The Survivor Insights series brings you the voices of survivors themselves. These words come from many who have shared their experiences openly, often for the first time, across my social media pages.

One of the most disorienting patterns domestic abuse survivors describe is the sense that nothing they did could ever be right. Every option seemed to lead to a problem. Decisions that should have been simple became loaded, and even when they adjusted their behaviour, the outcome didn’t change.

The abuser creates this pattern through control of expectations. They decide what is acceptable, and then they shift it. They respond in ways that make it seem as though you should have known what they wanted, even when they never said it or when they said something different before. When you adjust your behaviour, they respond again, and the goal posts move.

Survivors often recognise this as a double bind. The abuser places you in situations where more than one option is available, yet each option is set up to be treated as wrong. You are required to act, yet the outcome is already shaped by how they choose to respond to you.

You try to find the right way to handle things. You adjust your approach each time, but the result stays the same. The abuser changes the conditions as you respond to them. You are set up to lose.

These are the voices of survivors who lived inside that.

When Every Option Leads to a Problem

The abuser places you in situations where your choices are framed as wrong no matter what you choose. They ask for something, then react against it. They discourage something, then criticise you for avoiding it. What you choose doesn’t change how they treat it. They have already decided in advance that your decision is the wrong one.

“I always had to plan around when he’d be home. If I was going out and he was home, it was the end of the world. But if I stayed home to avoid that, then suddenly I wasn’t doing enough and there was a problem with that too.”

“I wanted to get a second job, and he encouraged it, but I knew that I couldn’t work a second job if it meant being gone when he wasn’t. Because I knew I’d come home and he’d be accusing me of cheating or being with guys or whatever else.”

“He used to say I never made an effort with people. Then when I did start making plans, suddenly I was out too much and neglecting the relationship. There was no version of it that worked.”

“I remember sitting there thinking, I’ve tried it both ways now. When I went out, it caused an issue. When I stayed in, it caused an issue. That was when it started to click that the choice itself wasn’t the problem.”

“If I made a decision on my own, he’d say I didn’t consider him. If I asked him first, he’d say I couldn’t think for myself.”

“I remember cancelling plans to keep things calm, and then sitting there while he criticised me for not having a life.”

“There were days where I would wait for him to decide everything, because choosing anything felt like I was stepping into something that would come back on me.”

“Even things like what to cook became difficult. I’d choose something and it would turn into a comment about me not thinking things through properly.”

When the Rules Keep Changing