Fear puts you in fight-or-flight mode, as it feels like life-or-death when you do not know how an abusive parent is going to react. Over time, your intuition is fine-tuned, and you almost learn how to predict the abuser’s behaviour. You are always thinking of ways to calm a situation, even before it happens.
It’s never too late to change: Vanessa's story. by Vanessa Poolian on 26 August 2020 Read in 5 min. Scroll Down. Vanessa survived an upbringing blighted by violence and abuse to become a business high-flier. But burnout made her look again at the direction of her life, and to make a fresh start helping others.