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20 | Rebuilding Self-Trust After Manipulation & Abuse

The Messy Middle Podcast

The Messy Middle Podcast
20 | Rebuilding Self-Trust After Manipulation & Abuse
Mar 26, 2026 Episode 20
Erika Leon

If you've ever walked away from a controlling or abusive relationship and found yourself completely frozen over the smallest decisions — what to wear, whether to text someone back, what to order for lunch — this episode is for you.

It's not just that you stop trusting them after manipulation, control, or abuse. You stop trusting yourself.

And that's the part nobody really talks about. Your internal compass gets scrambled. Not because you're broken, but because you were trained to override it. Over time, the loudest voice in your head stops being yours. It becomes theirs. And once you understand that, everything starts to make a little more sense.

In this episode, we cover:

  • Why making even basic decisions can feel debilitating after leaving a controlling relationship
  • How self-trust gets eroded slowly and quietly, not all at once
  • Why that harsh inner critic voice is often not yours, and whose it actually is
  • Why big, dramatic reinventions won't rebuild self-trust, and what actually will
  • How to use micro-decisions as daily medicine for your nervous system
  • What the freeze response really looks like, and how to gently bring choice back online
  • The guilt wave that shows up when you start putting yourself first 
  • A simple end-of-day journaling practice to start reconnecting with your own signals

You don't rebuild self-trust with grand gestures or sweeping life overhauls.

You rebuild it by choosing your lunch for the right reasons, leaving when you said you would, or following a tiny impulse and noticing how your body responds.

It's unsexy. It's repetitive. And it is some of the most radical work you will ever do.

You didn't lose your intuition. It just hasn't been listened to in a very long time. Let's change that.

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