Healing from Crazy-Making

If you’ve found your way here, it’s likely that you’re feeling discouraged, angry, or just plain exhausted. Maybe you’re tired of being used or walked over. Perhaps you’re feeling lonely, scared, or unsure of your own instincts. You might even be questioning your sanity. Whether you’re desperately flailing or simply in need of better grounding, you’re not alone.

Is This Change For Real?

When things have gotten dire enough to seek help, it’s often hard to know what to count on from your spouse regarding the future of your relationship. You desperately want to plant your feet into something solid and reliable.  Therefore, it makes complete sense that you’d want to know if the changes being made are “real.” So, how can you tell?

Healing Together

It is common for couples to remain in a relationship even when emotional abuse has been part of the picture. Even when the pressure of staying together is removed, she may still choose to stay for multiple layers of valid reasons. We need to create a road map to help them move toward healing together or, at least, help her detach from the abuse with good boundaries, strong character, and a safety plan to stay well.

Abuse as Misplaced Responsibility

Many of my clients start their story by saying, “It has taken me way too long to get the courage to speak up about this. I am so ashamed of letting myself stay in this abuse for so long!” They often feel a sense of misplaced responsibility, thinking they could have have seen and stopped it. Or that they should have been better, sexier, more fun, a better housekeeper, more submissive, more respectful. They often believe that if they were just less selfish, they could have made him happy. “If I had just done it differently, I could have figured this out and fixed it.”

Denying the Reality of Spiritual Abuse

We have a great propensity to deny what we don’t want to see. It’s often hard to imagine anyone being as cruel as the spouse you hear about in your clients’ experiences. When this person is someone you also know from your community or church, the denial can be fierce.

Staring Abuse in the Face

One of the devastating effects of prolonged narcissistic abuse is gaslighting, leading victims to doubt their own sanity. She may ask herself if she is the narcissist because she has begun to internalize the abuser’s accusations.

Crazy…or Courageous?

The hard part is confronting our prideful need to feel in control of our circumstances. Trusting God enough to follow Him to some crazy places means that we allow ourselves to be vulnerable to the unknown and the unsafe.