Gaslighting. Narcissistic behaviour. Coercive control.

Unfortunately, these have become common terms in the society we live in—but strangely about 20 years ago a lot of these terms didn’t exist or were unrecognised.

Labels have been placed to confuse the simplistic of terms of domestic abuse.

This now comes in so many different forms that the world has become a scary place for people who don’t know the signs. For those who experience this horrific abuse, the realisation that they have been a victim can sometimes hurt more than the abuse itself.

This is a descriptive account of what it’s like to discover being a victim. It’s graphic but it needed to be to show the painful extent of realisation.

You are not alone if you have been a victim and please, seek help, seek counselling to build back the walls and to give you the hope of escape.

We know the truth before the words hit us in the gut.

They feel like sharp incisions of gut-rotting words deep in our souls. It blackens the once glowing beacon of hope as it bleeds the blackest blood, pulling all that was good about them screaming into the void of emotionless solitude.

“I’m sorry to say but it sounds like you are a victim of…” the rest of the words don’t matter because we know how that sentence ends.

Believing the devil’s lies were the jester’s gravest mistake as they danced in front of our eyes, tipping the hats we wear as the bells rang in our ears like noisy red flags. The wry smile licking its way across the made-up face of a clown who laughs their tears away, hidden by the confusion of the manipulated mind that sits in the broken skull. The uninvited demons wreak havoc as they twist and turn the gaslights, lighting up a false reality that ultimately caused the pain they are now unleashing.

How could we have been so stupid to let our minds be corrupted so deeply?

The strength we thought we had was torn away like the devil claws scratching at the fabric of their reality. What is real no longer matters because they no longer matter. The strings of the puppet master attached fully to the arms of the dancing fool, dancing to the beat of the narcissistic drums, and beating us down emotionally until we feel nothing but what they want us to feel.

How does one find the strength to cut the strings that control their moves? We can’t reach for freedom. One twist of the arm, and it’s out of reach—the shiny scissors flashing the light of hope are just out of reach.

The words of the therapist continue to echo through deaf hollow ears, each breath taken is louder than a thousand alarm bells bringing an eruption of emotional tears flooding our faces, a tsunami of sorry and anger consume—drowning us in the deepest well of self-pity.

People sent warnings but the words fell silent as the jester dismissed them all before they could find their way to us. 

“You only need me.”

Looking back at the way family was surgically removed with the precision of a surgeon. Slicing the umbilical cords of blood and replacing them with the twisted tortured tube of a monster’s life force, seeping through the veins—replacing the faces of the familiar with the face of one.

How could we have been so stupid?

The broken shell of a beautiful human wants to be whole again but this battle is just beginning. The strength needed to defeat the evil awaiting is going to be more than we think they have—but we cannot love a life that isn’t real. Reality begins to hit hard as the memories of things that didn’t add up fill the senses with a putrid concoction of deception and coercive behaviours.

It’s time to regain control, to see the devil clearly for the first time staring back at them, the masks slipping away revealing the disfigured true face of lies.

“I see you now.”

This phoenix will rise again, but the test now is time.