How Do I Know If I'm in an Emotionally Abusive Relationship? Watch for These Signs

"How do I know if I'm in an emotionally abusive relationship?" asks a YouTube listener. 

In this episode, Dr. Kerry explains why even asking this question is an important sign of possible trouble. Dr Kerry will outline what emotional abuse actually looks like (hint: it's not about one-off incidents—it's about patterns) and why you might feel like you're shrinking or walking on eggshells.  Abusive relationships turn people into functional objects instead of letting them shine as a fully autonomous and complex person. 

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• The Complete Recovery Collection: Narcissistic abuse resources
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• Toxic-Free Relationship Club: Live coaching & community support

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Kerry Kerr McAvoy, Ph.D, a retired psychologist & author, is an expert on cultivating healthy relationships and deconstructing narcissism. 

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Transcript

How Do I Know If I'm in an Emotionally Abusive Relationship_ Watch for These Signs

Dr. Kerry: [00:00:00] Some people actually feel better when they make other people feel upset. They're actually regulating themselves on the back of your upsetness. Have you ever had those, one of those moments where you're really hurt and really just worked up over something and you know the other person doesn't feel that pain, and so you actually.

Create a moment of tension or upsetness in them, so now they're upset. So you can feel kind of almost smug like now you know how it feels in that moment. We're using their dysregulation to regulate ourselves. Abuse often happens like that.

Welcome to fan mail, a space where I answer your real questions about toxic relationships, narcissistic abuse, and the long road to healing. 

Thank you so much for those of you who send in your questions. I always appreciate the time and the vulnerability that it takes to. Ask somebody else for their opinion.

I take this extremely seriously. To me, this is a sacred [00:01:00] privilege to be invited into your deepest questions. Someone just recently asked me a question of how do I know that I'm in a toxic or an emotionally abusive relationship? This was a YouTube listener, and thank you so much YouTube listener for asking me this question.

Just the fact that you're asking it to me suggests that you're noticing something, something that's disturbing you. Maybe it's the way that you're feeling in this relationship, the way that which you feel you can only show up in a very limited way, in a restricted way, that you can't fully be yourself.

And here's some things that we need to remember. Everybody once in a while has a bad moment and loses it. So it's not about the one-off incidences, but rather the patterns that we see in these relationships. Abusive relationships are about dynamics that get repeated, that stifle your individuality, that make it feel not okay or not safe for you to be you.

Where you start to feel like your reality or your perceptions or your memory are being questioned when you feel like you can't. Be emotional, have reactions or have [00:02:00] opinions. It's a stifling that occurs in which you essentially are not allowed to be a full autonomous free agent in this relationship, but rather you're trying to, to keep another person happy that you're there to serve their needs or to serve their wishes.

What happens to abusive relationships is that we don't allow each other to show up as full functional people, but rather we feel like we have to be. To be of service or of a role. We're the good wife or we're the provider, we're the studious daughter, or maybe we, we even maybe be the acting out rebellious son.

But we end up being cons constrained to, to a function or a set of functions instead allowing to be complex, to be expansive, to explore, to discover, but rather we feel like we're walking on eggshells or pins and needles. We feel like we have to be super careful in making sure that we don't set off something or that we, uh, care take another person's feelings.

So. This is [00:03:00] partly, as you notice, that I've been describing what happens inside of us, how we experience our sense of being in this relationship, but it's also what we're getting is requests or expectations from the other person. Are there non-negotiables that you don't, you don't, don't align with you?

Are you feeling like you're being stifled? Is it feel like you actually can't show up and can't express? Are you feeling very limited in being able to, um. Have, have a differing opinion. These are the types of things that really begin to shape a relationship that's dysfunctional. It's abuse is when we're doing something in this service for another person at the detriment of ourself.

It's, it's a pattern of, of restriction or a pattern of caretaking that really. Limits the way that you get to be who you want to be. And the way that we often recognize this initially is a sense of confusion that we don't know what's happening, but we just know that we don't feel ourselves, that we feel afraid, or we feel like we have to be [00:04:00] really careful, or we start to find ourselves saying, I can't say that, or I can't go there.

That you start to feel yourself shrinking in order to keep the peace in this relationship. Those are warning signs that you're in a, a relationship that may not be very healthy. Unfortunately, not everybody has the ability to, to take care of themselves well, to regulate their emotions. And what we often do when we feel that limitation is we lean on something or lean on someone as a way to, to, to augment ourselves or as a way to stabilize ourselves.

A great example of that is let's just look at what happens with children. Children, mind brain is still growing into the twenties and they're not very good at stuff. They're learning things. And so, for example, maybe you have a, a young child who's not very good at math and, and they come home with a, a project that they don't know how to do very well.

And so what are they gonna do? They're gonna ask you to sit down with them and they're gonna ask you to help. But what they're looking for is actually they usually want us to do the work. Not to learn [00:05:00] how to do the work they lean into us and then use our skills in lieu of theirs in order to help them overcome that obstacle.

That's sort of a, you know, is that normal? Absolutely. That's a completely normal experience. But as a good parent, you know that you need to resist that, and you're not gonna let them do the lean into you to use your wisdom, but you're gonna encourage them to learn how to do the thinking on their own, so that when they encounter the math problem at school, at the next test, they can actually solve the problem.

But imagine that you have an adult who's not learned how to do life, learned not how to do conflict or to do stressful things, and this person leans into you to ask you to smooth life over. Uh, you know, make all the rough spots go away. Make never upset them. Don't, don't trigger them or up, don't create anger for them.

What they're essentially doing is they're looking to you to, at the cost of you, at the cost of your skills and your wisdom [00:06:00] and your experience to soothe over the life, the parts of life that they don't want to deal with or they don't know how to deal with very well in order to make that easier for them.

And maybe you're a really compassionate person and you think, well, what's wrong with. This would, why is that a problem? Well, it's a problem when they never learned to do it for themselves. Just if you always did your child's homework around math, they won't be able to go do the math on their own. They're gonna be handicapped by that.

And in the same way in adult relationships for us. Fixing things for other people who are struggling with regulation or conflict resolution, or maybe even how to communicate tough things like being vulnerable or showing up or resisting impulses, like not cheating or not lying. When we smooth them over, we're actually not.

Teach they're not learning on their own how not to do that and what the, the bigger issue with these relationships is often these individuals know that they should be doing this and they don't want to. They're, they're, they're, it's either [00:07:00] because they're, it's, it takes work and we don't like. To take work.

We don't like hard things, but also maybe they enjoy the, the being negative. They enjoy the release of being upsetting because here's one of the things that I just recently was talking to one of my club members doing a coaching call and a toxic free relationship club. Some people actually feel better when they make other people feel upset.

They're actually regulating themselves on the back of your upsetness. Have you ever had those, one of those moments where you're really hurt and really up. It just worked up over something and you know the other person doesn't feel that pain, and so you actually create a moment of tension or upsetness in them, so now they're upset.

So you can feel kinda almost smug like now you know how it feels in that moment. We're using their dysregulation to regulate ourselves. Abuse often happens like that. It's the other person's difficulty with managing the challenges of life, and they're asking you to do the hard work by you regulating them, by you [00:08:00] supplying them by you, caretaking them, emotionally, caretaking them, or not upsetting them as a way for them to keep stable, to feel regulated, to feel okay.

That's not okay. That's not your job. Your job is for you to be you, for you to show up as you, to express yourself, to have the best life that you can and, and to do it in a, a relationship that brings out the best in you. That's what should be happening on both sides of this relationship. So if you're feeling confused or you're feeling less than, or smaller or scared, or if you feeling like you really can't show up and express who you are.

That's probably not a safe relationship. That's probably an abusive or a toxic relationship, so. Here's some things to kind of think about. If you're constantly questioning your own reality, perception or sanity, that's a red flag. Maybe you don't like who you've become, you become quieter or smaller, or more anxious, less confident.

Are you sensing yourself? Are you managing your words? Are you walking on eggshells? [00:09:00]That's a sign that you're probably in a toxic relationship. Are you finding out that there's no repair? When there's a breach or there's a conflict? Do you feel like you're doing the apologizing for somebody else who should be apologizing?

Watch the patterns, not the exceptions. Abusive people are often charming, loving, and wonderful sometimes, which makes it all the more confusing. But watch for the times. It involves contempt or control, or manipulation, or when they make you feel worthless. Those are the moments that reveal the truth about your relationship, about how healthy it is.

So if you're feeling confused and you're wondering, or you're feeling less than, I probably assign things are not as good as you wish they were. So thank you so much for this really wonderful question. And if you have a question you'd like me to answer on air, please send it to email at clients with an S-C-L-I-E-N-T-S clients@kerrymcavoyphd.com.

Or use the link that I've included in the show notes for you to submit your, [00:10:00] your biggest question and I'd love to tackle it on air. And thank you once again for this trust.