They made you feel wrong: but it wasn’t your fault
They made you feel wrong: but it wasn’t your fault
And what if you were never wrong, but only hurt in the wrong way? What can online therapy do?
There are wounds that leave no bruises, but carve deep inside. Silent judgments, coldness in conversation, or a lack of listening are enough to make you feel invisible. When someone who says they love you constantly makes you feel “too much” or “not enough,” you are no longer in a relationship: you are in an emotional minefield where every emotion of yours is reduced, denied, or interpreted as a flaw. You get used to doubting yourself, to wondering if you are exaggerating, if you are the problem, if maybe you are not “made to be loved.”
Emotional invalidation is insidious: it does not yell at you, it whispers that you are not worthy; rather, you learn to doubt what you feel in order to protect yourself from ridicule or out of fear of being rejected. And you, who only want to be seen, loved, and understood, begin to adapt. You change the tone of your voice, you hold back tears, you suppress your needs. But every adaptation is a small renunciation of yourself. And one day you wake up and you no longer recognize yourself. You wonder where you ended up, who you have become, and why the person you wanted to love left you alone with the weight of doubt.
But it was not your fault. Those who belittle you do it to dominate. Those who confuse you do it to control. Those who make you feel wrong are not capable of loving in a healthy way. Recognizing manipulation, breaking the cycle of devaluation, reclaiming your voice: these are the first steps toward healing. You are not fragile: you survived something that broke your self-esteem. And today you can choose to rebuild yourself. To rediscover your value, to protect your sensitivity, to surround yourself with relationships that nourish, not take away.
Objectives of the article:
-
Help you recognize the hidden signs of an emotionally abusive relationship.
-
Offer you a new awareness: you are not the problem, even if they made you believe you were.
-
Experience a path of healing and inner reconstruction.
-
Show you that online therapy can be a concrete tool to get out of invisible pain and rediscover who you really are.
-
Remind you that you are not alone: there is a way to feel enough again. Exactly as you are.
The wound that makes no noise: how invisible violence works
Not all wounds make noise. Some creep in silently, between the folds of everyday life, disguising themselves as normality. We are not talking about dramatic scenes involving shouting or physical blows. Just phrases said in a neutral tone, looks that freeze you, silences that weigh more than any word. This is how invisible violence begins: it does not hit you, but slowly crumbles you. You find yourself rethinking every gesture, every word, every reaction. In your mind you begin to ask yourself: maybe I am the problem. You judge yourself as too sensitive, too fragile, too “dramatic.”
Invisible violence does not need to raise its voice to be heard: it strikes precisely because you cannot easily identify it. It does not arrive with brutality, but with subtraction: of listening, of respect, of presence. And yet its impact is profound. It pushes you to doubt your perception of reality, to censor your emotions, to question your worth. It isolates you even if you are not alone, it silences you even if no one has told you to be quiet. When someone looks at you with contempt instead of speaking to you, when they avoid your questions or answer you with sarcasm, they are exercising a subtle but extremely powerful form of control. And you, who perhaps were only seeking understanding, begin to feel out of place. Inadequate. Wrong.
But you are not. You are simply experiencing the effect of a violence that leaves no bruises on the skin, but deep marks on your identity. Recognizing it is the first step to breaking its power.
They told you that you were exaggerating: but it was just emotional invalidation
There are words that seem harmless, and yet wound deeply.
“You’re exaggerating.”
“You’re always the victim.”
“Maybe you’re the one with a problem.”
They are phrases that do not sound violent, yet they leave an invisible but profound mark. Behind that false calm hides a powerful and dangerous message: what you feel is not valid, it is not real, it does not matter. This is the subtle and toxic logic of emotional invalidation: a psychological dynamic that, day after day, can disintegrate even the strongest person.
Emotional invalidation is not made of direct aggression, but of continuous denial of your inner experience. It happens when you express discomfort and are dismissed with a joke. When you show fragility and are accused of wanting attention. When you try to say that something hurts, you might be considered too sensitive, heavy, even too “dramatic.” The result? You begin to doubt yourself. You start to ask yourself if you really are exaggerating. If you are unstable. If your emotions are wrong. If maybe you are the one who is difficult to love.
And right there, at the heart of that doubt, manipulation takes root. Because if you doubt what you feel, you become easier to control. If you convince yourself that your pain is your fault, you stop defending yourself. You adapt. You silence yourself. You seek acceptance in the eyes of those who devalue you. Ending up distancing yourself from who you are. Until one day you can no longer distinguish your emotions from those imposed on you.
Emotional invalidation is a cruel weapon that often comes precisely from those who say they love you. A partner, a parent, a friend, someone “close.” Recognizing it becomes a real challenge. Because it confuses love with emotional submission, intimacy with judgment, relationship with renunciation. But love is not this. Love is a safe space where you can feel what you feel without being punished for it.
Invalidation does not destroy with force, but with erosion. It slowly wears you down, taking away your right to be authentic. And yet, recognizing it is already an act of rebellion. Awareness means understanding that you were not wrong: you were invalidated. To look at your emotions no longer as an obstacle, but as a precious compass guiding you toward what is true for you.
Remember: if they made you believe that feeling was a fault, it was not love. It was manipulation. And from there you can heal.
When loving becomes surviving: the need that traps you
Love, real love, should make us feel free, seen, welcomed. And yet, many people remain stuck in relationships that wear them down, manipulate them, and confuse them. Why? The answer is simpler—and more painful—than it seems: we need to be loved. And that need, if not recognized, can become the perfect cage.
Growing up with the feeling of having to earn love leads, as an adult, to accepting unbalanced bonds, where reciprocity is lacking and personal worth is questioned. When you enter a toxic relationship, you do not always notice it immediately. At first there is attention, there is interest, there is that sense of “finally someone sees me.” It is an intense, almost hypnotic chemistry, which makes you believe you have found what was missing. But slowly, that energy changes form. It is no longer presence, but control. No longer tenderness, but manipulation. And you, without realizing it, begin to change.
You try to adapt so as not to disappoint. You modify your way of speaking, reacting, being. You give up your spaces, your opinions, your needs, just to maintain balance. You tell yourself you are doing it for love. You decide to adapt, wearing that mask out of fear of being abandoned or rejected. This is how the original need—to be seen and welcomed—turns into an invisible trap. And the more you try to be “right,” the more you lose yourself.
The person beside you, however, does not really ask you for love. They ask for emotional obedience. They want you to become dependent on them, questioning your well-being, feeding their ego and accepting their need for control. And you, who may be empathetic, available, willing to question yourself, find yourself justifying everything. Even what hurts you. Even what empties you.
It is at that moment that the bond stops being a relationship and becomes emotional dependence. And the more you try to “fix” the relationship, the more you convince yourself that if only you had been more patient, stronger, calmer… maybe it would have worked. But no. You are not the problem. The problem is staying in a place where, to be loved, you have to erase yourself.
Getting out of this trap does not mean stopping loving, but starting to love yourself too. It means recognizing that love does not require your cancellation, but your presence. That you deserve to be welcomed in your entirety, not only in the “adapted” versions that help you survive.
You were not the problem: stop carrying blame that does not belong to you
Living for a long time in a toxic relationship means having unconsciously allowed a violation of the boundary between what is yours and what was projected onto you. Every crisis was your fault, every expression of discomfort was just yours. If he (or she) got angry, it was because you had said or done something wrong. If the relationship hurt, it was because you did not know how to love “the right way.” And so, through explanations, forced silences, and attempts to improve yourself, you began to carry on your shoulders a burden that did not belong to you.
The truth that can awaken you today is this: you were not the problem.
The problem was the way that person avoided looking inside themselves. It was the inability to take responsibility for their own emotions, their limits, their fears. So everything was shifted onto you: you were too jealous, too fragile, too unstable. And when you tried to react, to say “this hurts me,” you became the guilty one, the one who was difficult to love.
Those who belittled you did not do it because they were right. They did it because feeling superior was the only way to sustain their own insecurity. And those who confused you made you believe that love had to hurt in order to be real. They left you in a limbo of guilt, uncertainty, and need. But that pain, so refined as to seem normal, was only a mask that often hides a serious difficulty in building a healthy, equal, authentic, empathic relationship.
Understanding that you were not the problem is a powerful act of rupture. Because it breaks conditioning, shatters the spiral of shame, and gives you back the dignity that was taken from you.
You were not too much. You were not wrong. And you did not have to become another version of yourself to be loved.
You simply met someone incapable of loving without hurting.
For this reason, today the responsibility is no longer to try to repair what destroyed you. The responsibility is to choose to stop identifying with what you lived through. To no longer carry the blame of those who made you believe your emotions were a defect, your needs a problem, your pain exaggerated.
Freeing yourself from this belief is the beginning of healing. It is the most courageous act: giving back to others what does not belong to you. And finally beginning to walk in your truth.
Starting again from yourself: healing is not forgetting, it is recognizing yourself again
Only awakening and awareness can heal certain wounds, certainly not the illusion of time passing. For too long you believed you had to be different to be loved: stronger, calmer, quieter, more confident. You gave everything, even pieces of yourself, hoping that someone would see your value. But you found yourself empty. Switched off. Disoriented. As if, in order to love, you were forced to disappear. And yet, in all this pain, there is a seed: that of transformation. Because if there is one good news, it is this: you can heal.
Healing does not mean pretending nothing happened. It does not mean forgetting the past or ignoring suffering. Healing is the courage to look wounds in the face, give them a name, and choose—every day—not to let them define who you are. It is a path not taken in one breath, but in small steps. Sometimes you stumble. Sometimes you go back. But every time you recognize your pain as legitimate, you are building a piece of your freedom.
Rebuilding yourself does not mean becoming invincible. It means learning to listen to yourself again, to believe that your emotions have the right to exist, that your voice deserves space. It means learning to be with yourself without the need for external confirmation, without the constant fear of being wrong. It also means learning to say no. To set boundaries. To choose relationships that nourish, not drain.
The healing journey is also an act of personal justice. It is saying: I no longer want to stay where I have to fight to feel enough. Every time you choose to chase love that hurts, you make no space for love that nourishes your soul. A love that can come from others, but that first of all is born from you.
And if you feel that alone it is too much, that is okay.
Asking for help is not a sign of weakness, but of clarity and care.
There are paths, tools, professionals ready to welcome your story without judgment.
Everyone deserves a chance to evolve and move toward personal fulfillment.
Yes, you can heal.
You can start again.
And above all, you can feel enough again.
Exactly as you are.
What can online therapy do?
Getting out of a toxic or emotionally dependent relationship is not just a matter of courage: it is a process that requires support, understanding, and concrete tools. When for too long you have lived in a bond that made you feel wrong, manipulated, or erased, the risk is continuing to repeat the same script, even on your own. Online psychotherapy can be the safe place where that cycle is interrupted.
Talking with a professional allows you to bring order to inner chaos, to recognize the manipulative mechanisms you were subjected to, and finally to give voice to those emotions you silenced for years. In the virtual therapy room, you are not judged, you are not forced: you are welcomed. It is your space, free from external pressure, where you can explore your story, your wounds, and above all your resources.
Online psychotherapy helps you recognize that true love does not require effort to be earned. It does not ask you to be less, but invites you to be fully yourself. It helps you rediscover your self-esteem, choose relationships that nourish, and set healthy boundaries.
Through a therapeutic journey, you can transform lived pain into awareness. And from there, begin to build a new idea of love: made of reciprocity, respect, emotional freedom. A love that does not demand your silence, but welcomes your voice. A love that does not ask you to change in order to be accepted, but loves you exactly as you are.
Freedom is possible. And you do not have to do it alone.
I am here.
“You were not born to feel wrong, but to recognize yourself, respect yourself, and be reborn, exactly as you are.”
Bibliographic References:
- Lise Bourbeau, Le 5 ferite e come guarirle, Edizioni Amrita, 2001.
- Robin Stern, Il gaslighting. Come riconoscere chi ti manipola e smettere di farti controllare, Giunti Editore, 2019.
For information, write to Dr. Jessica Zecchini.
Email contact: consulenza@jessicazecchini.it, WhatsApp contact: +39 370 32 17 351.
