Betrayal Trauma Recovery - BTR.ORG

Hidden abuse is characterized by lies and manipulation, and it causes trauma that’s hard to recognize.

To discover if you’re experiencing any of the 19 types of hidden abuse, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

This episode follows Penny’s Story
How to Start to Heal From Emotional Abuse – Penny’s Story
Healing Trauma From Hidden Abuse – What Gets In Our Way? – Penny’s Take (THIS EPISODE)

What Is Hidden Abuse?

One of the biggest obstacles in healing from hidden abuse is understanding what’s happening to you.

The constant barrage of lies and manipulation from the abuser can make it incredibly difficult for women to see the reality of their situation. Gaslighting, a common tactic, can distort a woman’s perception of reality, making her doubt her judgment and experiences.

Traditional therapists, clergy, and even well-meaning friends and family may not recognize hidden abuse for what it is.

Barriers To Discovering Hidden Abuse:

• Lack of Understanding: Many women fail to recognize lies, pornography use, and infidelity as forms of emotional and psychological abuse.


• Misguided Strategies: Conventional advice focuses on improving communication and forgiveness rather than educating about abuse and implementing safety strategies.


• Isolation: Feeling misunderstood leads to social withdrawal, making it harder to seek support.


• Being Dismissed: Without a supportive network that acknowledges abuse, women begin to question their experiences and feelings.


• Stigma: Fear of judgment and the stigma of “giving up on the relationship” or not being a good wife prevents women from seeking emotional safety.


• Guilt and Shame: Self-blame (or being blamed by the abuser) stops women from reaching out for help.


• Trying to Fix Yourself: Believing the problem lies within themselves keeps women from finding emotional safety.


• Confusion: Manipulation tactics like gaslighting cause confusion and self-doubt.


• Entrapment: Continued manipulation leaves women feeling trapped.


• Pressure to Reconcile: Cultural and religious norms prioritize preserving the marriage over individual well-being.

When You Go For Help, But They Don’t Identify Hidden Abuse

If you’ve tried to figure out what’s going on and you haven’t been able to feel more emotionally safe, there is help.

The Free Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast helps women learn more about how to spot hidden abuse.

Healing From Hidden Abuse IS Possible

If you’re struggling to heal the trauma from hidden abuse, consider attending a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY and take the first step toward a brighter, healthier future.

Transcript: Healing Trauma From Hidden Abuse

Anne: Penny is back on today’s episode. You can find her story in an episode called How to Start to Heal from Emotional Abuse, Penny’s story. We wanted to talk about the aftermath of emotional abuse, how it’s misunderstood by people in general, and how to face that. So welcome back, Penny.

Penny: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Anne: So this type of hidden abuse where you don’t have someone charged with domestic violence. Why do you think it’s so hard for people to understand what it takes to heal trauma from hidden abuse?

Penny: Yeah, I think like you said, they don’t see any bruises, scars, or black eyes. We want to fit in and be accepted. We don’t want to be different. And so we look normal on the outside, but the inside is where the pain, results, and leftover baggage from emotional abuse is.

Things like fear, anxiety, and unsureness. Am I doing the right thing? Am I saying the right thing? And so this kind of stuff lingers with a person for a long time, or at least in my case, a very long time. And still does, even though I’ve been working on recovery for decades.

Anne: Yeah, the lack of self confidence is due to emotional abuse, because that was the purpose of the emotional abuse. This is why it’s so important to find a betrayal trauma support group. For years, someone intentionally undermined your sense of self, and also purposefully undermined your, I call it a sacred internal warning system, where you know something’s wrong.

Rebuilding Self-Identity

Anne: You’re trying to resist something that’s harming you. You don’t have the words to describe it. You’re going to the person who is harming you and telling him, “You’re harming me”, but he already knows. He knows he’s exploiting you.

So he takes that as a cue, “Okay, I need to undermine her sense that something’s wrong.” Otherwise, I’m not able to exploit her.” So it doesn’t help to share your feelings with him. He purposefully erodes your sense of self over time. And when you’re safe from the abuse and not exposed to it anymore, rebuilding that sense of self is such a process.

Penny: Part of the emotional abuse I was put through was with my stepmother when I was a child, and it carried with me to my young adulthood when I married early. My stepmother told me constantly, you’re dumb, you’re stupid, you’re worthless, you’ll never amount to anything. So, of course, I had a low opinion of myself going into adulthood. Even though on the outside, you may not have seen that. It was trauma from hidden abuse.

And so when I married young and married a partner who tried to control me and told me that I was in sin. Because the pastor told him that I was in sin, he wouldn’t listen to me. There was nothing to talk about, and I was wrong. And as soon as I repented, we would be back to normal, and all would be fine.

And I think it was pressure to have me confess to something, because I was too strong willed for this particular church and this particular pastor. I was too questioning. And wasn’t as docile as they wanted women to be.

Societal and Religious Scripts That Hide Abuse

Penny: And they actually taught that women should submit to husbands, that they should glorify God by glorifying their husbands. This is when biblical submission becomes abuse. So anything I said or did that wasn’t according to the pastor or my husband’s wishes was considered wrong. And I was told this constantly.

So, when I left that abusive situation finally at 32, I questioned everything I did and said. Because my whole life, my childhood, my young adulthood, my early 20s. I was told I was wrong and my thinking was wrong, and who I was wasn’t good enough. The trauma from hidden abuse doesn’t go away overnight. And it takes a community. In my case. I moved far away and left the church.

I stopped practicing that religion, and I surrounded myself with people who were smarter than me. That liked me and accepted me for who I was. And here’s an example of how I rebuilt it. One of my friends said, Penny, you should apply for this job. We have an opening at my firm.

This woman was college educated, and I wasn’t, and she worked in finance, which I hardly knew what that meant. And she said, “You should apply to this job.” And I said, oh no, I can’t. I’m too stupid. And she said, Penny, you’re not stupid. You’re smart, and we’ll train you. You should apply. Guess what? I applied and they hired me over 30 or 40 other resumes that they had on their desktop. I saw a stack of resumes.

Realizing Self-Worth

Penny: So I knew, wait a minute, maybe my stepmother, ex-husband and pastor, maybe they were all wrong. And that’s how I slowly started rebuilding my life, surrounding my life with people who believed in me and held up a mirror to me that said, “You’re not stupid, you’re not ugly, dumb, or worthless. You are able, and here’s the proof.”

And then I started college. I put myself through community college, and I started getting A’s and B’s, and the teachers started calling on me in the classroom. They held me up as an example of here’s some good thinking, here’s a person who read the work, or here’s the person who gets this idea.

And slowly over time, and I’m talking decades, with the help of friends, holding up a mirror to me and showing me who I was. I started to change my opinion of myself. But it took a long time, work, and struggle and pain. Because those old thoughts and those old scripts still played in my mind.

Anne: One thing I want to point out to victims is that exploitation is such a huge part of trauma from hidden abuse. It is abuse in that they want something from you, your labor, your admiration. They want you to cook them dinner, have sex with them, or go to a party with them. They want something from you. So instead of caring about you, they care about what they can get from you.

His Lies & Manipulation Will Always Be Hidden Abuse

Anne: And because of that, anyone who hears, you’re not good at this. If we knew what was happening, the best defense is to say, in a strategic way. I actually teach this in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop. Is to say something like, oh, you’re right. I bet you don’t want to be around somebody like me. That makes sense. Then leave. Then they’re like, wait, no, you can’t go.

We know exploitation is the issue, because if they think so poorly of us, why would they want to be around us? Why do they not want us to leave when we say, oh, okay, we’re going to leave? Suddenly they’re like, you can’t leave. And then they want to stop you from leaving by being even more abusive, which also doesn’t make sense. If you weren’t capable, powerful and talented, they wouldn’t have anything to exploit from you. I think that’s the thing they’re trying to hide.

I think they’re thinking she’s capable, smart, and awesome. If she finds out how capable she is, how smart she is. She’s not going to want to stay here. So I’ve got to hide that from her, because I want to use her talents for myself. Heaven forbid, if she used her talents for her own self and her own life. Do you think your step mom was exploiting you?

Penny: I absolutely do. She was handicapped, crippled and in pain. My father was no help to her at all. He didn’t provide well, or help around the house. She needed me, but there was more to it than that. These people who exploit us, who hurt us emotionally, psychologically and physically. In her case, she was bitter and angry.

Exploitation By Family Members

Penny: Now that I’m a much older person and look back on it, she was angry at herself. She married my dad, who was a complete loser. Her parents warned her. Her parents said, don’t marry this guy. He’s a liar. They saw through him. She didn’t. Or she did it anyway, because she wanted to get out of her house.

They not only exploit us for our labor, in her case house cleaning, babysitting, and chores. We become their punching bag, because there’s nobody else to defend us. She knew my dad was never home. So she did it when he wasn’t home, of course, and when he came home late at night, was drunk. She had hours, she had all day until 8 or 9 at night to take advantage of me and create trauma this abuse was hidden from everyone else.

They break us down and make us feel small to exploit us for our labor or whatever they want from us. Because if we’re smarter than them, yes, we will leave. And eventually I did when I was old enough and had the wherewithal. But I couldn’t leave at 8, 9, 10 or 11. I had no idea where to go or how to do it.

Anne: Why do you think it’s so hard for other people to see this type of trauma from hidden abuse? When a victim is either in it or healing, and they might blame her. Or say something like, you’re just bitter or you need to move on, or why can’t you get over it? Even when you’re out of it. You’re not married anymore, for example, I’m talking about the universal you.

Penny: Yes.

Anne: A victim is not in the relationship anymore. She’s relatively safe.

Healing From Hidden Post Separation Abuse

Anne: Most of us experience post separation abuse. I was abused after my divorce for eight years through my ex’s messages about our children. So most women deal with post-separation abuse. And that’s why you know, we’re not “moving on” because the abuse is right then, like it happened today. He wrote me an abusive message and lied about me today.

But in terms of women who are healing trauma from hidden abuse, and maybe in a stage where they need to talk about it. Or they’re trying to process what happened, and bystanders say things like. You need to move on, or why can’t you just forgive, or give your power away? Or any of these like super hurtful things, because they don’t understand that she is healing from this type of trauma.

Penny: Part of it is that for people like you and myself, and those who have experienced hidden abuse. We get how deep and painful those wounds are, and how they don’t go away. And those fortunate enough to not have that happen to them, they don’t get it. They really don’t.

That’s one of the reasons why we need somebody to talk to that will validate us and help us heal. And give us a safe place where we can talk about the everyday nightmares and fears that come up in routine life. Our friends, it’s quite possible they just don’t have the capacity. And someday they will.

When Therapy Makes Things Worse

Penny: One of the reasons to read memoirs that may be different than your life is so that you can learn what other people have to go through to survive and to succeed. I mean, that’s why I read memoirs and I think that’s how I learn about other people and how that happened to them.

Anne: Reading is so valuable. You can get inside someone’s head in a way that you can’t from, like a movie or other experience. To develop compassion for others. But I also think that’s why it’s so important to ensure you’re connected with other women who understand. That’s why we do The Betrayal Trauma Recovery daily Group Sessions and Individual Sessions. Because everybody at Betrayal Trauma Recovery has been through it. We all totally get it.

Even a good therapist who hasn’t been through it will have a different take. Than someone who has been a victim who understands hidden abuse on that deep personal level. What it’s actually like. Because we’ve had so many women come to us who have gone to therapy, and the therapy actually made the situation worse.

Because they didn’t understand that she was resisting the abuse the entire time. In your story, if you haven’t heard it again, her episode is called, How to Start to Heal from Emotional Abuse, Penny’s story. There’s a part, Penny, where you move out into the country. And you did that as an act of resistance.

You thought, maybe it will improve our marriage if I do this. Maybe I can make things work. The same thing with the church. But some therapists might say, why did you do that? If you knew things were so bad and didn’t like him, why did you move away?

Safety Strategies To Protect Yourself

Anne: And the answer is I’m resisting, I’m trying to improve things. I realize it did not improve things, but my intent was to improve things. Same thing with women who are being lied to and yelled at. They might have sex with their husband, for example, and a therapist might say, why did you do that? And it’s because I thought if I did, he would not be mad at me anymore.

Penny: Nobody wants to be abused. Nobody wants to be exploited. We just don’t realize, especially if you’re stuck there financially and have children. It’s hard to leave if you’re financially dependent. And they make us emotionally dependent. It’s not your fault. If you’re a victim.

Anne: They’ve done a lot of damage, but I think even if it’s not a therapist, just people around saying something like, why didn’t you do this? It’s just so not helpful.

Penny: Not helpful. It’s actually hurtful, because then it makes you feel like something was wrong with you for not doing more. I don’t think you had a choice.

Anne: As I interview victims experiencing hidden abuse, it’s interesting. Because I’m asking questions like, and then this happened, or tell me about what you were thinking? And that’s not to victim blame or say they did something wrong. But to help other victims realize that this thought process that all of us go through is common, and that they’re not doing anything wrong.

They are actually doing what anyone in this situation would do. Another point to make is the “right” thing to do, for example, stand up for yourself. Which you would think would work is not the solution.

Winning Arguments Doesn’t Uncover Hidden Abuse

Anne: Your background is that you had a low opinion of yourself due to your stepmother’s abuse. In my case, I had strong self esteem. And I thought I was super smart. And so I would fight my abuser and be like, what? No, you don’t have this right. And I would usually win our arguments. And he was confused, and he would say things like, “Wait a minute. How are you winning this argument? I went to law school.”

My ex is an attorney, and I would say, “because you don’t make any sense.” And the reason why I would say that is because he wasn’t making any sense. Because he wanted to either exploit me or do something terrible for our family. And he was trying to give me like a bogus reason. This will be good for our family, because we’ll have this awesome rally car in our driveway, and it will make our neighbors think we’re cool. Something like that.

And I was like, what are you talking about? You are not making any sense. But the reason why I bring this up is that so many women are actually confident and don’t have a low self-esteem. But it’s not keeping them from being exploited or abused, because fighting with the abuser also doesn’t actually stop the abuse.

Penny: Right.

Anne: Then you just end up in an argument.

Sometimes it ends with you just giving up. In my case, I didn’t give up. So our arguments would last a long time, until basically he would pretend to give up. And then, like literally 10 minutes later, that rally car would be in our driveway. That’s just a metaphor. You know what I mean?

When You Can Finally See The Hidden Abuse

Anne: So that’s what’s really hard for women too, because I think inside of ourselves, we’re thinking maybe if I would have been quieter, maybe if I hadn’t asked so many questions, maybe if I hadn’t stood up for myself more, what if I had done this or that, would it have changed things? And the answer is no, they’re going to choose to do this no matter what.

Penny: Yep, all of us, I think, are taught as young girls to believe in the happily ever after. And most of us take our marriage vows seriously. I did. And so I couldn’t fight, because I was under the dictate of women submit to their husband. So I could try to express my view, but it didn’t carry any weight whatsoever. And I just had to live with it until it reached a point when I realized I can’t be here anymore. This is not who I am.

This is not where I belong. The church is asking me to do stuff that I don’t want to do. My husband, I no longer respect him or love him. If standing up for yourself or fighting will get you emotionally hurt. It’s time to step back and say, you know what, I made a mistake, and it’s okay to make mistakes.

I didn’t have all the information. I did not know who he was. He didn’t show me who he really was. But now that I know, and I don’t feel comfortable, I feel exploited and have trauma from hidden abuse. It’s time for me to step back, keep my mouth shut. Until I can find a plan, because that’s how you stay safe. You have to stay safe for yourself and your children until you can make a plan.

Living Free Workshop Strategies Help You SEE Hidden Abuse

Penny: And that means find community, find help, whatever it takes to successfully extract with the least amount of trauma.

Anne: Absolutely, and that’s why I wrote The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop. Because in my experience interviewing all the victims I’ve interviewed over the years, over 300 on the podcast and in person. In our efforts to resist this trauma from hidden abuse, we’ve all tried different things, but it usually falls into two categories.

Either we’re trying to stay safe by keeping our head down, thinking that if we do what he says, it will get better. Or we’re trying to fight it. That’s not right. You can’t do this to me. You need to go to therapy. I’m gonna explain this to you. Those are the two categories that resistance falls under, but it could fall under any form of resistance. But because neither of those things work, the victims need safety strategies.

What safety strategies do is they enable you to resist in a way that you’re not doing what he wants, so he can’t exploit you. But you’re also not fighting him, so he can’t fight back, really. And so it’s this interesting middle place. Where it took me so long to figure it out is because I could not figure it out. Eight years post divorce with I’m still experiencing hidden abuse. He’s writing me messages almost every day about our children, medical neglect, all kinds of things going down.

I try to go to the court to say, hey, this is what’s happening. Please stop this. He got more custody due to that court case, and things just got worse. And so I prayed and developed these strategies, and they worked. And now I have full custody of my kids.

Penny: That’s great.

Education Is A Pathway To Seeing Hidden Abuse

Anne: So I think having safety strategies is important, but many people don’t understand that. They think, oh, everything would be fine between you and your ex. If you just take him seriously or, and it’s like. That’s not what’s going on here. It’s so much more.

Penny: I think it’s important to surround yourself with people who think highly of you and support you. Because the people who say those things again don’t get it. And it’s not helpful to hear. When you, even if you had left sooner, or done something different, you did the best you could. Nobody submits to abuse willingly, nobody. And so those people just don’t get that. And it’s not helpful.

Anne: In your healing, I love that getting more education was part of your healing process. Can you talk about how your college education helped you heal?

Penny: It helped in many ways. One, I was a waitress, right? I was financially at the bottom of the food chain. I couldn’t work enough hours in one place to make enough money to live in San Francisco at the time. It was expensive. So I worked two or three jobs at a time to make enough money to pay rent and have groceries and stuff.

I was much older than the people around me. I was living in a roommate situation with somebody five years younger than me. And all these people had college degrees, and the people I lived with were pursuing a graduate degree. They had what I looked at as cool and interesting jobs. So I said to myself, I need what they have. I need a college degree. And I started going.

Going To College Builds Self Esteem

Penny: And so it did two things for me. Number one is I vowed never again to depend on a man to support myself. I didn’t like living in a roommate situation, I wanted my own home that nobody could take away from me. Because now this was two homes, one I left home at 16. I ran away from home, so that’s one home lost. And second, I left my marriage and left my home and everything in it to my husband, my ex husband.

So that was two homes I lost, and I vowed I would never lose another home. So the college degree, first of all, as I started accruing classes, I could only take two or three classes at a time. Because I worked during the day and went to school at night. I started getting A’s and B’s. Going to college built my self esteem.

And I went to school with other adults who were also working during the day and going to school at night. Everybody had a different story. Some people were immigrants. Some people just didn’t have the money to go to school during the day. They were married, and now they’re going back to college. So it boosted my self esteem and my value, my thinking about how smart I was.

And number two, I was able to work in finance with a college degree, which is a rewarding career that allowed me to make enough money to own a house. And eventually, I remarried and have a partner who shares expenses with me. But had that not happened, I could maintain this lifestyle on my own. And so that was my goal.

Balancing Education & Responsibilities

Penny: And it created the college degree, created financial independence and huge self-esteem for me. And since then, got a master’s degree. And so again, graduating for a second time is huge. It’s a huge honor, thrill, and achievement. And I’m proud of that. It took a lot of work. It took a lot of time, sweat, loss of sleep, and loss of money, right? Because college costs money. It wasn’t free.

I also paid for it out of my own income, as opposed to taking out loans, which was pretty important nowadays because student loans can really create financial problems in the future.

Anne: That’s wonderful. For women who doubt themselves, they’re listening to this podcast and thinking, great, good for you, Penny. You did this. But I’m never going to do that. I have kids, they’re little, or I have this going on. And what type of encouragement might you give them?

Penny: I would say yes, I was lucky in that or unlucky. I was unable to bear children. I didn’t have children when I went through this. So that was the good luck, bad luck, right? Bad luck. I couldn’t have children. And also good luck, I didn’t have children. I was able to go to school at night. I didn’t have any responsibilities besides getting up for work the next morning.

But I would tell them that to find a way or wait until the kids are older and all in school. And see if they can find an online program that they could take maybe one class at a time.

Steps To Improve Your Life After Hidden Abuse

Penny: And even if it takes you 10 years to graduate college, if you can do one class at a time. And start accruing credits and grades, A’s, B’s and C’s, and improve the C to an A and B to an A. You’ll start feeling such a boost of self-esteem and pride. And say to yourself, I’m a quarter way through college. I’m a halfway through college. I’m three quarters of the way, or even a certificate.

Like maybe some colleges offer like certificates. That’s maybe an 18 month program for, I don’t know, dental hygienist or nurses aid or something like that. Some certificates then allow you to move up the food chain financially and get a respectable position. Maybe in a large organization that provides benefits. So you might have to shelve it now if you have little children dependent on you and can’t afford daycare. But when they get to school, you could do that.

And I think you could also go to your community and say, Hey, can we do a trade? Can you watch my kids this night so I could go to class? And I’ll watch your kids that night, so you can go to bingo, right? So there’s always a way to do it. It gets easier when the kids get older, I think. But make it your goal, set your mind on it, and don’t stop until you have that goal. Your certificate, your associate’s degree, or your bachelor’s degree.

Anne: And even if it’s not school, like you said, like a radiologist tech or something like that, or just a job, even if it’s not school.

Believing In A Better Future

Anne: I think the thing that breaks my heart the most is when victims feel like, and for good reason. They can’t do anything about their situation. And it’s a fine line between victim blaming, which we do not do here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, and letting victims know that having experienced hidden abuse is not your fault. Nothing about the situation is your fault, and it has nothing to do with you. There are things that you can do that will improve your life.

They’re not going to change him. They have nothing to do with him. But you can take tiny steps. I talk about those in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop. There are tiny little baby steps that you can take that are free, that are just minute. But I think that’s why some people accidentally victim blame. Because they realize, yeah right, there’s nothing she can do to stop him from harming her or her kids.

She can even get divorced, and he can continue to do that. And so how can we help her make her way to safety? And most people don’t have an answer for that. They can’t figure it out, except you need to do this differently. Rather than realizing that some safety strategies are simply because someone’s never heard it before. And they didn’t know it was possible or they didn’t feel it was possible for them.

And so the thing I want to let everyone know is that there is a better life possible for you. I don’t know what that looks like. I don’t know how that’s going to come to be. But I want women to believe it’s possible.

Processing What I Learned

Anne: Because when women believe safety is possible, they believe they can improve their lives somehow. And believe they can heal trauma from hidden abuse and readily apparent abuse. That is when the magic happens, when they start taking steps to improve their lives. And also start taking steps to get themselves out of a situation that they absolutely did not cause and had nothing to do with them in the first place.

Penny: Yep, I agree.

Anne: Is there anything else you wanted to cover?

Penny: I would love to mention to your listeners that I wrote a memoir of surviving both an abusive marriage and abusive childhood. And how I made a recovery, became successful, happy, and rebuilt my life. It’s called Redeemed, a Memoir of a Stolen Childhood, by Penny Lane, and available wherever you buy books.

It’s inexpensive, and available at most libraries. So I’d love them to look at that, and I hope to inspire people to make some choices. And to know that I’m nobody special. I’m just a kid from Queens, a runaway from Queens, and that if I could do it, they can do it too.

Anne: Yeah, thank you. And to hear her story on the podcast was amazing too. She only told a small portion of it, and hearing her whole story and how far she’s come in, her memoir would be awesome. So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom accrued over the years in thinking about this. And it’s so inspiring to talk to victims who have taken something so difficult and made it into something beautiful.

Encouragement To Move Forward

Penny: Yeah, I think it is possible, and I want to tell your listeners that once you start making the baby steps, to stand up for yourself and change your own life. And to stand up to people who abuse you, oppress you, verbally attack you or denigrate you. You will start feeling a power and strength in your soul that you’ve never felt before. And so I encourage you to start taking those steps. Because it’s the beginning of change.

Anne: That’s awesome. Thank you so much for talking with me today, Penny.

Penny: You’re very welcome. I wish all your viewers well and happiness and safety