Nina Batista LCSW
Trauma Therapist + DV Educator. Coercive control & narcissistic abuse expert. Featured on WPBF 25 đ„ Helping survivors reclaim themselves-
Some of the things you hate most about yourself might make a lot more sense when you understand what they once protected you from.
The over-explaining.
The screenshots.
The constant âAre you mad at me?â
The inability to make a simple decision.
The panic when someoneâs tone changes.
The defensiveness the second you hear, âCan we talk?â
You werenât doing these things in a vacuum.
When you spend long enough having your reality questioned, your choices criticized, your needs punished, and someone elseâs moods determining whether youâre about to have a good night or a fu***ng nightmareâŠ
you adapt.
And sometimes those adaptations follow you long after the relationship ends.
Healing isnât shaming yourself for the ways you learned to survive.
Itâs understanding them well enough that you can finally decide:
I donât need this one anymore.
If youâre out of the relationship but still feel like theyâre living rent-free in your head and nervous system, HOOKED was written for you.
Comment âHOOKEDâ and Iâll send you the link. đŠ
09/23/2026
You werenât âtoo nice.â
You were betraying yourself to keep someone else from making you pay for having needs.
Thatâs fawning.
And when they hurt you, withdraw, punish, or destabilize you⊠then become the person you run to when they finally offer you relief?
Thatâs how the cycle gets its claws into you.
You start confusing relief with love.
You start calling the absence of chaos âpeace.â
You start feeling grateful for crumbs because youâve been starving.
Read that again.
Someone doesnât get to keep setting you on fire and then get credit for being the one who puts you out.
Stop abandoning yourself just to keep access to someone who keeps hurting you.
If youâre stuck in the âI know this is hurting me, so why the f**k canât I let go?â cycle, comment HOOKED. đŠ
Fawning and trauma bonding are NOT the same thing.
Hereâs the simplest way to understand the difference:
Fawning is what you do to survive them.
A trauma bond is what makes you feel attached to them despite what theyâre doing to you.
Fawning sounds like:
âIâll apologize so this stops.â
âI wonât bring it up because theyâll get angry.â
âIâll just keep the peace.â
Your nervous system learns:
âIf I can keep you happy, maybe Iâll be safe.â
A trauma bond sounds like:
âI know they hurt me, but I still miss them.â
âI know this is unhealthy, but I canât seem to leave.â
âI keep waiting for the person I fell in love with to come back.â
And the two can reinforce each other.
They hurt you â you fawn â the conflict stops â they become loving again â you feel enormous relief.
And eventually, you can start seeking comfort from the same person you needed protection from.
Thatâs what makes this s**t so confusing.
Fawning keeps the peace.
Trauma bonding keeps the attachment.
And hereâs the part I want you to remember:
If keeping the relationship requires you to keep abandoning yourself, that isnât peace. Thatâs survival.
09/22/2026
Technology has given abusive people a whole new set of tools to control you.
And the scary part? A lot of it gets disguised as love.
âShare your location so I know youâre safe.â
âWhy do you need a password I donât know?â
âIf you have nothing to hide, let me see your phone.â
âI just happened to be in the area.â
No. Thereâs a difference between mutual transparency and surveillance.
If saying no to sharing your location, passwords, messages, finances, or devices results in accusations, punishment, intimidation, or retaliationâthat isnât trust.
Thatâs control.
Coercive control doesnât have to happen face-to-face. It can happen through your phone, your bank account, your car, your childrenâs devices, your social media, and even the technology inside your home.
And sometimes you donât realize how closely you were being monitored until you finally try to leave.
Save this. Send it to someone who needs to know that âthey just worry about meâ isnât always the whole story.
comment HOOKED for a copy of my ebook :)
Gaslighting will have you questioning your own memory while the person who hurt you is standing there confident as hell about a version of events that never happened. đ
You KNOW what you heard.
You KNOW what you saw.
You KNOW how it made you feel.
But somehow, 45 minutes into the argument, youâre confused, defending details that werenât even the original issue, and YOUâRE apologizing.
Thatâs the mindf**k.
When someone repeatedly denies, minimizes, twists, or rewrites your reality, eventually you stop asking:
âWhy are they lying?â
âŠand start asking:
âWait⊠am I remembering this wrong?â
That self-doubt is exactly what makes these relationships so hard to leave.
If youâve ever looked back and thought, âHow the hell did I become so unsure of myself?â â I wrote HOOKED for you.
Comment HOOKED and Iâll send it to you. đŠ
POV: youâve done the breathing exercises, journaled, identified your triggers, regulated your nervous system, and reminded yourself that reacting is exactly what they wantâŠ
âŠbut thereâs still a tiny voice inside you saying âjust crash out ONE time.â đ
Because healing from narcissistic abuse isnât about never getting angry. Sometimes youâre angry because youâve finally realized just how much s**t you tolerated while trying to âcommunicate betterâ with someone committed to misunderstanding you.
The goal isnât to stop feeling the rage.
Itâs learning how to stop letting them control what you do with it.
And yes⊠sometimes that requires logging off and putting the phone in another room. đ
If youâre still trying to understand why someone who hurt you this badly can still have such a powerful hold on you, comment HOOKED and Iâll send you my guide. đŠ
comment your experience below or comment HOOKED for a link in your DM to my ebook
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