@elly.psychologist: Leaving an emotionally abusive relationship doesn't mean the effects leave with them. That's one of the hardest things to understand when you're trying to recover. When you've been in an emotionally abusive relationship, your nervous system has spent a long time adapting to that person, learning to predict their moods, absorbing their criticisms, adjusting yourself to avoid their reactions. And when they're gone, all of that doesn't just switch off. You start to do it to yourself. You hear their voice in your own head. You guilt trip yourself, criticise yourself, hold yourself back, exactly the way the emotionally abusive relationship taught you to. Getting your confidence back starts with noticing that voice and recognising that it isn't yours. Two things genuinely help with this. The first is checking in with yourself throughout the day, out loud, asking how you actually feel, what you actually want, and letting yourself answer. Hearing your own voice say it out loud does something that just thinking doesn't. The second is making promises to yourself and following through on them. Start with the things you couldn't do in the emotionally abusive relationship and take small steps toward doing them now. Every time you keep a promise to yourself, you rebuild a little bit of the trust that the emotionally abusive relationship took from you. Your nervous system might feel anxious or guilty at first when you start doing this, and that's normal. It was calibrated to someone else for a long time. Give it time to recalibrate to you Official accounts and resources: www.ellyanastasiades.com #relationshiptok #relationshipabuse #emotionalabuse #emotionallyabusiverelationship #abusive

Elly | Counseling Psychologist

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Tuesday 30 June 2026 17:35:00 GMT