When love became the wound.

Narcissistic abuse

Recovering from a relationship with a narcissist is one of the most disorienting experiences a person can go through. You may grieve someone who hurt you. You may feel confused for still loving them. You may spend months — or years — trying to make sense of what was real and what wasn’t.

Our counsellors understand the specific damage these relationships leave behind: the hypervigilance, the self-doubt, the shame, the exhaustion of constantly second-guessing your own reality. We work with you to rebuild a sense of self that belongs entirely to you again.

The empathy wound — why kind people attract harm

There is a pattern almost no one talks about openly. People who carry deep empathy — who feel things profoundly and instinctively want to help, heal and hold space — are disproportionately drawn into relationships with people who exploit exactly those qualities.

This is not weakness. It is not naivety. It is not your fault.

Empathy is one of the most extraordinary human capacities. But without boundaries, self-knowledge and an understanding of why certain dynamics feel so familiar, it becomes a vulnerability. We work with the roots of those patterns — often reaching back to childhood and early attachment — and help you build a relationship with yourself that no longer requires you to earn your place in it.

Coercive control

Most people don’t recognise it while it’s happening. Coercive control rarely looks like what we imagine abuse to look like. At first it looks like love. It looks like concern. It looks like someone who simply needs things done a certain way.

Over time it becomes a system — of isolation, monitoring, financial control and the slow erosion of who you are. If you have spent years walking on eggshells, or feel you’ve lost the person you used to be, this is a place where that experience will be understood, named and worked through with care.

Divorce & post-divorce trauma

Divorce is not only the end of a relationship. It is the dismantling of a life, an identity and a future that was planned. Even when leaving is the right thing — even when it is the bravest thing — the grief is real, the trauma is real, and the road back to yourself takes time.

We support people through the legal chaos, the co-parenting complexity, the financial fear and the quiet devastation of starting over. Whether it happened last month or five years ago, you don’t have to carry it alone.

Not safe right now? Call the GBV Command Centre on 0800 428 428 or emergency services on 10111 / 112. We are not an emergency service.

What we help with

• Narcissistic abuse and its aftermath
• Coercive control and financial control
• Gaslighting and self-doubt
• The empathy wound — why kind people attract harm
• Divorce and post-divorce trauma
• Co-parenting with a difficult ex
• Rebuilding identity and self-trust
• Gender-based and domestic violence