Your family may have appeared close, respectable, funny, successful, religious, hardworking, or “normal” to everyone else. But behind the image, you may have experienced criticism, comparison, guilt, emotional pressure, silent treatment, favouritism, blame, or the feeling that you had to shrink yourself to keep the peace. If you identify as an empath, you may have felt this even more deeply.

In simple terms, coercive control is a legal concept and can be a criminal offence in England and Wales when the legal test is met. Narcissistic abuse is not a standalone criminal offence in UK law, but it is a term many survivors use to describe a pattern of emotional, psychological and manipulative abuse.