How Emotional Abuse Creates a Maze of Confusion

Have you ever been in a conversation where you feel things are getting off-topic or out of control, but you can’t figure out how it happened or why?  

Or, maybe you’ve attempted to raise a reasonable complaint, concern, or hurt, wanting to open up about how you’re feeling and deepen an emotional connection with your partner. Do you regularly experience conversations turning into arguments where there are so many twists and turns that you can’t remember what started the conversation in the first place?

If either of these examples resonates with you, you are probably stuck in what The MEND Project refers to as The Maze of Confusion.  

When most people think of domestic abuse, they envision physical harm. But the reality is that so many forms of abuse leave no visible mark, though the scars run deep. These forms of abuse are hidden in words, behaviors, and manipulative patterns that are hard to identify and even harder to describe.

The Maze of Confusion is a visual tool we use as a metaphor to explain the dynamics of a crazy-making and destructive conversation. We’ll break that down a little later. Abusers confuse and control their partners by creating conflicts as a strategy to avoid responsibility and authenticity.

In this blog post, you’ll learn:

• What emotional abuse confusion looks like and how it harms victims
• What the “Maze of Confusion” is and what the signs are in conversations with abusers
• How to know when emotional abuse is happening (plus what a healthy response looks like)
• How putting a name to emotional abuse tactics empowers victims and responders

Let’s get started.

The Maze of Confusion

Many victims of emotional abuse experience the damaging effects of what we call The Maze of Confusion. If you consider the structure of any maze, there is one entrance, one exit, and only one pathway through. There are many dead ends or roadblocks. In our metaphor, dead ends represent defensive tactics the abuser employs to block or stonewall the victim’s voice. The abuser's words and actions prevent the victim from engaging in a mutually fulfilling, authentic conversation where solutions can be accomplished.

Like all covert abuse tactics, chaotic conversations without having seen The Maze tool can be challenging to understand and hard to describe, even though its damage to the victim is typically very evident to them.

What is Emotional Abuse Confusion?

In The Maze, abusers use emotionally abusive tactics to over-power and interrupt their partner’s attempts to communicate authentically. One of the biggest obstacles victims face is identifying what’s happening to them. They know they feel highly stressed, anxious, depressed, and even lonely, but they can’t put into words why.

The MEND Project provides life-giving clarity to victims by providing proper language to describe these confusing behaviors.  You can find a comprehensive list of emotionally abusive terms and definitions downloadable for free on our website. Let’s look at just a few to help you recognize how any of these behaviors repeatedly employed is enough to be destructive to a relationship.

• Deflections
• Gaslighting
• Denial
• Lying
• Minimizing
• Blame-shifting
• False-accusations
• And so forth

The abuser’s chaotic responses sabotage their partner’s well-meaning goals as they struggle to navigate the conversational minefield facing them. 

Therefore, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to find a resolution in a conversation where emotional abuse tactics are being used in place of mutual respect, a mutual desire to understand one another, mutual listening, and a sincere attempt to reach amicable solutions to protect emotional safety in the relationship. 

Look for the Patterns Rather Than the Minutia

Consider repeated lying. If your partner has a pattern of lying, it won’t take long to determine that your partner is untrustworthy. You can see that the problem exists within your partner’s character rather than within yourself.

When any one behavior becomes a pattern, survivors can more easily identify the pattern. However, when multiple emotionally abusive behaviors are being employed, the person on the receiving end is more likely to become bewildered, stressed, and confused. There are too many behaviors playing out at the same time to be able to identify the patterns.

Conversations you meant to resolve conflict become chaotic, oppressive, and void of validation or empathy. In these cases, survivors are more likely to think something is wrong within themselves. They may think things like, “I must not be loveable,” “I must not know how to communicate effectively,” or “there must be something intrinsically wrong with me.” In other words, the lack of clarity causes them to become consumed with self-doubt.

Let’s take a look at our Maze of Confusion graphic below.

The gold arrow running through the middle of The Maze represents a healthy conversation. Every red blot represents a different emotional abuse tactic used to shut down or block their partner’s voice. The abuser may blame-shift, deflect to another topic, and deny culpability. In essence, the maze represents chronic defensiveness to avoid accepting responsibility for reasonable complaints, concerns, or hurts that the survivor brought to the forefront to be discussed and resolved.

At every point in what should be a healthy conversation, the emotional abuser will find a way to throw off course the discussion so that they avoid vulnerability, accountability, and emotional connection.

Let’s dig deeper.

The Maze vs. The Path of Least Resistance

One way to help look for signs of emotional abuse is through the visual of The Maze vs. The Path of Least Resistance.

The main difference is that the path of least resistance focuses on:

• Mutual respect
• Clarifying the issues
• A desire for mutual understanding
• A genuine interest in resolving conflict
• Or even an agreement to disagree calmly and respectfully. 

On the other hand, numerous dead ends in the maze demonstrate what it looks and feels like to be blocked, stonewalled, powered over, and controlled. They lead to one roadblock after the other. Conflicts and concerns cannot be resolved, and emotional connection, intimacy, and safety cannot exist.  

The dead ends in the maze may be employed with subtle manipulation in a calm voice, or for some, they may play out in outbursts of anger. The outcome is the same; however, relationship sabotage and chaos rule the conversation. 

When emotional abuse dominates conversations, it usually means that the abuser and victim are living in two opposing realities. Oftentimes, each person does not recognize that the other is communicating from a very different belief system regarding how interpersonal relationships should function.

Victims are primarily empaths willing to exhaust themselves trying to find the correct words or to seek to understand, to no avail, what the source of the communication problems stems from. The abusive one is more interested in avoiding considering their partner’s emotions. They aim to win arguments rather than to help conflicts lead to mutually beneficial solutions. 

Why is this?

The abusive mindset is made up of what we call The Four Pillars of Abuse.  The abuser views the victim as a mere extension of themselves meant solely to serve their needs and ideals. The first pillar is a faulty belief system. Patriarchy or hierarchical thinking is one example of entrenched faulty beliefs. The second pillar is entitlement. The abuser believes they are in a privileged position where rules that apply to the victim don’t apply to them. They operate from a stance of double standards.

The third pillar is image management. The abuser works to create a pleasing public image, very different from how they behave behind closed doors. Outsiders see the abuser in a positive light, which compromises the victim’s credibility and confuses them further. The fourth pillar is a lower emotional IQ. Abusers can be highly intelligent and charismatic while at the same time emotionally immature. They are uncomfortable with emotions, theirs and yours, so they act chronically defensive and aim to shut down or judge emotions in their partner in distorted ways.

These opposing paradigms leave both victim and abuser confused and frustrated by the other’s reaction. The strain from such encounters is exponentially greater on the victim.

This is why being able to recognize when emotional abuse is happening is crucial, both for victims and for responders who help them.

Here is a useful way to do this:

We have all behaved badly at one time or another. We may have learned bad habits from our family of origin or close friends. One way to determine if the relationship is abusive is that healthy people, when learning that their behavior or behaviors are causing harm, will immediately change from a well-spring inside themselves. They won’t need to be reminded. They will make reparations commensurate with the harm caused because they don’t avoid responsibility for their actions. They want to grow and be better. They are empathic regarding how their prior behavior harmed their partner.

Another way to know if covert emotional abuse is taking place is by differentiating the motives behind behaviors and seeing how willing each party is to accept responsibility for their own actions.

For example, the abuser, who has distorted emotions because of a lower emotional IQ, uses emotional abuse tactics to create confusion and lay the blame at the victim’s feet. The abuser will say and do just about anything to avoid detection and responsibility for their words or actions.

On the other hand, the victim is willing to accept responsibility for more than their share. They over-function to help improve the relationship to the point of exhaustion. The exception is when the victim gains valuable clarity and understands their relationship is abusive. Then, they aim to point responders to the evidence proving they are being victimized. They have already exhausted themselves in the past, trying everything they could to fix their relationship. The abuser, on the other hand, has barely lifted a finger to solve their problems. They are avoidant, disengaged, and lazy.

These dynamics are typical examples that define abusive relationships.

In contrast, the person causing the harm, who is entrenched in faulty beliefs and distorted thinking patterns, may stop one abusive behavior if you point it out to them, but they will replace it with another. They won’t stop being defensive or protecting themselves from shame and vulnerability. They want to dominate and control their partner to manage their lack of coping skills because they think their line of thinking is correct.

What a Healthy Response Looks Like

Now, imagine a conversation in which a victim hears, with utmost sincerity, “I’m deeply sorry for hurting you. I will do everything in my power to never do that again,” and then follows up with supportive actions. The contrast between a healthy response and a destructive reaction where the abuser will say and do just about anything to avoid accountability is vast. If mature communication is critical to a good relationship, then constantly confusing conversations without resolve is the catalyst to an unhealthy one.

When a victim discloses to someone how chaotic their conversations are, it’s critical for the responder to be compassionate and supportive. So often, responders jump in to try to fix the problem by instructing the victim to do this or that. This response is not helpful. What victims need is a patient listening ear that will allow them to process their confusion with someone safe, supportive, and kind.

When we show that we believe the survivor and accept their accounts as accurate, we validate their personhood, allowing them to safely process the emotional, physical, and psychological damage that may be occurring. We model for them what empathy looks and feels like, which is the opposite of what they are experiencing with their partner.

When a victim shares their story with you, it’s very helpful to guide them to our terms and definitions on the resource section of our website so they can gain the clarity they need to accurately describe what they are experiencing. Seeing the terms and definitions helps validate the victim and calm their stress and confusion; clarity is the first step to healing. Similarly, providing victims with an image of “The Maze of Confusion” can empower them and promote the understanding they desperately need and deserve.

Conclusion

By clarifying and educating on the reality of emotional abuse tactics and how they manifest, including how abusers try to dismantle their victims by creating a maze of confusion, victims and responders become empowered with the tools they need to understand that they are being victimized and experiencing an abusive dynamic.

We recommend that victims take our self-paced survivor course "Finding Clarity and Healing." It only has four modules, yet it will provide them with comprehensive education to jump-start their healing journey. Graduates of our course regularly report that it was life-changing and saved them significant time in therapy. To learn more about our training and how to sign up, click here.

We are here to support you. Please take really good care of yourselves.

Love,
Annette and The MEND Project team