An insight into coercive control from two survivors and their experiences of isolation, lost confidence, and finding their voice
You’re in the honeymoon phase of your relationship, infatuated and adoring your partner, they seem exactly what you’re looking for and your imagination plays out this perfect life you will have with them. You fall in love with your partner, and as love blinds you, these rules and barriers start being brought in:
“You can’t see your friends today”, “I need to look at your receipts from today”, “You’re using too much water, you’ll have to use less” — These are a few examples of coercive control the previous partners brought in for trauma survivors Elizabete and Filiz, both of which are finding/have found their authentic self , voice, and freedom again. They kindly shared their experience to help others not fall into the same situation they found themselves in.
In agreeing and going along with these so-called “norms” of relationships, you are signing your name to the Terms & Conditions — in what you believe is an act of love and loyalty. You may see their controlling jealousy as a sign that they “love me”.
The relationship shifts further, disagreements become interrogations, you are being belittled, criticised, your loyalty is brought into question. When Elizabete would stand up to moments of degradation from her partner, he would reply with lines such as:
“Why are you always trying to have an argument with me?”
“I didn’t do that, and if I did, you just misinterpreted it”
Elizabete: “ And if all of that would not work, he would end up laying on the floor he would cry.”
Filiz described the feeling of constant uncertainty: “The relationship was marred by not knowing where the goal posts were, feeling like I was constantly walking on eggshells”.
You’re apologising for things that require no apology, losing confidence making even the smallest of decisions, losing your voice without realising it.
Elizabete: “He would say, ‘How can you be so cold? You were just enjoying seeing me crying. You Elizabete, you always put me down’ so he turned it around as if I am the reason he’s crying… I started spending time on my own chatting with Chad GPT thinking okay maybe I am too harsh sometimes.”
Filiz was still a teenager when she met her partner, who was considerably older than her, which he would use to dismantle her self-confidence: “’You are lucky to be with me as I am looking after you and your mother. I picked you up from the gutter from the street’. The fact that he hadn’t, I was 17 years old and he installed fear into me in order to get me to go to Egypt with him”.
“I found it difficult to trust my own judgment as I had no autonomy for many years. This really impacted me as I just felt quite unsure, lacked confidence and sought others to help me decide what I needed to do”.
Coercive control does not arrive all at once, it happens gradually, using criticism, shaming, and emotional withdrawal, to subtly dominate. The gradual erosion of your freedom, confidence, and sense of self follows.
What is Coercive Control?
Coercive control can occur alongside physical and/or sexual abuse, but is predominantly characterised by prohibiting behaviours and freedom, including isolation, threats, psychological manipulation, financial control, technology-facilitated control, stalking.
It is not a form of abuse that is easily visible, like bruises on the skin from physical abuse, it is the slow and quiet dismantling of a person’s sense of self, silencing their voice and separating them from the people around them.
The abuser will target their partners vulnerabilities, often psychological or financial in nature, to entrap them in their relationship, fostering dependency and a feeling they are unable to leave their partner.
Elizabete: “My mum used to tell me as a kid I was always so unsatisfied with everything, I still remember it and I shared that with him. And once I shared that with him, his go-to phrase was, ‘yeah, you’re always just so unsatisfied’.
Filiz: “He would give me £20, that is what I was earning from my Saturday job, so that I didn’t go to work, this was his way of controlling me and isolating me from friends”.
“He knew what buttons to press for me to do his bidding, I just remember being in a state of fear until I had left the UK. He painted himself as my saviour”.
Victims of coercive control within relationships is not exclusive to women, even though the examples used in this article and much of the scientific research involve the female perspective of heterosexual relationships.
The abuser of the controlling relationship is often narcissistic in nature because control and dominance become ways to protect their own fragile sense of self. Hence, why they often gravitate towards people who are empathic and pure of heart, to exploit it.
Or come from a childhood where they themselves had no freedom, no agency, and ultimately no control. Who had authoritarian and emotionally unavailable parents growing up, learning early in life that love meant obedience, not togetherness and connection. Making their partner feel small and silenced, as they experienced themselves as a child.
Filiz: He had a rather sad childhood in the sense that his mother had died young and his stepmother had not been emotionally available. His father was in the police and had a lot of power and influence but again had died when he was in his teens. His Summer’s were spent with his grandfather in Alexandria on the coast, he was a wealthy man and he was looked after well. This was a man who felt entitled and was emotionally unavailable for his family and whose only real priority was himself. He preyed on a vulnerable teenager for his own gratification, he just wanted someone to look after him.
The Slow Erosion of Confidence
Confidence rarely disappears overnight, but leaves quietly. Not a singular event but a building of criticism, disrespect, and contempt. Overtime, a person who once trusted themselves, begins to hesitate.
Filiz: “He would complain all the time, ‘oh you didn’t do this, you didn’t do that’. He was a control freak, money wasn’t an issue as he had a decent income and there was money in the bank but he was very tight, even down to how much water was being used. I decided to not take showers so that I could water my plants as he would make an issue about the volume of water that I was using.”
Elizabete: “At the very beginning, I was the most beautiful person in the world… Maybe three, four, five months after that, all compliments all together disappeared completely.”
What underlying message does this tell the victims? That, ‘I am not worthy of being treated with respect, love, and care’. Repeated incidents of coercive control that cause victims feelings of shame and confusion. Importantly, these are not just the notable bad instances, but the lack of positive and uplifting moments of “I love you”, “you look beautiful today” — which are much harder to notice.
Eventually, even the smallest decisions become overwhelming. They stop voicing their opinions, needs and criticisms, having internalised the belief that their thoughts and feelings are somehow less important than everyone else’s.
Filiz: “You’ve lost all your confidence, I felt like I couldn’t leave the house without feeling like it was a big thing. I felt that I had no control over my life, because he ruled what I did and where I went. I felt that I had no purpose, I felt so depressed… I lost my appetite and felt like the lights within me were dimming”.
Let alone the bravery and recognition of self-worth needed to leave a relationship, becoming locked into the emotionally abusive relationship and suffering in silence. Scientific research supports that many partners become isolated from family and friends, something which strengthens the abusers control. Without the clarity of the outside perspective, moments of coercive control become normalised. Couples often move away from the victim’s family, making it physically more difficult to return home. Overtime, the isolation deepens the silence and erodes the confidence to leave.
Elizabete spoke about having a thriving social life that included travelling and financial security when she lived alone. When Elizabete and her partner lived together in her accommodation, despite being a two-income household, somehow money became scarce – not helped by her partner’s gambling. They moved away from the city and into the suburbs at his mum’s house to “save money”:
“When we met I had a life that I enjoyed. I lived in the city centre. I had my university studies. I had a few small group of friends. I would go with girls like to see a movie or to a bar or to Pilates. I was socialising and I enjoy being around people… For the last I don’t know maybe four or five months I was just sitting at home. I was just laying in my bed. I would get out of bed just to use the bathroom. I wouldn’t wash my hair. I wouldn’t care to do my makeup”.
Filiz spoke about her love of music and being in a band with many friends. How he would sabotage her school exams and part-time work, install fear into her to persuade her to leave with him to Egypt, where she spent 7 years living in Alexandria and marrying her partner at 19 years old. Her mum initially did not know she was in Egypt and was reported as a missing person.
Escaping The Abuser
To be conclusive and make the decisive step to end the so-called relationship and escape the abuser can arrive in a moment of clarity. Or other times it can be something small that can tip the scales towards unlocking the inner strength to escape. A recognition that the cost of staying outweighs the cost of leaving. Not an instantaneous decision to then leave, but a thought that dwells and builds until the time arrives.
Elizabete: “The last drop was finding out he cheated on me”.
It’s important to understand this is the most dangerous time for the victim, as the abuser starts to lose their control they escalate their behaviour.
Elizabete: “He came closer to me saying ‘No, what are you doing, you’re not going anywhere’. I was crying, I ran to the bathroom with him following me and grabbing me. I was scared.”
Elizabete went on to describe the physical abuse she sustained from her acts of self-defence against her partner. When the police arrived, she recounts that he sat on he grass, cried in front of them, and alleged that Elizabete attacked him. When the police wrote up their report, they labelled her as the attacker.
For Filiz, despite being back in the UK at this point with her husband and his cognitive function and general health declining, he would still try to persuade her to stay with financial incentives. Her mum was very instrumental in her escaping her husband.
Rebuilding: Life After Coercive Control
You’ve left your partner and ties are severed, life that now return to normal and be lived fully and freely? Not quite, what can sometimes be years worth of gaslighting and emotional imprisonment, the victim finds difficulty trusting their own judgement, with the echoes from the abuser still ringing in their ears of not being worthy or capable. If the relationship also included physical or sexual abuse, the victim can often live in fear of encountering them again.
Filiz: “I had lost 16 years of my life and coming to terms with this took years as I found it difficult to process. The realisation that I had been groomed and had not stood a chance and trying to come to terms with this was what really messed up my head”.
“I do feel that by working in domiciliary care after I had left him helped me rebuild myself and my confidence. It gave me character and resilience which is what I needed after my oppressive marriage”.
According to a paper that interviewed 16 women with history of coercive controlling relationships, guilt, shame, and worthlessness remained prevalent for a significant period of time following the ending of the abusive relationship, many reported anxiety and flashbacks.
The Past Doesn’t Have To Repeat Itself
Another study by Maria Barnes and her colleges interviewed over 2,000 women to find a connection between childhood trauma and abusive relationships during adulthood. Specifically, they looked at child maltreatment, witnessing parental domestic violence, bullying by peers by age 12, loneliness during adolescence, and loneliness in young adulthood — in these varied traumatic experiences mentioned here, I notice a theme of young people unseen, alone, who suffered in silence.
Of the women that experienced at least one traumatic experience mentioned above, nearly all experienced abuse within a relationship, and most had been multi-victimised.
The relationships we are drawn to as adults are often shaped by early life experiences, when our developing brains are most supple and impressionable. During this delicate time, if love is experienced through inconsistency, neglect, criticism, or conditional approval, this is how we believe love looks like. If we miss out on simple needs, such as hearing “I love you” or “You’re special”, we grow into adults carrying depleted self-worth in our subconscious. Often, how we felt in our bodies on a regular basis in our childhood homes, we continue into adulthood — it is our normality.
The abusive partner will often start the relationship intensely loving or representative of something unfilled during childhood. And when the relationship evolves in a controlling one, it can feel recognisable rather than alarming, when childhood needs of safety, love, and warmth are unmet.
Elizabete: “He would say that I am the most beautiful woman in the world and open up to me about how his mum never loved him and dad who left when he was a baby and tell me that I’m special because I was empathetic to him. This is what triggered me, to feel special and get lots of compliments”.
Healing
The word “heal” derives from the ancient meaning of “whole”, therefore, to heal is to become more whole.
To find wholeness is to recognise the life led that brought you to the controlling partner. And to understand that you are not the harsh names or criticism the abuser projected onto you — that is only a representation of themselves, a discharge of their own inner anguish and negative energy.
Nor are you defined by the lack of warmth and love received as a child that made you vulnerable to controlling parters. Awareness of this actuality opens the door for compassion and true unconditional self-love to be invited in. From here, you stop asking the world to prove you are lovable.
Working with the subconscious mind, human beings have an amazing ability to heal old wounds and shift our psyche into healthier places. With hypnotherapy, we are able to tap into our subconscious mind and areas of our nervous system still holding onto trauma and heal from the ground upwards.
This is where the ancient meaning of healing being wholeness becomes so prevalent, because we are reconnecting with younger versions of ourselves stored within us and allowing unconditional self-love to remind yourself that you are whole and worthy of authentic love and kindness.
From here, you no longer chase the energy you desire of “worthiness” — you become it. And now true romantic relationships, which are one of the most beautiful parts of life, can be born.
Closing
The experience of living in a coercive controlling relationship is a silent struggle. The isolation of being taken away from friends and family and the degradation of self-confidence and self-worth to voice your suffering and escape. Myself, Elizabete, and Filiz hope this article offers awareness of red flags, protects others from coercive control, and inspiration for those in controlling relationships to escape.
Elizabete is open and vocal about her experience as a survivor of a coercive controlling relationship and has re-found her freedom to travel the world again, wear makeup, and have her own place to live. She showed resilience and inspiring emotional intelligence to reflect on the relationship and appreciate her own responsibility in the mistakes she made.
Filiz is now happily married with a 12 year old daughter and working within the field of therapy helping others, she combines hypnosis and regression therapy with psychic insight and mediumship. She had this to say about her experience with her first husband:
“I am grateful to my experiences despite the emotional pain that was inflicted on me and my loved ones. I wouldn’t have considered entering into my chosen field had it not been for my formative years. I had to break to build, I hit rock bottom but once I had, the only way was up! I know what it feels like to be in an abusive relationship, I can empathise due to my lived in experience, drawing me to work with others because I know what it feels like.”
As a hypnotherapist and owner of Rochester Hypnotherapy Clinic, I offer a therapeutic space where the trauma of living through coercive controlling relationships, and other forms of abusive relationships, can be released and no longer bare a burden on your life. And by providing awareness of the subtle red flags and the patterns that keep you trapped, you can rebuild your confidence, reclaim your sense of self, and break free from any cycles of suffering for good.
