Keresse Thompson, LCSW

10/17/2026

Thank you for breaking my heart. ❤️

10/17/2026

One of the most psychologically damaging parts of emotional abuse is when someone pushes you to your breaking point and then uses your reaction to convince you that YOU are the abusive one.

It often starts with something as simple as trying to express that you’ve been hurt.

Instead of being met with empathy, you’re dismissed, invalidated, blamed, or made to feel like your feelings are the problem.

You try explaining yourself differently. You try harder to be understood. But the more you try to communicate, the more the conversation escalates.

Eventually, your nervous system becomes overwhelmed.

You’re crying. You’re panicking. You’re desperate to be heard. You’re no longer responding from a place of emotional regulation. You’re responding from a place of distress.

And then suddenly, the person who was just provoking you becomes completely calm.

“Look at you.”

“This is exactly why I can’t be with you.”

“You’re crazy.”

And sometimes, they pull out their phone and start recording.

Think about the psychological impact of that.

Someone can spend an entire argument invalidating, provoking, and emotionally overwhelming you, only to capture the moment your nervous system finally reaches its limit.

The recording shows your reaction.

But what it may not show is everything that happened before it.

And now that reaction becomes the focus of the entire conversation.

This is where DARVO can come into play:

Deny: They deny or minimize the behavior that caused the original hurt.

Attack: They shift the focus onto your emotional response.

Reverse Victim and Offender: They position themselves as the victim while portraying you as the aggressor.

And one of the most devastating consequences is what happens afterward.

You start questioning yourself.

Am I actually the abusive one?

Am I the narcissist?

Did I cause all of this?

Maybe they’re right about me.

This is where cognitive dissonance can become incredibly painful.

You’re trying to make sense of two conflicting realities: what you experienced and what you’ve been led to believe about yourself.

Context matters.

10/16/2026

10/14/2026

One of the most frustrating things about emotional abuse is when your reaction becomes the evidence that YOU’RE the problem, instead of the behavior that caused it.

Someone repeatedly lies to you, betrays your trust, dismisses your feelings, or creates instability in the relationship.

And eventually, you react.

Maybe you cry. Maybe you get angry. Maybe you start questioning everything. Maybe you become anxious, hypervigilant, or find yourself acting in ways you don’t even recognize.

And suddenly, THAT becomes the focus.

You’re too emotional. You’re insecure. You’re controlling. You’re crazy. You’re the reason the relationship isn’t working.

And somehow, the conversation shifts from what they did to how you responded.

Now you’re defending your reaction instead of addressing the behavior that hurt you in the first place.

And that s**t can really mess with your head because eventually you start believing that maybe you ARE the problem.

Here’s the thing: Being hurt doesn’t automatically justify every reaction. You’re still responsible for your behavior. But so are they.

Two things can be true at once.

You can recognize that you didn’t respond in the healthiest way AND recognize that you were responding to something genuinely harmful.

Accountability shouldn’t be something only one person is expected to have.

And sometimes healing isn’t just about learning how to regulate your emotions.

It’s about recognizing when you’ve been trying to regulate yourself enough to tolerate behavior that continues to hurt you.

Because your reaction might be something you need to work on, but it doesn’t erase what happened before it.

And someone pointing to your reaction doesn’t automatically make them innocent.

10/14/2026

Your brain doesn’t have to experience a war zone to be affected by trauma.

And I think this is something people really need to understand about emotional and narcissistic abuse.

When you’re repeatedly exposed to fear, unpredictability, manipulation, betrayal, or emotional abuse, your nervous system can start responding as though danger is always around the corner.

You become hypervigilant. You overanalyze someone’s tone. You anticipate their moods. You struggle to relax, even when nothing is actively happening.

And sometimes, long after the relationship ends, your body is still responding to threats that are no longer there.

What’s interesting is that neuroimaging research has found trauma-related differences in brain regions involved in emotion regulation, memory, and threat processing in both combat veterans with PTSD and survivors of intimate partner violence.

That doesn’t mean their brain scans are identical. But it does mean we need to stop minimizing the psychological impact of abuse simply because there aren’t visible injuries.

And here’s something else I want people to understand.

You don’t have to be physically assaulted for a relationship to have a serious psychological impact on you.

Trauma isn’t a competition.

You don’t have to compare your experiences to someone else’s to justify why you’re struggling.

And experiencing these symptoms doesn’t mean you’re permanently damaged.

Healing is possible. Your nervous system can learn safety again. And the way you’re responding today doesn’t have to be the way you respond forever.

Just because the abuse wasn’t visible doesn’t mean the impact wasn’t real. 🤍

Research referenced:
Seedat et al. (2005), Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.
Likitlersuang et al. (2022), Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation.

10/13/2026

Do you over give or over function in relationships? I created this journal for you!

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10/13/2026

Healing from Narcissistic Abuse? My self trust journal is now live! So many describe feeling a loss of sense of self after Narcissistic Abuse. I created this journal for exactly this! How to regain trust with yourself

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10/12/2026

No one villainizes you more than someone who you see right through…