Unaltered Voices

Just because someone does nice things does not mean they are nice people. That is love bombing 101. If you are easily enticed by gestures, they’ve got you. If validation is what you seek, they now know exactly how to hook you. And you need to be very careful with this, because this is how people are conditioned to accept abuse. It starts with excess. Overdoing the nice things. Overcompensating. Making you feel seen, chosen, special. Then comes the explosion. They blow up on you. Hurt you. Cross a line. Afterward, they cry. They apologize. They say they were having a bad day. They insist they never meant to hurt you. They do the thing you like most. You accept the apology. And the cycle begins again. I was beaten so badly once that I cried myself to sleep thinking about how I could take myself out. That night, my body shut down in ways I didn’t understand at the time; I wet the bed. The abuser entered my grandmother’s room to apologize. But by then, something in me had already shifted. ...