Common terms survivors see and what they actually mean.
Abuse, Control, and Manipulation Tactics
Coercive control
A sustained pattern of domination using fear, rules, monitoring, isolation, and punishment to take away your freedom and autonomy.
Gaslighting
Repeatedly undermining your reality so you doubt your memory, perception, or sanity (“That never happened”, “You’re imagining it”).
DARVO
Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender
You raise harm → they deny it → attack you → then position themselves as the victim so you end up apologising.
Love-bombing
Intense early attention, affection, gifts, future plans, or “soulmate” energy used to hook you fast.
Devaluation
The switch from idealising you to criticising, belittling, withdrawing, or treating you with contempt.
Discard
Sudden emotional cut-off, replacement, or abandonment when you’re no longer “useful” or compliant.
Hoovering
Attempts to suck you back in after distance or separation: apologies, gifts, promises, “I’ve changed”, crisis stories.
Intermittent reinforcement
Random “good moments” mixed with cruelty that creates addiction-like bonding (you keep chasing relief).
Trauma bond
A powerful attachment formed through cycles of abuse + relief. You don’t stay because it’s good — you stay because your nervous system is hooked.
Moving the goalposts
You meet a requirement, then they change the standard so you can never win.
Blame-shifting
They redirect responsibility onto you: “If you didn’t do X, I wouldn’t do Y.”
Double standards
Rules apply to you, not them. They demand respect while disrespecting you.
Stonewalling
Refusing to engage or communicate to punish or control (shutting down, walking away, blocking, refusing repair).
Silent treatment
Withholding contact/attention/affection as punishment until you comply.
Withholding
Deliberately denying warmth, reassurance, money, support, or intimacy to control you.
Triangulation
Pulling a third person into the dynamic to control you (friends, family, colleagues, exes, children): “Even they agree with me.”
Smear campaign
Spreading a curated narrative to damage your credibility and isolate you before you can speak up.
Emotional blackmail
Using fear, obligation, or guilt to force compliance (“After all I’ve done…”, “If you leave, I’ll…”, “You’re abandoning me.”)
Intimidation
Creating fear through presence or implied threat: looming, blocking exits, breaking things, aggressive driving.
Plausible deniability
Harming you in ways they can deny (“It was a joke”, “You’re too sensitive”) so you look irrational for reacting.
Weaponised vulnerability
Using tears, illness, collapse, threats, or crisis right when you set boundaries to pull you back into rescuing them.
Weaponised incompetence
Doing things badly on purpose so you stop asking and take over the burden.
Financial abuse / economic abuse
Controlling access to money, sabotaging work, forcing dependence, creating debt, monitoring spending, withholding funds as punishment.
Sexual coercion
Pressure, guilt, threats, or wearing you down after “no” — sex becomes a power tool, not consent-based intimacy.
Weaponised sex / weaponised intimacy
Withholding sex/affection as punishment, using “make-up sex” to reset without repair, humiliating or jealousy games to control you.
Survivor Responses and Nervous System Terms
Hyper-vigilance
Constant scanning for danger: tone, mood shifts, facial expressions, timing. Your body stays on alert even when “nothing is happening”.
Fight / Flight / Freeze / Fawn
Automatic survival responses:
- Fight: anger, pushing back
- Flight: escaping, avoiding, overworking
- Freeze: shutdown, numbness, paralysis
- Fawn: people-pleasing, over-apologising, caretaking to stay safe
Fawning
A trauma response where you appease, agree, and manage the other person to avoid conflict.
Dissociation
Feeling detached, numb, spaced out, or unreal — your brain’s way of protecting you when overwhelmed.
Brain fog
Difficulty thinking clearly, remembering, concentrating — common under chronic stress and gaslighting.
Somatic symptoms
Body-based effects of stress/trauma: gut issues, headaches, fatigue, tight chest, chronic pain, jaw clenching, nausea.
Nervous system dysregulation
When your body gets stuck in survival mode (anxious, shutdown, reactive) because stress is chronic.
Trigger
A cue that activates a threat response (tone, phrase, look, silence) because your body associates it with past harm.
Rumination
Replaying conversations/events repeatedly, trying to find safety or clarity.
Learned helplessness
After repeated punishment/no-win situations, you stop trying because it feels pointless or unsafe.
Family System Roles (Common In Narcissistic Families)
Scapegoat
The one blamed for everything — the family “problem”. Often carries shame that belongs to the system.
Golden Child
The one idealised and praised to boost the narcissistic parent’s image. Often pressured to be perfect and loyal.
Invisible Child
The one ignored or emotionally neglected. Learns not to need, not to take up space.
Parentified Child
A child forced into adult roles: mediator, caretaker, emotional support for a parent.
Family System Behaviours (common in narcissistic families)
Boundary
A limit that protects your wellbeing (“I’m not okay with being spoken to like that.”). Abusers treat boundaries as threats.
Boundary testing
Early small violations to see what you’ll tolerate – usually escalate.
Self-abandonment
Ignoring your needs, values, and reality to keep peace or keep the relationship.
Self-silencing
Training yourself to stop expressing needs or truth because it leads to punishment.
Contempt
Disgust, mockery, and disrespect — one of the most corrosive forms of emotional abuse.
Repair
Healthy conflict ends with accountability, empathy, and changed behaviour — not denial, punishment, or pretending it didn’t happen.
