If you are wondering whether you caused the abuse, I want to say this clearly before anything else. You didn’t.Nothing you did caused someone else to choose abuse.

Many trauma survivors talk about a feeling of being “dirty” that no amount of washing seems to touch. They shower, they scrub, they change clothes, they try again, and still something feels wrong. Logically, they know they are clean. It can feel confusing, embarrassing, and isolating, and it often leads people to wonder whether something is wrong with them.

One of the most frustrating parts of healing is realizing that insight doesn’t always change how you feel. You can understand that what happened was abuse. You can name the manipulation. You can see the patterns clearly now. You can know that leaving was the right choice. And still, you miss them.