If You’re Worried You “Did Things Too”
Almost every survivor of psychological abuse asks this at some point:
“But I yelled back.”
“I threw something once.”
“I said awful things too.”
“I stayed even when I knew.”
“I forgave him. Doesn’t that make it my fault?’
You’re not alone and you’re not disqualified from justice.
The Truth: You Reacted to Chaos
Courts, police, and advocates don’t expect calm sainthood under coercion. They know people in these relationships eventually react to being cornered, provoked, or rewritten. That reaction isn’t abuse, it’s a symptom of being controlled.
Abusers create chaos and then hand you the blame for losing composure. They poke, prod, withhold, gaslight, and when you finally break, they smile and say, “See? You’re the crazy one.” It’s a trap. It’s designed to turn your survival response into their evidence.
The difference between abuse and reaction is always pattern and power:
- Abuse is about control — a consistent effort to dominate, intimidate, or undermine.
- Reaction is about survival — the moment you fought to be heard or stay sane.
You may have yelled, slammed doors, said things you regret, or even broken up mid-argument. That doesn’t make it “mutual abuse.” It means you were trying to escape a situation that was psychologically unlivable.
The “I Stayed Too Long” Guilt
You might be stuck on the thought, “But I stayed. I forgave him. I kept going back.”
That wasn’t weakness, that was trauma logic. You stayed because you were still hoping it could change, because you believed your love might fix it, because you didn’t yet have the words “coercive control” to describe it.
Abuse doesn’t show up with warning labels. It arrives disguised as potential, apologies, and “he’s just been through a lot.” Staying isn’t consent. Forgiving isn’t permission. Both are signs of your empathy being weaponised against you.
And when you finally broke? When you said horrible things, when you lashed out, when you ended it mid-argument. that was your nervous system doing what your mind couldn’t: protecting you from collapse.
What “Reacting” Looks Like in Real Life
- Raising your voice after hours of being baited or stonewalled.
- Throwing something small — not to scare, but to release the pressure that’s been building for months.
- Sending angry messages after being ignored or gaslit for days.
- Breaking up mid-argument because you couldn’t survive one more round of manipulation.
- Forgiving them again and again, even after new lies, because you wanted to believe this time was real.
- Begging them to listen, and later hating yourself for it.
These aren’t acts of domination; they’re proof you were cornered and still trying to claw back a sense of reality. That’s not abuse, that’s the sound of someone fighting to stay human.
Ask Yourself This
When the dust settled:
- Who felt smaller when it ended?
- Who apologised first? Every single time?
- Who was scared of who?
- Who had to keep the peace, and who broke it?
Those answers tell the story. You can’t “mutually abuse” someone if the power always flowed one way.
The Legal Reality
Court isn’t therapy: it’s about patterns, not perfection. No one expects a victim of coercive control to have behaved like a saint while being psychologically waterboarded.
Judges and advocates look for intent, repetition, and control, not one-off moments of anger or exhaustion.
It’s also common for abusers to flip the narrative, accusing you of “being just as bad.” They know your guilt will do half their work for them. The system recognises this tactic. In fact, false counter-allegations are often treated as part of the coercive pattern itself.
Courts deal in relevant evidence, not morality tests. Your trauma responses don’t cancel out their calculated behaviour.
For Anyone Thinking “But I Said Awful Things”
You probably did. Most survivors did. That’s what happens when months or years of self-denial finally combust. You said the unsayable, because you’d spent too long swallowing the unbearable.
That doesn’t make you cruel, it makes you human under siege. The difference is, you felt remorse. They felt entitlement.
If you could go back, you’d handle it differently. They wouldn’t. That’s the line between trauma and temperament.
The “Forgave Them” Trap
Maybe you stayed. Maybe you forgave them a hundred times. Maybe you defended them to your friends, or said “it’s complicated.” That’s not complicity, that’s survival under emotional conditioning.
Abusers count on your hope. They weaponise your empathy. You didn’t enable their cruelty; you believed their promises because you were still capable of believing in love.
That’s not foolishness. That’s humanity.
The Law, and the Judges in Silly Wigs, See That
Even if you cried, yelled, forgave, or mirrored some of their tactics, the power still ran one way. And the law recognises that.
Under the Serious Crime Act 2015 s.76, coercive control is defined by pattern and effect, not by who raised their voice once or who stormed out mid-argument. The system looks at who was scared, who had freedom, and who didn’t.
In plain English: you were surviving, not abusing.
Dear Diary, WTF? Takeaway
Abuse doesn’t erase your humanity. You don’t have to prove sainthood to deserve safety or justice.
You can be angry, messy, contradictory, and still be the one who was controlled. The fact you stayed, forgave, and still tried? That’s not your shame; that’s your proof of empathy. The fact they needed power to feel safe? That’s their pathology.
Dear diary, WTF? Turns out “I said horrible things once” doesn’t cancel “they dismantled my life.”
