You finally lost it.
After months—maybe years—of walking on eggshells, absorbing criticism, and biting your tongue, you exploded. You yelled. You threw something. You said things you never thought you’d say. Maybe you even got physical in a way that horrifies you now.
And now? Now you’re drowning in shame and guilt. You’re thinking:
“Maybe I’m the toxic one.”
“I’m just as bad as they are.”
“Maybe they were right about me all along.”
Your partner is certainly telling you that. They might be showing others the text messages you sent, the voice recording of you screaming, or the scratch marks from when you tried to defend yourself. They’re painting you as “crazy,” “abusive,” or “unstable.”
Suddenly, you’re questioning everything. Are you the problem? Are you the abuser?
As a relationship trauma specialist who has worked with hundreds of survivors of narcissistic abuse here in Central Florida, I need you to hear this: What you experienced is called reactive abuse, and it does not make you an abusive person.
Let me explain what really happened—and why understanding reactive abuse is crucial to your healing.
What Is Reactive Abuse?
Reactive abuse occurs when someone who has been subjected to prolonged emotional, psychological, or physical abuse finally reacts—often aggressively or emotionally—to their abuser.
It’s the moment you “snap” after being pushed to your absolute breaking point.
Here’s what makes it different from mutual abuse or toxic behavior: Reactive abuse is a trauma response, not a pattern of control.
The key distinction is this:
- Abuse is about power and control. It’s a consistent pattern of behavior designed to dominate, manipulate, and maintain control over another person.
- Reactive abuse is a defensive response to sustained abuse. It’s your nervous system’s last-ditch effort to protect you when all other attempts at safety have failed.
Think of it like this: If someone keeps poking you, ignoring your requests to stop, escalating their poking, and then acts shocked when you finally slap their hand away—they created that reaction. Your response wasn’t unprovoked; it was inevitable.
How Narcissists Use Your Reaction Against You
Here’s where it gets particularly insidious. Narcissistic and emotionally abusive people often intentionally provoke these reactions. It serves several purposes:
1. It Validates Their Narrative
They’ve been telling you (and possibly others) that you’re “crazy,” “unstable,” or “the real problem.” When you finally react, it “proves” their point. Never mind that they spent months systematically dismantling your emotional stability to get there.
2. It Shifts the Focus
Suddenly, the conversation isn’t about their months of gaslighting, manipulation, or cruelty—it’s about your outburst. You’re now defending your behavior instead of addressing theirs.
3. It Makes You Doubt Yourself
This is the most damaging effect. Your reaction—which goes against your values and who you believe yourself to be—makes you question your sanity, your character, and your perception of reality. This self-doubt is exactly what keeps you trapped.
4. It Isolates You
They can now point to your reaction as evidence to others. Friends, family, even therapists might not understand the full context. You look like the aggressor, and they look like the victim.
In my practice in the Orlando area, I’ve seen this play out countless times. High-achieving, successful women come to me utterly convinced they’re the problem because of how they reacted to sustained abuse.
The Psychology Behind Why You Snapped
Your reaction wasn’t a character flaw—it was biology. Here’s what was happening in your brain and body:
The Frustration-Aggression Response
When humans experience sustained frustration with no resolution, our nervous system eventually produces an aggressive response. It’s not a choice; it’s physiology. Your brain was trying to protect you when every other attempt to establish safety had failed.
Nervous System Dysregulation
After prolonged exposure to abuse, your nervous system becomes chronically dysregulated. You’re living in a near-constant state of hypervigilance (fight or flight). When someone in this state experiences one more trigger, the nervous system doesn’t have the capacity for a measured response—it erupts.
Cumulative Stress
Think of your emotional capacity like a glass of water. Every criticism, manipulation, silent treatment, and gaslighting incident adds water to the glass. For months or years, you’ve been managing this carefully, making sure it doesn’t overflow. But eventually, one more drop—even a small one—causes everything to spill over.
Self-Defense
Sometimes, reactive abuse is literally self-defense. You’re trying to protect yourself—physically or psychologically—from harm. But the abuser will reframe your self-defense as aggression.
Common Scenarios of Reactive Abuse
In my 18+ years specializing in relationship trauma, I’ve heard variations of these stories hundreds of times:
Scenario 1: The Recording
They’ve been criticizing you for hours. Following you from room to room. Not letting you leave. You’ve asked them to stop 10, 20, 50 times. Finally, you scream at them to leave you alone. They’ve been secretly recording, and now they have “proof” you’re abusive.
Scenario 2: The Physical Response
They’ve backed you into a corner—literally or figuratively. They’re in your space, blocking your exit, refusing to let you de-escalate. You push past them to get away, and suddenly you’re the one who “got physical.”
Scenario 3: The Text Explosion
After days or weeks of silent treatment, manipulation, or gaslighting, you send a barrage of texts expressing your pain, anger, and frustration. Some of the language is harsh. Now they’re showing people your “crazy” texts, with zero context about what led to them.
Scenario 4: The Matching Energy
They’ve been emotionally cruel—subtle digs, dismissiveness, contempt. You’ve tried to address it calmly dozens of times, but nothing changes. Finally, you respond with the same energy they’ve been giving you. Now you’re “just as bad” as they are.
Sound familiar?
Am I Really the Toxic One? How to Tell the Difference
This is the question that keeps my clients up at night. Here’s how to tell if you’re dealing with reactive abuse or if you’re actually in a mutually toxic dynamic:
You’re Experiencing Reactive Abuse If:
✓ Your aggressive behavior is out of character for you
✓ You don’t behave this way in other relationships
✓ Your reaction was preceded by sustained provocation
✓ You feel genuine remorse and horror at your behavior
✓ Your partner seems almost satisfied when you react
✓ You were trying to defend yourself or create distance
✓ Your “abuse” consists of isolated incidents, not patterns
✓ You’ve tried everything else (calm communication, boundaries, leaving) before reacting
You Might Be in a Mutually Toxic Dynamic If:
✗ Both partners regularly engage in controlling, manipulative behavior
✗ Both partners use abuse tactics to “win” or maintain control
✗ The dynamic is volatile in both directions consistently
✗ Neither person takes accountability or shows genuine remorse
✗ Both partners seem to escalate rather than de-escalate
Here’s the truth: People in mutually toxic relationships rarely question whether they’re the problem. The fact that you’re reading this article, examining your behavior, and feeling genuine remorse already suggests you’re not the primary aggressor.
Abusive people don’t lie awake at night questioning whether they’re abusive. You do—because you’re not.
The Shame Spiral: Breaking Free from Self-Blame
The shame that follows reactive abuse is profound. I’ve had clients tell me:
“I’m a therapist/doctor/teacher/professional. How could I act like that?”
“I teach my children not to behave that way. What kind of example am I?”
“Maybe everything they said about me is true.”
This shame keeps you trapped. It makes you believe you deserve the abuse. It makes you think you need to stay and “make up for” your behavior. It keeps you from reaching out for help because you’re convinced no one will believe you or that you don’t deserve support.
Let me be absolutely clear: Your reaction to abuse does not justify the abuse. And one or several reactions do not define who you are.
What defines you is the pattern of your life, not your worst moment under extreme duress.
How Trauma-Informed Therapy Addresses Reactive Abuse
Not all therapists understand the dynamics of narcissistic abuse and reactive abuse. In fact, if you’ve been to couples counseling with your abuser, the therapist may have inadvertently reinforced the narrative that you’re “both responsible” for the problems.
This is why specialized trauma therapy is crucial. Here’s what proper treatment looks like:
1. Validating Your Experience Without Condoning Your Actions
You can acknowledge that your behavior wasn’t okay while also understanding why it happened. These aren’t mutually exclusive. Healing requires holding both truths.
2. Processing the Trauma That Led to the Reaction
Through modalities like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), we process the accumulated trauma stored in your nervous system. This isn’t just about talking through what happened—it’s about helping your body release the stored stress and fear.
3. Rebuilding Your Nervous System Regulation
When you’ve been living in survival mode for months or years, your nervous system needs to learn safety again. We work on grounding techniques, regulation strategies, and building your window of tolerance so you can respond rather than react.
4. Addressing Underlying Attachment Wounds
Often, vulnerability to narcissistic abuse stems from earlier attachment wounds. Understanding these patterns helps you make sense of why you stayed and how to protect yourself moving forward.
5. Developing Healthy Boundaries
You’ll learn to recognize red flags earlier, trust your instincts, and set boundaries before you reach the breaking point.
6. Rebuilding Self-Trust
The biggest casualty of reactive abuse is often your trust in yourself. Therapy helps you distinguish between your authentic self and your trauma responses.
My Approach: Woman Redeemed and Specialized Trauma Treatment
At Life Counseling Solutions in Central Florida, I created the Woman Redeemed program specifically for women healing from narcissistic abuse, betrayal trauma, and toxic relationships. I understand the unique shame and confusion that comes with reactive abuse because I’ve walked alongside hundreds of women through this exact experience.
The women I work with are often:
- Successful, high-achieving professionals
- Mothers who are terrified of how their reactions might affect their children
- Women who’ve never behaved this way before and are horrified by their own actions
- Survivors who’ve been told by other therapists that they “need to take responsibility for their part”
If that’s you, I want you to know: You’re not crazy. You’re not abusive. You’re traumatized. And trauma can heal.
Through individual EMDR sessions and the intensive Woman Redeemed group program, we:
- Help you understand what really happened in your relationship
- Process the trauma without retraumatizing you
- Rebuild your nervous system’s capacity for regulation
- Restore your sense of self and self-trust
- Equip you with tools to never end up in this dynamic again
- Connect you with other women who understand exactly what you’ve been through
Moving Forward: From Shame to Healing
Here’s what I want you to take away from this article:
- Your reaction does not make you an abuser. Reactive abuse is fundamentally different from a pattern of abusive behavior.
- Your reaction does not justify their abuse. Even if you said or did terrible things, that doesn’t mean you deserved what was done to you.
- You can hold yourself accountable without taking on shame. “I behaved in a way I’m not proud of under extreme circumstances” is very different from “I’m an abusive person.”
- You need specialized support. General therapy or couples counseling won’t help—and might harm. You need someone who understands narcissistic abuse dynamics.
- Healing is possible. You won’t always feel this way. Your nervous system can regulate. You can trust yourself again. You can build healthy relationships.
The path forward isn’t about defending your behavior or minimizing it—it’s about understanding the full context, processing the trauma, and building the life you deserve.
You Don’t Have to Carry This Shame Alone
If you’re in the Orlando, Casselberry, or Central Florida area and you’re struggling with guilt over how you reacted in a toxic relationship, please reach out. This is exactly the kind of situation I specialize in treating.
You deserve a therapist who:
- Won’t judge you for your worst moments
- Understands the complex dynamics of narcissistic abuse
- Can help you process trauma, not just talk about it
- Will validate your experience while helping you heal
That therapist is out there. And I’d be honored if you’d let me be that person for you.
You’re not broken. You’re not crazy. You’re not abusive. You’re hurt. And hurt can heal.
Get Specialized Support for Reactive Abuse and Relationship Trauma
Life Counseling Solutions offers trauma-informed therapy for survivors of narcissistic abuse and toxic relationships.
Dr. Janie Lacy, LMHC, NCC, CSAT-S specializes in:
- Reactive abuse recovery
- Narcissistic abuse and gaslighting trauma
- EMDR therapy for complex trauma
- Woman Redeemed intensive healing program
- Betrayal trauma and love addiction
Located in Casselberry, FL (serving Orlando, Winter Park, Maitland, and Central Florida)
📞 Call 407-622-1770 today for a confidential consultation
🌐 Visit LifeCounselingSolutions.com
📺 Expert therapist on TLC’s “90 Day Fiancé: The Last Resort”
The fact that you’re questioning whether you’re the problem shows you’re not. Let’s work together to help you understand what really happened, process the trauma, and rebuild your life. You deserve support, not judgment. Reach out today.
