Reactive Abuse; When Survival Looks Like Aggression

Reactive abuse can make you feel like you became the “problem,” even when your body was responding to prolonged provocation and control. I break down the difference between abuse and survival, then share a somatic reset to help you come back to safety and clarity. 

• reactive abuse defined as a survival response after chronic provocation 
• the difference between a pattern of control and a nervous system override 
• window of tolerance basics and why logic goes offline 
• DARVO explained and how abusers weaponize your reaction
• reactive abuse versus actual abuse versus self-defense 
• GLOW tool: Ground, Lengthen exhale, Offer affirmation, Wiggle it out 

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Episodes Mentioned in this Episode

Season 2 Trailer:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2467345/episodes/18869944-season-2-trailer

You’re not alone. 

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Transcript

Welcome And Group Invitation

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi there. Welcome back or welcome to the first time. Whether you're here for the first time or several times have listened to some episodes, welcome, welcome, welcome. I am so glad you're here. This is The Awaken Heart, a podcast for healing women. This is a space where your voice matters. Your body is sacred, and your healing is never rushed nor will it ever be minimized. I'm Audda Moran, licensed professional counselor, a yoga instructor, and a neurodivergent woman who understands what it feels like to live in a body that's constantly bracing for impact. And before we get into today's episode, I want to share with you just a little something because this is coming out on Wednesday. This will be March 23rd. Maybe 24. Okay, today's the 24th. So tomorrow's the 25th. Yes, I'm doing this a day before. Hi. Sometimes it works for me to do it on Mondays or Tuesdays and make sure I have all the information on what. Whatever. I don't know why I'm explaining it. I digress. I want to share with you the Somatic Healing Group enrollment window is now open. It is a six-week healing group for women. This is a small, intimate space for women who are tired of just understanding their patterns, being able to know what to do, but now are ready to actually feel different in your body. If you've been doing the work, you know the insight, but your body still feels anxious, shut down, overwhelmed, or stuck, like you can't relax, like you can't get off the wheel of to-do list or responsibilities or obligations. This is where we shift that. This isn't about performing healing. This is about experiencing it. We'll be working with the nervous system regulation, somatic tools, like I teach today. I'm really proud of my little anachronym I came up with. It's GLOW, but I'll get into it later. I've been handing it out to my clients and have gotten some pretty good feedback initially, but more to come. We'll be talking about boundaries that come from the body, not force. And we'll learn how to actually feel safe and steady in your life. I want you to feel free. I know that's just a simple word to say, but I can't explain how free you feel after healing mind and body. It's just uh it's um liberating. It's six weeks. It's a small group made of five, five women, and it's designed to help you move from survival mode into something more grounded, clear, and self-trusting. If this speaks to you, you can join the link in the show notes. There will be a section there. It is six weeks. It starts April 21st, I do believe. It's on Tuesdays from 6 to 7:30 in the afternoon, Central Standard Time. The investment is$300, and you will get a fabulous hour and a half every week of body movement, some group talk, some group work, some coping skills, and to work through some things that may be lighting up for you in the moment. It'll be a small supportive group, and I can't wait to offer this somatic healing to you. All right. Okay. Thanks for the listen. Let's get into today's episode because today's episode continues topics that I think are very important to cover before I get into season two, before we get into season two, because season two also starts next month. Big things are happening here at the Awakened Heart next month. We've got the somatic healing group starting, and we've got season two starting. And season two is all about healing after sexual trauma. If you haven't listened to the trailer, I'll link it in the show notes. This is going to be an important season. I think this is a topic that I mean, who is not triggered by the news? Who is not triggered by the files? Like, who is not triggered by it in some way? I'm not talking about you have to have some traumatic story for sexual abuse. It could be all the way down to something simple as I had sex because I was obligated. I had sex because they're my partner and I owe them. That is not consensual in and of itself. So there is trauma there. So this is not going to be just for a specific type. This is anyone who has ever felt like they've done something that they didn't want to and did it anyway, or were forced to. You know, sometimes it's not pleasant, a lot of the times it's not. So to get into that deep, before we walk into that deep work, we have to clear the fog because for many of us, the biggest barrier is healing, of healing isn't the trauma itself. It's the shame that came with the trauma. It's the memory of the moment you snapped, maybe the moment you yelled, the moment you threw something, the moment you said something cruel. And in that moment, the voice in your head or the voice of the person hurting you whispered, see, you're the crazy one, you're the abuser, you're broken. If that's resonating, if you ever have felt like you lost your mind in a relationship, or if you've been told that your reaction was worse than the abuse itself, this is what we're talking about today. Reactive abuse. I want to define it. I want to dismantle the shame. I want to look at how our nervous system was actually trying to save you in that moment, even when it looks like you're losing control. This isn't about excusing harmful behavior. Not gonna do that. This is about understanding the biology of survival. So buckle your seats, take a nice deep breath, let that belly expand, rise high like a Buddha belly. Relax your shoulders and let that breath out, let that belly go back to normal. Let's sit with this. This is heavy, and I'm not here to make light of it. Let's start with the definition because language is importante. Reactive abuse. It is not a clinical diagnosis. You won't find it in the DSM, but if but it is a real experience survivors of prolonged psychological, emotional, or physical abuse have experienced. It happens when a victim, after enduring long periods of manipulation, gaslighting, or being provoked, finally reaches a breaking point. They react, they fight back, they lash out, maybe they yell. And because the reaction looks aggressive, the abuser points at it and says, Look at you. You're the violent one, you're unstable. Line the victim here. This is the trap. The abuser creates a no-win scenario. They push, they poke, they provoke, they withhold, they lie, they push your nervous system until it's screaming for relief, until it has no other stress response but to fight back because survival is that important at the moment that your body at that moment feels like it's on the brink of death. And when your body finally screams back, they use that scream as proof that you are the problem. I want to be very clear. Abuse is a pattern of control. It is calculated, it is about power, it is about one person dominating another. Reactive abuse is a reaction, it is a biological override, it is a survival response that has gone haywire because the system is flooded with information that danger is imminent. Our life is at stake. There is a massive difference between initiating harm and reacting to it. Okay. So, example, let's let's see if we can put this in a different light to lighten it up or just make a comparison. If someone puts their hand in a fire and they pull it away and accidentally hit you, that is not assault. That is a reflex. That is a survival mechanism. But someone sees you pull your hand away and says, See, you hit me. You're dangerous. That is manipulation. For many of you listening, you have been living in the fire for years, maybe. Maybe you've been holding your hand in the flame, trying to be good, trying to be calm, trying to be perfect. And when you finally pulled away, you were blamed for the burn. So take a moment. If that I think my analogy was a little messed up. Like someone's putting their hand on a fire, and if they jerk it away and hit you by accident, that's not assault. But if they're holding your hand in the fire and you jerk it away and you hit them, then that's where you're the abuser. So think about that analogy, or just think about a reactive abuse situation if you've experienced it. Notice if you're holding any tension anywhere in your body right now, check in with your teeth. Are they clenched together or is there some space in between them? How about your chest? Heart pumping, tight chest, breathing into the chest. Maybe you have some sensations in the stomach, your hips, your legs, your arms, somewhere in the body. Just notice it. Not trying to fix it. Just say to yourself, I am noticing the tension. I am safe right now. I am just listening. Your nervous system has a hierarchy of survival. First, it tries to connect. If that fails, it tries to fight or flight. If that fails, it freezes. And if the threat is inescapable, it collapses into dissociation or shutdown. In an abusive situation, you are often stuck in a state of chronic hyperarousal. Your body is constantly scanning for danger. Your cortisol levels are probably always high. Your heart rate possibly elevated. Blood pressure issues, heart palpitations. You are living in a state of high alert. But here's the thing about the nervous system: it has a freaking limit. Every person has a window of tolerance. Inside that window, so imagine you're there's a window. Inside the window, you can think clearly, you can regulate your emotions, and you can communicate effectively. Outside that window, if you open it up and go on outside, you are in survival mode. When an abuser is relentless, when they gaslight you, maybe isolate you, criticize you, I'm just joking. Oh, you're so silly, or oh, you're too much, you're being too sensitive. Oh, calm down. I didn't mean it. You know, I'm just joking. You can't take a joke. That's how I joke with my friends. When they withhold affection, they are pushing you outside your window of tolerance over and over again. They're putting you in survival mode over and over again. Eventually, the damn burst, the levees flood. This is the moment of reactive abuse. Your prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain responsible for logic, impulse control, and empathy, it goes offline. It literally shuts down to save energy for survival. Your alarm bell, which is called the amygdala, takes over, and your body floods with adrenaline and cortisol. In that moment, you are not thinking, you are not calculating, you are not being mean, you are discharging. Your body is trying to expel the toxic stress that has built up inside of you, and it's trying to scream, stop, I can't take this anymore. And because the only way your body knows how to scream is through aggression, it comes out as yelling, throwing, and hitting. I know how terrifying that feels. I know the shame that follows. How could I do that? I'm not a monster. Why did I lose control? I would never say those things to anyone in a million years. You did not lose control because you were weak, bad, awful, inhumane. You lost control because you were pushed past your limit. You were at capacity and they pushed you past capacity. If you were standing in a room with a bomb ticking and you finally screamed and threw a chair, would you be the abuser or would you be the person reacting to the imminent re-threat? Imminent re-threat. I don't know what I'm trying to say there, but imminent threat. In an abusive relationship, that is hard for me to say, the bomb is the constant psychological warfare. The explosion is your reaction. And the abuser, your partner, they are the one who lit the fuse. And like being neurodivergent, this hits so much harder. Many of us have lower thresholds for sensory overload and lower thresholds for regulating our emotions. When we're targeted, maybe they mock our special interests, overwhelm the senses, demand you mask or perform or be a certain way, or smile, or bubbly, or have to be some sort of way when they're around, otherwise, there's a problem. They are pushing you into a meltdown. And a meltdown is not a tantrum, it's a neurological crash. Yet it's often weaponized by abusers. They say, see, you're too sensitive. You're crazy. You're crazy. You're too much. No one would be able to handle this. This is crazy. No one does this. Right? Take a sip of water. Fuck them. Fuck the abusers. Go get help. Better yet, if you can't get help and you can't stop abusing, let's build Plastic Island to be Pedo Island and let them all go live happily ever after on their own island. No children, no elderly, just the perpetrators, just the abusers. They can't have internet. They can't have access to the outside world. I don't know. That might come back to bite me one day, but I'm joking, not joking. I mean, this world's scary right now. Okay. But you are not too much, my dears. You are being human. You are a human being with a nervous system that was pushed beyond its capacity. So, weaponization, how they turn it against you, right? Talking about manipulation here. Because reactive abuse is rarely just an accident. Often it is engineered. Abusers, particularly those with narcissistic or coercive traits, are experts at provoking you. They know exactly which buttons to push. They know how to say the one thing that will make you cry, meltdown, explode, lose your shit. They know how to withhold the one thing that will make you panic, spiral, go dark. They know how to twist your words until you feel like you are going insane. Insano, my friends. They do this intentionally. They want you to snap because once you snap, they have ammunition. And this is what the cycle looks like. They provoke you, they push, they poke, they withhold, they lie. Then it escalates. You try to reason, you try to calm, you try to people please, you try to fawn, you try to set a boundary even. They may ignore you, they may mock you, they may belittle you, invalidate you, act like you're not even there. And then what happens? You snap, you reach your limit, and you react. And then the pivot comes. Immediately they switch roles. They become the victim. Look what you did to me. You're so violent. I'm so scared of you. And then there's isolation. They tell your friends, family, your kids maybe what you did. They show them the evidence of your reaction, but they hide the months of that led up to it of them provoking you, the hours, the minutes, the weeks leading up to them provoking you behind closed doors when no one was looking, when no one was around to witness it. This is called Darvo. D-A-R V as an Victor O. Deny, attack, reverse, victim, and offender. And the most painful part, you end up believing them. You start to believe that you are the problem. You start to apologize for things that were never your fault. Maybe you start to walk on eggshells, terrified that if you speak up, you'll lose it again. This is the ultimate goal of the abuser. To make you doubt your own reality. To make you think that your survival response is a character defect. And I know I'm gonna take a side note here. Hear me out. I hear you. I hear you say, but that's not them. Like they're they're good people. They're not manipulative. They don't sit around and think about this. That's not my guy. That's not my gal. That's not what they do. That's that's so dark. Like, no, this isn't some of it resonates, but you can't tell me they have a plan. Here's my question. Do they treat everyone like this? Do they go around blindedly abusing everyone at their work, everyone in their family, all of their friends? Do they treat everyone the same way they treat you? Probably not. There's your proof. They have the ability to behave. But with you, with a select few, maybe the people in your household, get a different version. They know what the fuck they're doing. Okay. How about a story? Name is just made up. This isn't about anyone particular. This is just a story. Just want to see if it sounds familiar. Just to put some perspective. So, Sarah, she's been in a relationship for say five years. Her partner was charming at first, but slowly became critical. He would criticize maybe her cooking, how she parented, her job, her efforts, her passions, her hobbies. Maybe isolated her from her friends, just would always put on the charm when it was time for friends, taking her away, talking about and saying you don't need them, pointing out the friend's flaws and really digging in. One night he came home late, drunk, and started screaming at her for not caring enough. Sarah tried to explain. She tried to stay calm, and he kept pushing her. He called her names, he threatened to leave her. And finally, guess what happened? Sarah snapped. She threw a glass, she yelled back. The next morning, he was calm. He told her, I'm so sorry I scared you, but you lost it. You're dangerous. I can't live with someone who throws things. He showed his mother the broken glass. He told his friends she was unstable. Sarah spent the next year in therapy apologizing for losing her temper, never realizing that she had been pushed to the edge for five years. She's not therapy, does she need, yes, to take care of herself, love herself, and find the independence, but who really needs the therapy there? The asshole, the gaslitter that came in hot, abusing her emotionally and verbally. Do you have a glass in your story? Do you have a pivotal moment like that that kind of changed it, started it, continued it? Okay. How about separating reactive abuse from actual actual abuse from self-defense? Actual abuse is initiated by an aggressive person, the aggressor. It is used to control and dominate. It is typically a pattern of behavior. It's not something that's typically isolated. And it's definitely done with intent. Intent to coerce, intent to control an outcome, intent to make you feel some sort of way, intent to feel some sort of reaction by the way you react. There's intent. Reactive abuse is a response to being provoked. It is a moment of being dysregulated. It is a survival mechanism. It is done without the intent to control. It is typically done when you're pushed to the max, pushed over the edge, and you just fight. Your body fights. Like when I say it expels the toxic stress pulsing through your body, it fights. You throw, you punch, you push, you run, you fight, you you you get that animal that's coming for your life out of your way. Self-defense is a necessary action to protect your physical safety. It is not an abuse at all. Sometimes the lines blur. If you are physically attacked and you fight back, that is self-defense. If you are being verbally abused and you yell back, that is reactive abuse. But the truth about it, you are not responsible for managing the abuser's behavior by suppressing your own humanity. If someone is hurting you and you fight back, you are not the abuser. You are a person trying to survive. However, we also have to be honest about the impact of our reactions. Even if your reaction was triggered, if you hurt someone, it can still cause pain. But the context matters. If you are in a relationship where you are constantly being provoked, the quote unquote hurt you caused is a symptom of the abuse, not the root cause. The root cause is the abuser. The symptom is your reaction. I'm being careful here. I am not saying that violence is okay. I'm not saying that you should never lose your temper. I'm saying that context is everything. And in the and in and in the context of abuse, your reaction is a signal. It is a signal that the situation is unsafe. It is a signal that you are in survival mode, and it is a signal that you need to get out. Okay, all right. So what do we do? How do we navigate this? How do we stop the cycle? Get out. You stop the cycle by getting out. But there are two parts to this in the moment and after the reaction. In the moment, if you feel the heat rising, if you feel your jaw tightening, if you feel the urge to yell or throw something, I need you to stop. Do not try to win an argument, do not try to explain yourself, don't try to prove a point. Your nervous system is flooded. You cannot think clearly. Leave the room. You can say something like, I'm not safe in this conversation right now. I am leaving. You can tell people that your new code word for taking a time out when you're overwhelmed is pineapples or whatever word you want. And you can just say pineapples and leave the room. And then go. Go to another room. Go outside. Go to the bathroom. Give your nervous system a chance to cool down. This is not running away. This is regulating. Once you're once you're there, or if you've already snapped, if you've already yelled, you already threw something, and now you're drowning in shame. If you were able to get away, or if you're now beating yourself up for being the reactor, right? This is what I want to introduce to you. A tool that I created that I think is cute as hell. It's called glow. G-L-O-W. When you're feeling flooded, I want you to glow. It stands for G, Ground. L lengthen your exhale. O, offer self an affirmation. W, wiggle it out. So try it with me. G, ground yourself. Look around the room. Look around where you are. Notice colors. Notice objects. Notice things. Put your feet on the ground if you can, or just wiggle your toes, feel your feet. Just feel the sensation of what your feet feel like, where they're at, what they're what's against them, socks, shoes, or not. Notice where you're sitting, notice if it's soft or hard, and say to yourself, I am here. I am safe in this moment. Your body is now not in the past. It is in the argument. It is not in the argument. It is here. I am safe in this moment. Then I want you to take a breath through your nose and out of your mouth. I want you to lengthen that exhale. That's where the L comes in. Let all that breath get out of your belly. So inhale, one, two, three. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five, six. This signals your nervous system that the threat is passing. You are safe. Inhale, one, two, three. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five, six. Oh, offer yourself an affirmation. Place your hand on your heart or your belly wherever you can. If not, that's okay too. Say to yourself, I was pushed past my limit. My reaction was survival. Not abuse, not failure. Or say something like, I am not the abuser, I am the one who is surviving. Or my anger is information. It told me I was unsafe. Say it out loud if you can, but if not, let the words land in your body in any way you can. And then just like the animal kingdom, I want us to take the last step. W, wiggle it out. Now move. Shake out your hands, roll your shoulders, stomp your feet. Let the energy move through your body. Your body is not a container for this tension anymore. Just wiggle it out. If you're trying to do this and your person is not giving you space or silence, you need to leave the area. You need to leave the house. You need to leave the location. You need to get out. They are a boundary breaker. They're not respecting your no. They're not respecting your pause. And that is information that that person is not safe. I know this is tough to hear. I know this is scary shit. But it's hard. But so is this. Which hard do you want? A hard that's going to give you a life of abuse and stress and cortisol? Ugh. Are you going to have a life where you can walk away, have some hard times, go through some tough shit, but do it and make a life that you want, a life that you dream, a life that's being held back by this abuser, by this situation, because you're spending all your time just surviving? That is no way to live. Choose your hard wisely because it's always going to be hard. Choose the hard that's going to give you the life that you fucking want, that you deserve, that everyone's told you that you can't have. So that's it. I want you to glow. Ground yourself, lengthen your exhale, offer yourself an affirmation, and wiggle it out. You just gave your nervous system a way back to safety. This is not about fixing everything. It's just about coming back to yourself, calming yourself down and asking yourself, is this what I want? Is this right for me? How can I be safe? What needs to change for me to be safe? And this is exactly why I created the Women's Somatic Healing Group, because this work isn't just about hearing it once, it's about practicing it in your body in real time with support. Inside this group, we slow this down. We practice things like grounding when you feel activated, using your breath in a way that actually works for your body, because breath is not always accessible to people. And it's not always the first go-to when calming down. So I want to teach you to find the breath that works for you. Notice your internal cues and respond from steadiness instead of urgency. All the info is in the show notes, and I'm going to talk about it at the end. Let's dive back into the last section. Where does this leave us? If you're in a relationship where you are constantly reacting, where you are constantly being provoked, the goal is not better anger management. The goal is safety. You cannot regulate your nervous system in an unsafe environment. You cannot heal in a war zone. If you are being abused, the most loving thing you can do for yourself is to create a plan to leave. This might mean talking to a trusted friend, contacting a domestic violence hotline, making a safety plan. The domestic violence hotline or your therapist can help you make a safety plan. Most websites, not most, not most websites, but some domestic violence websites have resources where you can make a safety plan through the website. Seek legal advice. I know that's may not be optional if you maybe rely on your partner for money. This is where the domestic violence hotline comes in. I know it's not ideal. And maybe the last thing you want to do is live in a shelter for a while, but they work. They're helpful. They have plenty of programs, they have therapy. You have your own little space somewhat, like a dorm room. It can work if that's what you want. It's I've worked in the shelters, I've worked in domestic violence shelters. They are helpful. They do help women. They have programs within the shelter and in the community to help you get on your feet, get housing, get education, get employment, get childcare, like all the resources. So it's not just a hotline. Domestic violence shelters can help you. You deserve to be in a relationship where you don't have to fight to be heard. You deserve to have a life where your boundaries are respected. And you deserve to have a life where you don't have to worry about snapping. And if you are not in an abusive relationship, but maybe you struggle with reactive patterns from the past, know that your nervous system is still healing. It is still learning that it is safe to be calm. It is still learning that it doesn't have to fight to survive. Be patient with yourself. Healing is never linear. Some days you feel calm, some days you feel triggered, and that's all okay. You're not broken, you're simply adapting. I think it's important to say you are not the abuser. You are the survivor. Your reactions were not a sign of weakness. They were a sign of your strength. They were a sign that your body was screaming for safety. And now you are safe. You are here. You are listening. Hopefully, a little bit of healing is happening. Thank you for trusting me with your story today. Thank you for showing up, even if it's been hard to hear this shit, because it's fucking heavy shit. Thank you for believing that you are worthy of peace and worth listening to the end of this. Don't give up yet because I want to talk about the group and I want to say goodbye. I'm almost done, sis. If this episode resonated with you, I want you to take a moment and notice what your body is doing right now. I don't want you to fix it. I don't want you to change it. I just want you to notice because that's this. This is where the work begins, my dears. And if you're ready to go deeper, if you're ready to not just understand this, but actually live it, I would love to have you inside the Six Week Women's Somatic Healing Group. This is where we take everything we talk about here and bring it into real supported practice. You don't have to do this alone. You can join through the link in my show notes. Next week, we will continue our journey and discuss toxic masculinity and how to navigate that world safely. We'll be diving deeper into the themes of the upcoming of the upcoming Sierra season. But for now, just rest, just breathe. And girl, just glow. Until next time, I want you to know that you are never too much, you are never too late. And if you don't have to, and if you don't have to, and you definitely don't have to figure it out all alone. I'm right here every Wednesday, starting in April, season two will be Wednesdays and Fridays for bonus episodes. May you be happy and free. May our healing ripple outward to bless the world with happiness and freedom. Take care of your awakened heart, and I will see you soon. Bye bye.