Why traumatized / abused people don't see red flags in relationships?

Chaos, abuse, is familiar to us, and so when we get into a relationship that has these qualities, we don't have that reflex of thinking "Hey, this isn't normal." I did it myself, quite a few times, and as a result, I stopped dating for almost 6 years. I even had a friend that was emotionally abusive, and looking back I can't believe I didn't see it 😞

We are just so used to putting up with so much, that the honeymoon phase always seems like this one will be different, when we're just being manipulated into thinking it will.

Personally, I was taught to automatically suppress any negative feelings and opinions, so whenever a friend or a partner was behaving badly it didn't even register.

I think it's a combination of:

• We weren't taught that boundaries exist, how they work, or that it's okay to have them;

• We'll take acceptance or belonging wherever we can get it;

• Gravitating toward the familiar;

• Not having a basis for comparison for understanding what heathy love actually looks like;

-The other person's doing the same thing. I can't stress this enough--they're in the same boat we are, and are also gravitating toward us too; it isn't solely ourselves and it even makes the pull toward them magnetic sometimes

• Empathy. The other person who'd hurt us is probably also traumatized. We can see the tortured soul in there, and in a way, we really want to help them as a proxy for helping ourselves.

So all this makes us overlook the red flags, even when we'd otherwise be able to see them just fine.

Firstly because red flags, usually, are subtle hints. Anyone can give off the odd red flag in isolation, but quite a few quite often is alarming. We probably give too much benefit of doubt.

Secondly, because some red flag behaviour seems normal, familiar, maybe comforting to some extent. It shouldn't be, but growing up experiencing such behaviour could leave us seeing it in those ways.

I’m so gullible emotionally my biggest blind spot by far . People run rings round me just by keeping a smile on their face. It’s pitifully easy to trick me.

Dissociation and disconnect to the body and emotions. As soon as I connected back, everything became much more easy. Red flags are noticed in the body, this special feeling of discomfort that alerts you that something is up, somatic therapy and emotional release is the key.

I think half of it is our defunctive gut-feeling alarm systems not going off, and the other half is the feeling that you can take whatever the red flags are.

For example, I have a history of experiencing some pretty severe sexual trauma, so someone actively wanting to be sexual with me is extremely therapeutic/affirming/healing/cathartic. And once I have that in a relationship, I don’t want to let that go. So I’ve stuck around with some pretty abusive/narcissistic partners in the past just because I could get some sort of sexual validation out of it. Sexual validation has been this black hole that has evaded me for so long, that the thought of losing it is legitimately terrifying. So the “See no evil - hear no evil - speak no evil” part of my brain just gets switched to maximum.

Curious if this resonates with anyone else.

Sometimes the red flags with a new person aren't as red as the extremely red red flags you experienced before, so you give people a pass for things that they should absolutely not be given a pass for. Like my dad would verbally abuse me, so someone who would just give me the silent treatment when he was mad would seem better by comparison, right? But that's not OK either.

I was always afraid of ending up in a relationship with someone like my dad, so in my early 20s I overcorrected hard into dating people who were so nonconfrontational there was no actual intimacy. Which is better than being verbally abused, but isn't a relationship either. Whoops.

Yeah I thought I had healed and learned the warning signs. I'm really pissed off with myself that this is not the case

Dr Ramani had a video about this a while back. She said most of us do see the red flags but we often don't believe our own experiences, we don't believe we deserve better and we don't believe we have a right to advocate for ourselves and set boundaries.

And if we were taught codependency we believe someone else's behaviour is our responsibility so we end up actually making excuses for it.

Most of us aren't colorblind, we were just taught that pointing out the red flags gets us abused more.

Do you have a refrigerator or any other device that makes near constant sound? When it's happening, are you always aware in the forefront of your mind it's humming, or do you often tune out the background noise and carry on with your day?

The abuse and dysfunction are the refrigerator humming. We're used to it. That's not the full nuanced version but I need to get back to work

Dissociation, for me.

I learned that I must function at all costs, which required that I dissociate from the pain of my experiences. Also my psyche learned abuse denial as a childhood coping mechanism of survival, and I was gaslit into believing g I was dirty, bad, and the abuse was my fault.

I could get punched in the stomach before work, and completely forget that it has happened by dinner. The memory wasn’t gone, it was just fragmented. My mental health workers always focused on regulation rather than addressing the abuse.

When I finally started doing actual trauma work and EMDR, the consolidation of my memories hit me like a train. I developed a (virtually) overnight recognition and utter intolerance for any abuse or manipulation tactic, victim blaming, silencing, etc. The social trauma was MASSIVE, so much that I often wondered if I would have chosen to tolerate the abuse, had I known the price I would pay. I’m finally recovering (although I still have severe PTSD episodes) and I’m glad that I let go of all those people. However, the psyche knows if and when we are truly prepared to navigate the consequences of bucking the abuse, and it won’t let us put all the pieces together until our spirit is strong enough to withstand what happens next.

People side with abusers. Society excuses, reinforces and validates exploitation. It is a devastating reality, but on the other side is relational safety that actually meets our standards of interpersonal respect.

I tend to doubt myself so much since I was gaslit a lot growing up and my emotions were never validated. I have so much trouble being on my own side. It takes me awhile to truly see the red flags or to believe in them.

A lot of people who were around me, they contributed to this gaslighting, self doubt, minimizing, invalidation. Even if it’s just subtle like “I’m sure they don’t hate you, don’t worry, they probably just had a bad day!” It all adds up. I was also taught to give the benefit of the doubt to other people.

I definitely have this issue. I find myself drawn to emotionally unavailable people that are potentially toxic or unsafe. These are the people who I also try to open up to about my past with my family bc for some reason apart of my brain is like “you can trust them” then does the shocked pikachu face when they start spouting stuff like “iT wAs In ThE pAsT” or “jUsT bE hApPy AnD lEt It gO.” Or they use the info against me and say I’m looking for pity/attention by doing it all the time when in reality I barely talk about it and even when I do it’s for validation lol.

Maybe they’re just drawn to me too idk lol. I would assume it’s a bit of both.

It’s our ‘normal’

10 years I was so blind to the emotional abuse , the physical abuse I gave excuses .. finally I actually recognise I am a victim.

I see the red flags in my partners. Unfortunately, I have a hard time distinguishing between "this is a dangerous and unacceptable pattern of behavior" and "they're just having a bad day, this is their past trauma rearing it's head. I want to be the supportive, loving force for them the way I wish others were for me." Empathy and understanding can be a double-edged sword

You usually do not see the red flags because when you go through traumatic situations you start to become desensitised, you don’t have the sensitivity to mistreatment and abuse as a person without trauma would have. As well as if someone witnessed abuse or trauma during childhood, it affects them because childhood is when you are developing the most, and you observe your environment and if your environment is traumatising, that is what you will learn is right. Which is also why a lot of abused and traumatised people can end up becoming abusive themselves, they grew up with that behaviour being the right behaviour. I have had the same problem and only by realising these things is how I managed to recover and be able to see the red flags

The red flags were often normalized in our family and culture of origin, so they seem normal to us. They don't register as a red flag. They're familiar to us. We can also be prone to repetition compulsion due to that familiarity. Which is our subconscious trying to work out our past with the people in the present.

I had to learn what trustworthy, re-humanizing behaviors actually are bc I had terrible examples in my family and culture of origin. Now I try to consciously practice trustworthy, re-humanizing behaviors towards myself and others to build secure attachment.

The Trust Triangle

The Anatomy of Trust - marble jar concept and BRAVING acronym

10 definitions of objectifying/dehumanizing behaviors - these erode trust

My theory is that we grew up in toxic environments, right? I needed to have blindspots in that environment because letting myself see what was going on would inspire me to change or challenge my abusers, and when your abusers are especially tyrannical, that could result in them killing you because abusers are trying at all costs to cover up what they're doing, and when threats don't work, they have a potential to move into really dark territory. It's better to let them believe that their threats have worked and psychologically blind myself to their abuse, manipulation, sadism, sickness, etc. And that's also essential to making an abusive environment a livable one. So i never took the blinders off, and what you get when you don't do that is someone ad an adult who is still blind to shitty behavior even though it might be obvious to someone who isn't using every mental magic trick in their tool bag to keep themselves safe from not noticing the abuse.

This is something I have been exploring in therapy as of late. I have such a pattern of abusive relationships, and I had to wonder why that is. I am still exploring this, but what I have discovered so far is that:

1. Chaos and abuse feel familiar. Familiar feels comfortable, even if that familiarity is with abuse. It is what I know!
2. I have weak boundaries. My boundary line lies down the street, and it takes many, many, many boundary crossings for me to recognize and accept that it's not okay.
3. I have low self-esteem. To some degree, I internalized that I deserve to be abused, and I am working on breaking that internal narrative.
4. I tend to give the benefit of the doubt and continually try to rationalize the irrational.
5. I ignore it when things feel wrong because that requires me to be confrontational and assertive, and the abuses I have faced have caused me to internalize complacency and passivity.

I have these blinders on where I project who I want the person to be and familiar behaviour even not great is so familiar that I perceive it to be safe. Takes time and healing to learn new behaviours like getting a correct set of glasses

Some people already covered it feels familiar for us. I think another thing is depending on where we are at internally, we may put a potential partner on a pedestal and view ourselves as unlovable or unworthy so that affects desicions. Such as a partner ghosting us or refusing to put effort into seeing us, we might reach out ourselves over and over thinking 'they are worth continuing to know' while 'we aren't worth contacting anyway' instead of realizing hey I'm putting most of the effort in and I deserve someone actually interested in me back and treating me fairly. We might have a partner yell at us often or insult us, and we think to ourselves 'they're right' instead of 'I deserve respect.' We think we may be better with them than alone, because we are idealizing them and the attachment feelings of being with them. Even though if it were say a friend (who we weren't in love with) we might go 'what a jerk I'm not being friends with them anymore unless they apologize and prove they'll respect me in future.'

I gaslight myself.

"I don't like that thing that person is doing. Nah I'm probably being too harsh or having my expectations set too high. It's gotta be a me problem."

My therapist framed it in a way that made a lot of sense to me: we unconsciously gravitate towards recreating our trauma because a part of us thinks that if it goes well this time, we’ll be healed. Our traumatized brain wants a “do-over”.

Dr Ramani is really good at strategies to overcome this. This interview in particular was super helpful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOnZYVTNVNc

She says to develop a relationship with yourself. It's one thing for someone healthy to get back to it, and it's another for a person who grew up in abuse to find comfort or a baseline of security. Not easy, but it makes a lot of sense. Once you find safety in yourself, you can let others in who don't disrupt your self-respect or self-love or security.

I was afraid to fall into a bad relationship and I didn't, but I went to therapy and the therapist was abusive. She was from a toxic family too, she said, but she acted like a toxic, enabling, gaslighting sister. She bullied me over the most sensitive things I revealed.

I noticed that it always felt wrong, but I thought I was being crazy. I thought I needed to feel uncomfortable so I could get the help that would let me let healthy people in.

I think fear of being alone is a big one. One thing that's helped me to overcome it is online safe spaces, like this one. Another is my pets. Another would be self-regulation, and finding my own identity.

A lot of it isn't about putting up walls, it's about being comfortable being alone. I was always a big loner, but felt like a loser. I wanted to find anyone and internalized a lot of abuse so I could use that as a guide for who to be so I could be accepted. I never even had friends, but was letting other people dictate how much I was worth.

By the way, going to therapy was just reinforcing that. The therapist would lay out plans that would show my bullies who I really was, in a way that felt like she was taking their side every time. I really think she's just a shit person who doesn't realize it and is unconsciously abusing her authority and status as spiritual leader.

You know that saying that goes (something along the lines of): "when you look at the world wearing rose-colored glasses, all the red and white flags look the same"?

I think it's something similar for us... Except, C-PTSD isnt "giving" us some kind of "inappropriately-rosy perspective"- I think a more accurate saying for US could be something like: "When you can't perceive the color red, all the red and white flags look the same."

There are optical illusion games out there where you're supposed to stare at an image, then look away to a white space, and the "negative" image (with the opposite colors) will appear. These work because the cells in our eyes that perceive the "original" images's colors get "tired" after staring at them for a while, so when you look away to the white page, all the other color cells are still energized, and THOSE are the colors you actually see. With these illusions, all you have to do is wait a little while for the color cells to have a bit of a break, and then things go back to normal again.

I kinda feel like C-PTSD means our "eyes" have spent so much time staring at "red" things, that our "red-sensing cells" are (now) perpetually over-tired and switched off. The end result is that our ability to see the color red is diminished.

Soo all the different shades of red-flags look the same to us, and stand out no more than the white ones.

I think when we're traumatized we don't develop a strong sense of 'self'. This shows up as low self esteem, low self confidence and putting ourselves on the "back burner" to others needs/wants. So when we find someone that is into us, we don't have that sense of self to say "are they really good for me?". Instead we are happy/excited to have a person want us and make us feel loved because that was not always the case growing up. Without a strong self of who we are and what we deserve, it's easy to look past or ignore red flags, despite how obvious they might seem to others or even ourselves.

I don't see many comments (although haven't read them all) that point out that abusive people are often attracted to vulnerable people (who are less likely to be able to spot red flags) because they can target and exploit them. I just wanted to move the rhetoric away from self blame.

for me, i was so deprived of genuine love in my upbringing that i tend to confuse love-bombing for actual love.

a lot of abusers use love-bombing as a mechanism for reeling their victims in. i’m getting better at staying away from people and situations that seem to good to be true, though.

You question your warning signs and dismiss them as inaccurate after being told your whole life that your reactions to your *boundaries being violated are “too dramatic”, “you can’t take a joke”, “you’re making a mountain out of a molehill”, etc.

*Boundaries were something you weren’t allowed to have. Attempting to set boundaries with abusers was met with derision, hostility, and, possibly, violence.

Because for us red flags are green lights

I remember telling my ex that I loved him because he felt like home. Stupid me didn’t realize that he was just like my dad - the condescending remarks that he plays off as jokes, the verbal and emotional abuse, and so many other red flags. Ugh! I’ve come so far in thinking I’d recognize abuse but it wasn’t the case when it was directly staring at me in that face

Lack of boundaries and lack of experience with adults/people actually explaining to me what my boundaries should be/what bad behavior looks like. I had no education on psychology and personality disorders before age 20. Like I literally didn’t know people grew up differently than I did and then ended up coming into contact with people who had so much childhood trauma that they couldn’t even help but hurt me. So the lesson is to teach your kids about mental health issues as soon as they can understand!

I think we are trained to not trust ourselves. Also abusers tend to use shaming language, telling us not be so "judgemental". I had a friend who early in our relationship used my name to get herself out of trouble. I confronted her and she burst into tears, saying that she had been drunk and confused, and that she was sorry. I told myself that she was likely lying but she had apologized and everybody makes mistakes. I have always been too lenient on bad behaviour and tolerate it too much in other people. I used to confuse it with compassion. I thought being understanding was kinder than cutting that person out of my life. And then the abuser would escalate, isolate and take advantage of me.

Attraction is based around the concept of familiarity. Perhaps it's not that people with CPTSD don't see them, it's that we sometimes ignore them without a thought because it's familiar to us. It's safe in a sense.

For myself I gather it feels familiar, therefor "normal," like my family of origin, which was emotionally abusive.

A few years ago I finally had a sudden awakening which included having boundaries I previously didn't even realize I was missing. It's good but also a heartbreaking revelation. I also realized that having weak boundaries is a very attractive trait to predators, usually narcissists. I could see it in all my past relationships, both romantic and friends. At this time I was single and no friends, but...there was this one neighbor, who would always ask about things in my yard, like flowers, bricks, trees, as in "do you want those or are you using those?" In hindsight those questions sound absurd, but at the time he must have sensed opportunity, and was fishing for free things.

Eventually it worked as he made it seem like a good idea that he could park his car in the open space of my driveway whenever he wanted. After the 3rd time he didn't give me enough space to get out of my own yard, I got pissed. Only annoyed for few seconds actually but that was the last time we ever talked. He avoided me like the plague after that. This is how I learned one way to detect predators. Simply set a fair and normal boundary. It all seems painfully obvious now, especially at my age, to learn such a basic thing. Predatory folks don't like people with healthy boundaries.

On the positive note, I try to focus on the fact that good people are not mortally offended by basic boundaries.

So I have reflected on this quite a bit and I believe I was actually seeing allllll the red flags. I just had too little self confidence to trust my own instincts.

In my own experience, I usually see the red flags. Then I choose to ignore them for various reasons:
1) I don't (believe I) have any other options
2) It's not really that bad
3) Maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing
4) I can fix them
5) Everybody deserves a chance
6) It's probably my own fault

Mostly it comes down to distrusting myself and my perceptions of the world, which is pretty much the signature effect of emotional abuse. After that, it is a feeling of "how lucky am I to have this opportunity" because obviously nobody else wants me. And then there's a healthy dose of the martyr/saviour complex I was raised with--it's my job to fix this person.

TL;DR - I think we often see the flags, but distrust ourselves, misrecognize the flags, or choose to ignore them out of fear, anxiety, shame, etc.

We do. Sometimes we recognize them, sometimes we do not.

We want what's familiar.

I've been curious about this for a bit... but there's never a straight answer... As someone who is hurting from a recent break up and being told I'm the reason for the failure: I don't doubt it.

I'm working on myself and learning yet new things about me... my CPTSD, that I had no idea of. I'm Fawn-Fight.... so apparently I'm a real peach. (Sarcasm totally implied here).

Here's to learning more about ourselves and loving ourselves so we can be better humans to each other.

I'm kind of the opposite. I see red flags everywhere.

We have been trained not to be alarmed or see them as anything unusual. Also we seek out relationships with people who align with what is familiar to us. That works when you had a stable, supportive, functional family life. Not so much for us, unfortunately.

I hate the victim blamey “victims attract abuse”. There’s so many abusers out there that the demo is likely for workplace & relationships

i miss flags because i'm used to them. that's how my life was for pretty much all of my life. i journal daily and figured out how to analyze my writing so that i could spot some of the red flags.

I’m working on this. If it feels like family, it’s toxic.

My mother would give me the silent treatment regularly. I married a man that does the same. I think my trauma growing up made me unsuitable for any friendship or love. It's just been hurt after hurt. I'm immature when it comes to sticking up for myself.

I could detect red flags really well but I didn’t do the crucial thing, which was to LEAVE. That took a long time to master, listening to myself and taking the correct course of action when confronted with uncomfortable feelings.

It feels familiar. We may rationally know it's not a great situation, but our senses are sort of on a different mode than "average." We are also prone to internalizing gaslighting and rhetoric about ourselves.

Stay as safe as y'all are able out there. Best of luck to y'all.

Mine is the opposite. I’m so attuned to looking for red flags sometimes I overreact to something that is at best a pale yellow flag.

We are conditioned to accept less and not put ourselves first.

They are very well trained to think of themselves as inconsistent, incorrect and dramatic on even tiny issues.

Trauma, neglect, abuse, being unwell can all act as a safe space. Just like depression. If you’ve been through it much and long enough it’ll be something you’re ”comfortable” in. And as soon as you’re out of the box and in what most people would call a normal/safe state of being we can panic and intentionally or unintentionally make it worse so that we end up in that horrible safe space again.

Sometimes we don't miss them. We just don't have the courage or energy to start over with someone else, or to go through another heartbreak and disconnection.

Because we are often raised to doubt our own perceptions and experiences. When everything you say and do is “wrong”, you won’t trust your own judgment and therefore ignore gut instinct.

When you look at someone through rose colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.

No one ever taught me what a healthy, loving, respectful relationship looked like. Even my first romantic relationship was a ruse intended to humiliate me. I was so desperate for positive attention that I ignore the poor treatment because I get the love bombs. I get positive attention, cuddles, sweet words and touches, as few and far between as they are. Being humiliated and treated like shit and having my boundaries fucked over is all just part of making sacrafice for my partner because that's what good girlfriends and friends do, they sacrafice and do anything for you. It took me a long time and many bad relationships (also with friends) to realise that they were not worth the love and effort I put into it, before I found out what real mature love was like. And even more time before I felt for the first time what unconditional motherly love was supposed to feel like.

TLDR, I didn't see the red flags because I was willfully blind, so desperate for any kind of positive attention that I ignored all the messed up ways they mistreated me.

Lack of boundaries, fawning tendencies,

I liken it to the boiling frog metaphor. Growing up I felt like I was the frog slowly getting the heat turned up until I was boiling, oblivious. Jumping into my first serious relationship with an abuser was like jumping into a matching, boiling pot. Of course it all seemed normal, it's what I knew.

Retired professional red flag ignorer here 🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️ And this is what my podcast is all about - prepare to laugh and cry Adult Child Ep 1 - Why I’ll Never Date Another Guy Named Brian

For me, I used to get in bad situations because I'm generally anxious and hypervigilant all the time. I'd have to try picking when those feelings were unjustified and sometimes got it wrong. I'm a lot better about it now, but I learned the hard way. Also, sometimes people don't see red flags because that's what they're accustomed to. They just think such behavior is normal and never even know to question it.

For me, I think of it as I have a broken thermometer. The way I was treated in childhood, basically, set the bar really low. If someone isn't hitting me or yelling at me, wow, great!

Sometimes, growing up with abuse means you become a bit inured to it. (Growing up with abuse can also make you hypersensitive to a perceived slight, everyone is different.)

I have the opposite problem. I see them before everyone else. That's an even more dangerous spot to be in.

To me, red flags are normal behavior because it's what I grew up with. My parents' relationship with each other and with me were both super toxic. I have to actively look out for things that remind me of my parents because when I start seeing that I know it's time to run.

yeah, it's very common in adult survivors of childhood trauma.

There are many reasons. for one... the 2 most fundamental needs for a kid are connection and authenticity. connection to caregivers means survival, disconnection from them literally means death for a small human. so, if these two are at odds with each other, cause, say the parent gaslights the kid into denying their own emotions, or contradicts their own experiences, or harms them even physically, then connection will win and override the conscious(!!) experience of that hurt. cause for that connection to work, the kids gotta somewhat forget the shit, hurt, abuse, neglect etc. either fully dissociate and have no memory at all, or notice it, be upset about it, but then zone out from it, it just fades into the background while the focus on tiny breadcrumbs of connection gets intensified, as to not endanger the connection.

later on in life we still overlook hurt or 🚩 completely, or even notice it but then later on our minds make us forget about it, to prioritize connections. cause that's the old pattern.

this can and should be changed. especially if you keep ending up with violent, abusive, very avoident or otherwise dysfunctional relationships.

sounds weird, but worked: i keep book. when I meet new people, friends or romantic friends after every Meeting I sit down, take notes, answer predefined questions about the meeting, write down how I felt, if they were late, said hurtful things, if they did something problematic problematic or said something problematic, spoke ill about exes, were dismissive, overly charming, or displayed other things I consider red flags..

this is a method that I picked up from the SLAA program (sex or love addicts anonymous) and there is called a dating log. but I do it with all people who I consider getting close to now. this written down account makes it harder to dissociate from the occurred pain and red flags and keeps score of bad things so our mind have a harder time minimizing that they smashed a table, stood us up, denied our feelings or forget our birthday,... cause they gave us flowers afterwards.

Pandering to narcissists can be a symptom of trauma. Trauma victims who have not processed their trauma will subconsciously try to recreate it. Me and my ex girlfriend both had childhood trauma and during our relationship we basically were unknowingly subconsciously acting out our own parents toxic relationships with each other, it was very unhealthy.

Also I feel I can't even trust myself. Trauma can make us unreliable narrators of our own story. I second guess everything. "Is it really a red flag or am I just getting triggered because of my trauma?"

Traumatized people are easy targets for abusers because you have a low sense of self worth and believe you deserve it.

That and because a lot of childhood abuse has to do with parents, if you grew up in a toxic household and never saw what a healthy relationship looks like you kind believe abuse is normal and don't even realize how you're being treated is wrong. When I was in my late teens early 20s I was a toxic partner because that's all I knew. I had never seen or been in a relationship that wasn't abusive so I didn't know how to be a good partner.

I think I can do friendships good enough, but a person trying to approach me in a romantic sense is already a red flag. They either want to use and discard me or are too stupid to exist, right? At the same time I want to give being in a relationship a try, since it's supposed to be such a great experience. Then I can't tell apart if I'm making up reasons to break up because I'm intimacy-phobic, or because I'm not really attracted to them to begin with or because it's a genuine red flag?

With healing it's gets better! First you need years, then months, weeks etc.

Everyone is drawn to what is familiar to them. Don’t be hard yourself, your were made to not see the red flags.

Hello and Welcome to /r/CPTSD! If you are in immediate danger or crisis, please contact your local emergency services, or use our list of crisis resources. For CPTSD Specific Resources & Support, check out the wiki. For those posting or replying, please view the etiquette guidelines.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

Often times they find a few things they really love about someone and completely disregard all the red flags. Really we all do this to some extent because we settle for the best we feel we can get. This is all in the mind mainly for people who have had trauma. The problem with this is that abusers look for these types of behaviors in a spouse so they can take advantage. They know they wouldn’t be able to have a relationship with someone who knows their worth. Because the person would leave them. But finding someone with a traumatic past and still struggling with issues, they can continue the abuse cycle.

I think most of us make up reasons why we need to stay in a relationship even if it’s abusive. Usually in my experience (let me know if you relate) it’s for the other person. Thoughts might look like “He has mental illness it’s not his fault” “They have no one else” “It’s my fault I upset her” Etc etc I think for a lot of us in friendships we become a friend to them and they aren’t a friend to us Or your a partner to them but they aren’t to you etc.

I also think that we’ll WANT to you know, set better boundaries or even fully end the relationship but we end up not doing so. Like when they call you pick up, when they need a favor it’s done for them etc.

I also think we really are attracted to what we know. We’re comfortable in the familiar even of the familiar is dangerous. New things like a respectful relationship where each person is there for each other equally feel scary because it’s new.

It’s worth it though:)

Good luck to everyone <3

I actually just started therapy for this exact thing!

The familiar is 'comfortable', sort of; dysfunctionally speaking.

Wow, insane. İts like im talking in these comments. İ relate with each one of you SOO much. İ want to hug all of you. İm 17 and im trying to change these toxic attitudes that ive developed. İ just wanted to ask, at what age did you guys notice that you were having a hard time understanding red flags? İ feel like im too late sometimes. İs 17 too late? Can i change my behaviour after 17?

Desensitized. I had to go to a specific kind of therapy to even know certain red flags were even red flags because they were so normal to me.

I see them and ignore them because they feel safe. Another question would be why don't traumatised people see red flags in themselves? That was a cornerstone of my therapy andis now the main component. Forming and maintaining mutually healthy relationships is vital, I expect to be help accountable for my actions and won't let people get away with things.

Because it’s all we’ve ever known. There is also fear of abandonment for me. I’d rather be hurt with someone familiar than left to fend for myself alone.

Personally, either the hyperawareness is turned up so high that there's no difference between "loud" and "deafening" and therefore the individual doesn't seem significantly more problematic than anyone else and then I might also dismiss that discomfort as part of anxiety. Or I'm just kind of generally spaced out/fatigued and any warning signals are so far off that I'm not going to pick up on them.

But I will say, that when am able to engage with my instincts about somebody, I am better at detecting manipulative behaviour that most people around me... it's just that tiny problem of being able to listen to them.

In their first abusive relationship? Or for many? Because I learned my lesson

It's normalized to you so you seek out what's normal.

I was raised by a narcissistic father (hence cptsd) and my first boyfriend, I now realize, was a massive narcissist. I didn't realize that until this last year, and my ex and I broke up 10 years ago lol.

I do know that apart of me.knew he was a POS because I vowed to never date someone like.him again. In fact, I remember saying "I will date the opposite of him." 9 years later and we've been happily married for years.

I think once it starts feeling like any sort of commitment/relationship, my childhood trauma people pleasing skills trump red flags. I see them, but it’s deeply ingrained that they are higher up the food chain and I am supposed to make them happy.

Cause you internalise them, like if a partner treats you badly then you think it’s your fault that they do.

I think it’s both that abuse is normal to us but also for people who have been severely abused in unsubtle ways, more subtle forms of abuse are also hard for us to spot.

I’m in my late 20s and just now finally realizing now that I’m around people that are healthier for me that a lot of what I thought was actually normal….was also abusive, (or just really shitty behaviors, at least) it just wasn’t as severe or in my face as the neglect, physical, or sexual abuse I experienced as a child that I was using to then measure people up to. Turns out a turd being shinier doesn’t mean it’s not a turd.

It caused me to enter into a series of relationships with people who didn’t really care about me, but they weren’t calling me names or beating me (though one of them shoved me once cause he was annoyed with me) so I stayed with them because I didn’t feel I could do better. One of them actually dumped me for various shit ass reasons but one of them was basically that his ego was injured by being with me because I was “too abused and desperate.”

I’m now with a partner who I think, is actually good for me. He’s able to hold space for my issues without either overly enabling me or refusing to have 0 compassion either. He’s good at communicating, doesn’t act like a passive aggressive shitbaby, and doesn’t seem to just view me as a plaything he can fuck around with before he tosses me in the trash. I’ve joked before that I wish I could clone my boyfriend and give every other male-attracted person who’s been abused like I have, their own copy of him because holy shit, people like my bf seem to be one in a billion, especially cis men in their 20s.

Familiarity

Everyone else has answered beautifully already, so I'll just add a phrase I heard somewhere that's stuck with me for a long time: "when you're looking at the world through rose colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags". Humans can normalize just about anything if it's the only thing they've ever known.

Didn't get to have any romantic relationships.

In any friend group I had I was always the butt of jokes, etc.... I thought the attention ment people liked you. They'd never back me up, around girls or around new people, theyd all just join up together.

It would have been nice for a little sympathy.

Now just bitter and angry.

We accept the love we think we deserve. That's not my line but it still changed my life when I read it.

Because we’re used to it and think this is the best we can get

Yes I have this problem. I think for me I had had such an extreme experience with evil that in comparison everything else just seemed pretty good, even if it was bad. It warped my perception so the alarms didn't go off because it was still far away from pure evil. It's only recently I've been paying attention to red flags and finally listening to them. I felt really really insecure about it but I found it's like a muscle and once I started trusting myself when I noticed red flags I started noticing them more and taking action. But this confusion went on for years. I think it's also caused by being disconnected from our bodies so we can't access the feelings and emotions red flags would cause.

I see the red flags but I'm so used to "managing chaos" I think I can somehow steer the Titanic back to sea likely after it has hit several icebergs if that makes sense. Instead of seeing the situation as a non-starter my complex brain's wheels go into "I can manage this" and I can be like "this is fine" dog for anywhere from a couple of weeks to years.

I am getting better at seeing the flags and saying "no" to the proverbial work it takes to manage another person's ish along with keeping my own amazingly large boat afloat free from the dangers of large icebergs hitting my hull.

Edit: I was parentified heavily and had to constantly "manage" my mother which I didn't want to do for the most part but someone had to.

I see them but I stall the decision until it's too late. Like I end up hoping I could maybe keep them at bay without going no contact altogether. And we know that doesn' t work out in most cases. It's because of how I was raised and how I am as a person. I feel uneasy about cutting someone off without a 'proper' reason that's big enough ,clear enough and loud enough. I feel uneasy about taking microaggressions too seriously and in the case of non narcissistic people you shouldn't. But when it's narcs youre dealing with the tiniest things reveal a lot more about them than the big ploys. I think gender has something to do with it too. I wonder if I'd feel more comfortable questioning little things (that we know are going to pile up) if I were a woman. Guys are conditioned not to scrutinise friendships overtly ,least of all talk about it to 'resolve' anything. So I end up having these I told you so moments with myself every time I realise somebody who came into my orbit is a narc and that it wasn't a coincidence.

We were taught that the red flags were caused bc of us. Not them.

Ego blindspots.

Everything is a red flag for me, lol

Well, I consider myself an outlier, when I was dealing with my abusive parents, I almost dated someone that was ugly inside and out, abusive, she called me names, insulted me, wanted to fight me, but would scream her praises of me and say that I was handsome in the same breath. I didn't want to be more miserable, so I took control and said No. People have told me that i am rational and intuitive. That saved my ass. The people that I liked, didn't share those same feelings towards me or things didn't work out.

But I am scared of getting abused again, that's why I haven't dated anyone yet, I am relishing in my freedom/singlehood/bachelor lifestyle but I am feeling the lonely feels and it is beginning to affect me.

My dad and his ex wife damaged me, and I feel resentful and sad for it because it was unfair but thanks to them, I can see red flags now and I had to turn down several people over the years.

If you haven't read the trilogy for "a child called it" by Dave Pelzer. It is a great book. I, a person with a history of trauma, deeply connected with the 2nd book "The Lost Boy. Trigger warning for the first book, but they are exceptional and very therapeutic. They also helped me understand how I am not the only one who has sought out negative (red flag) relationships, risky activities, etc.

As far as your question, I think some of us who have been abused/traumatized find comfort in others who struggle and sometimes lose sight of the respect we should have for ourselves when trying to give others chances while ignoring their defects. Therapy really has helped me. However, I have also stopped romantic relationships due to how unhealthy my past ones were. That isn't the solution, but it is working for me while I learn to care for and love me for me.

This is a great thread BTW. Glad to find that I am not alone on this!

Perhaps you are seeing red flags but not acknowledging them or validating them. I suggest when you meet someone and start saying then write a journal after every interaction and note if there were any red flags. Do this and it will guarantee you don’t ignore them

Because they are so used to those boundaries being stepped on that they do not see that as something to look out for.

Some people also want someone to be around so badly that they are willing to put up with anything.

I would say that I am trying to be more aware of this so I don'i get into situations where I end up getting hurt.

We set the bar too low. My first serious boyfriend was a drug addict who stole my money, slapped my face and cheated on me. But he was so much less brutal than my father, I honestly thought he was a great guy.