, and romantic relationships. Current Opinion in Psychology, 13, 19–24.

Tejada, A. H., Dunbar, R. I. M., & Montero, M. (2020). Physical contact and loneliness: Being touched reduces perceptions of loneliness. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 6, 292–306.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: This guest post is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing shared here, across CPTSDfoundation.org, any CPTSD Foundation website, our associated communities, or our Social Media accounts, is intended to substitute for or supersede the professional advice and direction of your medical or mental health providers. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CPTSD Foundation. For further details, please review the following: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer

Moments later I was led into a room down a dimly-lit hallway where the heavy boot treads of the large officer in front of me echoed off the concrete walls. My heart beat heavy in my throat and I desperately needed water. I dutifully sat down at the table, as instructed, picked at the bleeding cuticles on my fingers, and the officer asked me what I wanted to report.

I looked up at the man, mid-40’s, thick brown hair, mustache, watery blue eyes, and tried to explain that I ran away from my mother who was cruel. I told him that she was critical, mean, neglectful, made me feel like I was useless and a burden, and I couldn’t take living there any longer. It sounded stupid to say it out loud, and after the man wrote in his book, and closed it, he asked a simple, loaded question, “do you have any bruises?”

How do you tell someone that inside you’re a festering pool of pus and blood and pain? No one could see the injuries that were done to me over the course of my childhood. I didn’t even have the words to explain how I felt to the officer sitting in front of me that day who told me there was nothing he could do if I didn’t have bruises, welts, or other marks from physical abuse.

Emotional abuse isn’t something most people would notice. Often, especially around other people, it’s silent, subtle, and chronic.

It includes, but isn’t limited to: constant criticism, belittling, ignoring your emotions, shaming, mocking, or dismissing your needs. It can also include withholding affection, the silent treatment, emotional unpredictability, children expected to act like a parent (parentification), being made to feel guilty over things you cannot control, pitting you against other family members (especially siblings and the other parent in separation situations) or pitting them against you.

Back then, in the 1980’s and the 1990’s, therapists didn’t have knowledge about emotional trauma and its relationship to complex traumatic childhood experiences. They didn’t have training to notice it. As a matter of fact, children who were in therapy who had the strength to tell the truth (the fight response in trauma) were likely ignored. That’s what happened to me, repeatedly. No one listened, no one heard, and no one helped.

Emotional pain matters. It mattered then, and it matters now.

Many survivors think that other people have had it worse than they did, and perhaps that’s true in some cases, but your pain matters anyway. Emotional abuse is invisible, but its impact is severe. The scars it leaves are difficult to see to outsiders, but take a very long time to heal for victims and affects their ability to deal with emotions and have healthy relationships for the rest of their lives.

For many kids, their brains normalize their environments. So, what they experience, even if it’s horrible, abusive, and just plain messed up, to them, it’s just ‘normal’. For kids with emotionally abusive caregivers, their survival depends on loyalty to the parent, not analysis and reflection. It could be very dangerous for a child to recognize that how they are being treated is abuse, especially if the child acted on their realization (ask me how I know).

If a child doesn’t have a flight or fawn or freeze response to their trauma and, like me, was/is a fighter by nature, then their abuser might have said things like this:

“You think your life is bad?”

“You’re too sensitive“

“Everything I do is for you“

“I’m the best [mom] or [dad]“

“This is discipline“

“This is tough love“

“You owe me everything for what I’ve done for you and what I put up with“

“You’re ungrateful“

When people who were emotionally abused grow up, sometimes they recognize that things were not right, but sometimes they don’t. Some people, like me, knew it all along and had no one to save them from the torment. Sometimes people are still drinking that poison-spiked Kool-Aid mommy made and smiling while drinking it because they don’t know any better. Adulthood should bring distance between you and the abuser, and that distance might allow you to see clearly what really happened, especially if you’re experiencing relationship, communication, and emotional issues.

It is very painful to realize you have been abused, and your abuser will not admit what they did, will not admit the way they treated you was wrong, and if you even bring it up, they’ll likely gaslight you and make you feel like it’s your fault. Best to just leave them out of your journey of recognition and healing.

Your feelings are real. Your experiences are valid. Healing starts with acknowledging what happened and accepting that you deserved love then, and you deserve love now. No matter where you are, you are not too late to start healing.

Suggested resources:

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD (book)

Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect by Jonice Webb, PhD (book)

Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker (book)

Strathearn, L., Giannotti, M., Mills, R., Kisely, S., Najman, J., & Abajobir, A. (2020). Long‑term cognitive, psychological, and health outcomes associated with child abuse and neglect. Pediatrics, 146(4), e20200438. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2020-0438 (article)

Photo Credit: Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: This guest post is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing shared here, across CPTSDfoundation.org, any CPTSD Foundation website, our associated communities, or our Social Media accounts, is intended to substitute for or supersede the professional advice and direction of your medical or mental health providers. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CPTSD Foundation. For further details, please review the following: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer

I’m surprised I wasn’t born wearing a tiny pair of boxing gloves. That would have been appropriate, given the kind of life I would be leading as a kid.

For people like me who grew up with complex trauma, our nervous systems helped us survive through trauma responses. Way back in the early 20th century, an old guy named Walter Bradford Cannon coined the ‘fight or flight’ responses in his 1915 book titled Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage. This work is grounded in physiology, though, the way the body responds–not psychology or trauma theory.

“Freeze” was added later by trauma researchers, and Complex PTSD expert Pete Walker added “fawn” in his 2013 book Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. Fight, flight, and freeze are biologically ancient reactions in animals and humans, while fawning is innately human, rooted in relational trauma. When people “fawn” as a trauma response, their nervous system is helping them survive in a socially unequal power struggle. Generally, those who fawn in a situation will attempt to appease or please their abuser as a response to abuse.

I was not made to fawn. That doesn’t make me any better than someone who fawns, or freezes, or flees; this is just how I am made, deep within the biology of my cells. Because of this, I have a hard time understanding that response because I have witnessed chronically abused children, first-hand, and I just wanted to scream, “STAND UP FOR YOURSELF FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!” Or, “why are you letting her manipulate you like that? You see this is about control, right?”

Perhaps I had to be a fighter in order to thrive after the traumas I experienced as a child and young adult, I don’t know for certain. I am working on being more understanding and accepting that not everyone is made the way I am, and that for some people, standing up for themselves could feel like a death sentence.

I hated watching these children being raised by an emotionally abusive mother, and then their brother was added as an abuser, as well. It was heart-wrenching to see how their response was to fawn. The times they did try to fight, before puberty, their mother put them in their place very quickly; she threatened to kill herself, and they were terrified of her. Even though they’re young adults now, they are still drinking the Kool-Aid, and I mourn the kind of lives they could have had if they didn’t grow up that way.

My life might have been easier if I just fawned over my mother’s demands, her insults, her constant criticisms, and her blatant and excessive coddling of my brother–who was only 15 months younger than I was.

If I fawned instead of fought, I probably wouldn’t have been institutionalized in a mental hospital on my 13th birthday because she just couldn’t handle me. I probably wouldn’t have been constantly grounded for nonsense, including taking away my ability to get to work.

The truth is, I fought her constantly with logic, with reason, with common sense. But emotional abusers are anything but logical and reasonable, especially emotional abusers with personality disorders like borderline, narcissistic personality disorder, and bipolar disorder. I was fighting a battle that I would never win as a minor–but I fought anyway.

By the time I left for college (which I did 100% on my own, without support), I was battle-scarred and seeping from so many wounds–but no one could see them. I was exhausted from the fight, which had gone on for eight years straight. Distance helped immensely and because I was not connected to my abuser in any way, especially emotionally, removing myself nearly completely helped me feel just a little bit closer to normal.

We fighters are very misunderstood because our survival strategy violates social expectations about how pain, fear, vulnerability, and self-advocacy are “supposed” to look. The other trauma responses retreat, appease, or disappear, but we fighters move toward the threat, and that makes people uncomfortable–especially the abusers. However, some abusers, like mine, used it to their advantage.

A fight trauma response looks like a raised voice, firm boundaries, anger, confrontation, or refusal to back down. On the outside looking in, these appear deliberate, like the person fighting is choosing conflict. In reality, this fight response is automatic nervous system mobilization. Our body detects danger, so it prepares to push back in order to survive. In my personal situation, my abuser used it as evidence that I was “difficult,” “impossible,” and “defiant”.

People assume, “that person could control it if they wanted to”, or “they just seem to enjoy conflict” because responses look active rather than passive. We humans are much more comfortable recognizing trauma when it looks like collapse compared to when it looks like resistance.

Anger is one of the least tolerated emotions, especially when it’s expressed by women, children, and marginalized people. When trauma shows up as anger, it gets moralized instead of medicalized. Rather than asking, “What threat taught you to respond in this manner?” people ask:

Why are you so aggressive?

Why can’t you calm down?

What’s wrong with you?

This fight response is misread as a character flaw instead of a complex learned survival skill.

Fighters disrupt people’s comfort and their need for control–especially emotional abusers. Freeze and fawn responses make the other person feel needed, calm, unchallenged, and in charge, whereas fight responses do the exact opposite. Fighters will question authority and push back against unfairness; they refuse to emotionally disappear when mistreated, and will make tension visible and uncomfortable for those in the room.

Systems like families, workplaces, and relationships that rely on silence and compliance are threatened by those who have a fight response. It’s easier to label the fighter as the problem than to examine the environment that required the fight response to begin with.

As much as it pains me to admit this, fight is related to fear and is rarely recognized as such. As humans, we are taught that fear looks like crying, avoidance, withdrawal, and panic, but for fighters, fear looks like increased energy, argument, defensiveness, and readiness, along with a “bring-it-on” attitude. Because fear is hidden inside these other, more aggressive emotions, it’s missed and replaced with incorrect assumptions about hostility and ego. In truth, fight is fear with momentum.

Many fighters grew up where fight was the only protection they had in emotionally abusive, chaotic, or unsafe environments because freeze wasn’t safe–it meant they would be the target. Fawn didn’t work–their needs weren’t respected, nor were their efforts to be nice/good/useful recognized. Flight wasn’t possible because they couldn’t leave and had nowhere to go. So, fight was the only way to maintain dignity, boundaries, or a sense of self.

I want to share a brief story.

When I was 11 years old, my father was out of the house because his heroin habit took over his life. One bitterly cold night, there was a knock at the door. Usually, my mother was working, but she was home that night. My father came to the door asking for food and a blanket. He pawned his leather jacket and was homeless.

I heard his plea and got up from watching my TV program to make him some Campbell’s Chicken Noodle soup, spread some butter on white bread, and take my blanket off my bed, which was gifted to me by my neighbor, Mary. I carefully took these through the living room and was blocked by my mother, who threatened me, belittled me, and cursed me, but I fought back with everything I had to get to the door and give my father food and warmth.

Writing this still fills me with difficult emotions. The trauma of that night is woven into the fibers of who I am. She would not keep me from helping my father without a fight, and, in the end, he had the soup, and I let him keep the blanket.

Culturally, we seem to prefer trauma survivors who are quiet, forgiving, insightful without being threatening, and resilient–but in soft, palatable ways. Fighters complicate the story because we’re not always gentle; we may hold on to anger longer; we may not rush to forgive (or may not forgive at all); we may insist things were wrong and, at least at first, demand retribution if not at least some form of acknowledgment of the wrongdoing done to us. All of this makes us fighters hard to celebrate and easier to dismiss.

If you’re a fighter, I stand in solidarity with you. Fighters are misunderstood because our trauma response looks like aggression instead of fear, choice instead of instinctual reflex, and defiance instead of personal protection. This makes it so much easier to blame us than to recognize the threats we had to deal with every day, and how we learned to survive them.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

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Resources

Cole, P. M., Martin, S. E., & Dennis, T. A. (2004). Emotion regulation as a scientific construct. Child Development, 75(2), 317–333. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2004.00675.x (article)

Marshburn, C. K., Cochran, K. J., Flynn, E., & Levine, L. J. (2020). Workplace anger costs women irrespective of race. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 579884. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.579884 (article)

Perry, Bruce. (2021). What Happened to You? (book)

Riggs, S. A. (2010). Childhood emotional abuse and the attachment system across the life cycle: What theory and research tell us. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 19(1), 5–51. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926770903475968 (article)

Walker, Pete. (2013). Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving (book)

Xu, M. (2025). Reconsider the anger of marginalized communities. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 51(2), e70018. https://doi.org/10.1111/jmft.70018 (article)

Guest Post Disclaimer: This guest post is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing shared here, across CPTSDfoundation.org, any CPTSD Foundation website, our associated communities, or our Social Media accounts, is intended to substitute for or supersede the professional advice and direction of your medical or mental health providers. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CPTSD Foundation. For further details, please review the following: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer