As someone with an ACE score of 9, I have experienced nearly every form of abuse a person can endure.
Physical abuse.
Sexual abuse.
Domestic violence.
Psychological abuse.
Verbal abuse.
Emotional abuse.
In 2006, I survived a near-fatal strangulation during a domestic violence assault. That night changed the course of my life in ways I would not fully understand for more than a decade.
What followed was a downward spiral of physical symptoms, emotional struggles, diagnoses that never quite fit, and a growing belief that something was fundamentally wrong with me.
It wasn’t until 2019 that I finally received proper diagnosis and treatment for an acquired traumatic brain injury resulting from that assault. Working with a functional neurologist changed everything. For the first time, I began to understand that many of the struggles I had carried for years were rooted in my neurology, my nervous system, and the survival adaptations I had developed throughout childhood and adulthood.
I came home from that first intensive treatment a different person.
Not healed.
But awakened.
Since then, I have spent hundreds of hours learning about trauma, neuroplasticity, brain injury, nervous system regulation, and how to rewire the pathways that were built through years of surviving.
And what I’ve discovered is something I think many people who work with survivors still underestimate:
The impact of verbal and emotional abuse.
People understand broken bones.
They understand black eyes.
They understand scars.
They understand a brain injury when they can see it on a scan.
But verbal and emotional abuse often leaves no visible evidence.
Instead, it leaves recordings.
Recordings that play over and over again in the background of your life.
Recordings that become so familiar you no longer recognize them as someone else’s voice.
You mistake them for your own.
Recently, I was accepted to present at another national conference. I was also invited to participate in a project alongside some of the brightest minds working at the intersection of intimate partner violence, brain injury, and the criminal justice system.
By every objective measure, I belong in those rooms.
I have lived experience.
Professional experience.
Research experience.
Training experience.
I have spent years studying these intersections because I survived them.
Yet even now, there are moments when I question whether I deserve a seat at the table.
Not because of a lack of qualifications.
Because of a voice.
A voice from decades ago.
Growing up, my father rarely called me Paula.
More often, he called me “Porky.”
I was an overweight child, and I heard repeatedly that the world doesn’t accept fat women. That if I wanted people to take me seriously, if I wanted opportunities, if I wanted success, my appearance mattered more than anything else.
At the time, those comments seemed normal.
They were just words.
At least that’s what people say.
“They’re only words.”
But words become beliefs.
Beliefs become pathways.
Pathways become identity.
Now, years later, I can be standing backstage preparing to speak, and suddenly that recording starts playing.
I don’t just remember the words.
I hear the tone.
I hear the voice.
I feel my body tense.
I feel the shame.
I feel the fear.
For a brief moment, I am no longer an accomplished speaker, paramedic, advocate, or survivor.
I am little Paula again.
And that is the thing about emotional abuse that people don’t understand.
Your body doesn’t know the difference between a memory and a threat.
It responds as though the danger is happening right now.
The bruises from physical abuse healed.
The injuries from strangulation are being treated.
The trauma responses are improving.
But those old recordings?
Those are some of the hardest wounds to heal.
They show up in unexpected places.
They show up when I post a video.
When I record a podcast.
When I take a photo.
When I step onto a stage.
When I read a comment online.
There are days I don’t want to create content because I’m afraid a stranger’s criticism will awaken a voice I’ve worked years to quiet.
Not because I’m fragile.
Because healing doesn’t erase history.
It teaches you how to respond differently when history shows up.
The truth is that rewiring from emotional and verbal abuse is incredibly difficult because the abuse eventually moves in.
The abuser doesn’t even have to be present anymore.
The words continue doing the work for them.
The healing comes when we learn to recognize those voices for what they are:
Not truth.
Not identity.
Not prophecy.
Just echoes.
Old recordings from people who were speaking from their own wounds, limitations, and brokenness.
Today, when those voices show up, I try to meet them with compassion rather than shame.
I remind myself that the little girl who heard those messages wasn’t weak.
She adapted.
She survived.
And now she is learning something new.
She is learning that her worth was never tied to a number on a scale.
Never tied to someone’s approval.
Never tied to how perfectly she performed.
She was worthy all along.
I think many survivors carry similar recordings.
Different words.
Different voices.
Different stories.
But the same struggle.
And perhaps part of healing is not making those voices disappear.
Perhaps healing is learning to speak louder than they do.
Every time we tell our story.
Every time we set a boundary.
Every time we choose self-compassion over self-criticism.
Every time we show up, despite being afraid.
We create a new recording.
One rooted in truth.
One rooted in safety.
One rooted in who we actually are.
The voices of the past may still whisper.
But they no longer get to write the ending.
And maybe that is how we know we are healing—not when the voices disappear, but when they no longer get the final word.
That is when you know you are on your own courageous journey.
With love and hope,
Paula
Leave a Reply