After survivors learn the tactics of coercion and attend to their injuries, they can focus on how to respond in ways that empower them and disempower the controller. They do this by learning how to keep abusers’ blame, negation, and gaslighting from having power over them.
Next steps are always scary. We don’t know what they will be like—not really—until we take them. Each of the paths listed above encompasses many steps. We can set off, but we cannot outline each step, each curve, each boulder along the way, and when we think we have to, it stops us from ever setting off.
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