As I watched an actress tell her story of how she was mentally and physically abused by her ex-fiancé, it brought back memories. I am not sure if her story is accurate but I know that I have experienced a lot of similarities that she mentioned in her story.

I was once in my late teens and dated an older man in his thirties. In retrospect, looking back, I was being groomed, emotionally and (sometimes) physically abused by him. It was a dark time in my life.

The biggest question that people ask is, how could you stay with someone who was abusing you and still love them? My quick answer is that the manipulation, lying and gaslighting is so immense that it feels like real life.

When I met my now ex- partner, I was 19 and didn’t fully grasp that someone could have an effect on my emotional well-being in that capacity. So much so, that it had a serious impact on my already low self-esteem.

As I have healed and will continue to do so, I see a clear trace of my former attraction to partner who were gas-lighters, narcissists and liars back to my childhood.

When you are raised by someone who emotionally abuses you, it seems normal and unfortunately, many people continue the cycle because they are so afraid to stand up for themselves against abusers due to backlash that it comes with creating boundaries.

I know of this backlash very well and was just threatened recently by one of my former abusers with a lawsuit. But, I do not care! Nothing can stop me from speaking this truth.

If you are in a passionate or abusive relationship, you might ask yourself: what is the difference? I am not a psychologist but I can tell you what I have been through. Although there is a fine line between passionate and abusive. The two do not have to be the same. Some abusive relationships are passionate. But, not all passionate relationships are abusive.

Here are 3 differences between passionate and abusive relationships:

1. Passionate relationships can be spoken about; however, abusers will retaliate against you speaking out about your relationship.

Almost two years ago, I ended an emotionally abusive relationship and that was my last romantic one of that nature. I was put through so much mental torment that I made a promise to never do it again. One that I will keep.

A red flag that this particular relationship shared with my other abusive ones is that he didn’t want people knowing about it or didn’t like me speaking about it. I am generally a private person with people in my life so I would never divulge information on him. However, his paranoia raised concerns. I thought it had something to do with him being famous but as I look back and read about women coming forward about his abusive ways towards them, I clearly see the pattern.

To abusers, secrets are what keeps their behavior intact because the less people know, the more that they can hide their heinous behavior.

2. There is a lot of guilt with abusive relationships.

I recently had a clear memory of when a former ex said something that violated my boundaries. I spoke up and confronted him but by the end of our conversation, I felt sorry for him. Throughout our relationship, I would constantly feel sorry for him and feel like I couldn’t tell people how he treated me because I saw him more of a victim than I was at that time.

Like I said, I had my continuous partnerships where I felt guilty for merely just being because I was raised by an emotionally abusive parent, I thought it was normal to feel like I was a problem to someone that I loved because I felt like with that particular parent, I could always do better and was constantly reminded of such.

In abusive relationships, you have to walk on eggshells because you fear upsetting them or them blaming you for their mood or something else because you already feel low as it is. They know your triggers and will use them against you. It is not a healthy environment for anyone.

3. There is a lot of fear attached to abusive relationships.

People who abuse others are master-manipulators. They will often use something that you have done against you for years on end to sabotage interactions with you.

One of the worst circumstances of this is with a parent who will use something you did or a mistake you made a long time ago as a way to define who you are. My abusive parent would air out something private that I had done in front of a group of people in public as a way to shame me, instead of guide me in the right direction. She would not let it go and use that piece of information to keep me in line (for years to come) so that I felt like a fundamentally bad person.

The same goes for abuse in romantic relationships, they often use your secrets against you or will publicly tell people about an insecurity that you have, to keep you down. It’s all a part of the manipulation that keeps you fearful of them and inflates their sense of being and tries to diminish yours.

For all those who have suffered an abusing relationship (or a few), there is always hope for help. The key that has helped me overcome this torture is that nothing is ever really personal. Abusers are so because they are usually emotionally abused themselves and have found a way to survive this way.

There is a lot of help and many resources. Your life belongs to you, not who has abused you.