How Abusers Isolate You From Friends, Family, and the World Beyond
Abuse is about control and one of the most insidious forms of abuse is controlling your connections — who you see, who you talk to, what doors remain open to you. It’s not always obvious at first. It can feel like “concern,” or “protection,” or “preference.” But over time, it becomes a slow lockdown of your world until you feel like you have no one but them.
Unfortunately, I’ve lived this in a few different scenarios.
I’ve been in situations where I felt completely isolated. Where I couldn’t be honest with friends or family, or had to weigh whether the joy of seeing a friend was worth the fight that would come after. I’ve found myself living in an area, city, state that didn’t feel like home and so far outside my comfort zone that loneliness became its own kind of prison.
In one chapter of my life, I was living in the country without friends or family nearby. The few who were close enough, I couldn’t see often — or not without consequences. In this particular case, I don’t believe the choice of where to live was part of the “control” but the result on my mental health was striking and added to everything else I was dealing with at the time. This new lifestyle was the opposite of my life in Los Angeles, where I could walk into a coffee shop, go to a gym, or attend a gathering and feel instantly connected. Instead, I found myself alone, cut off, and for many other reasons, questioning whether I should even try to reach for connection.
