Intuition. We all have it. But if you have experienced emotional abuse, gaslighting, narcissistic abuse, or any kind of controlling relationship, there is a real chance you were trained not to trust it. Or worse, to fear it altogether. Let’s discuss the intuition after abuse.
This is one of the most overlooked parts of abuse recovery, and it is exactly what we are getting into today.
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How Gaslighting Destroys Your Relationship With Your Own Intuition
Think back over your life. How many times did you have a feeling, express it, and get told you were being silly? Too sensitive? Dramatic? Embellishing?
And how many of those times turned out to be completely correct?
Here is the part that matters: many of the people who said those things to you were not trying to help you. They were minimising what you felt because there was something in it for them to do so. They were keeping you in the dark because it benefited them for you to stay there.
So like any intelligent, adaptable creature, you learned. You learned that expressing your gut feeling had consequences. You learned to push it down, to ask other people what they thought, to Google it, to wait for evidence, to be rational. To do anything except trust yourself.
And the system backed all of that up. We live in a society that discounts intuition and softer knowing. Everything needs data. Everything needs proof. A woman saying I have a really bad feeling about this is talked out of it constantly, and when she turns out to be right, it is glossed over.
Your gut does not need a courtroom process to be valid.
You Were Not Born Doubting Yourself. You Were Trained Out of Trusting Yourself.
This is not a character flaw. This is not you being broken. This is survival.
When speaking up got you punished, you stopped speaking up. When trusting your gut led to being called crazy, you stopped trusting your gut. When your body told you something was wrong and someone with power over you told you that you were overreacting, you learned to override the signal.
Over time, that split between what your body knows and what you are told becomes a full-on disconnect. It is gaslighting from the very beginning, often starting in childhood, and it teaches you to ask:
- Is this normal or am I overreacting?
- Should I feel this way or am I making it up?
- Maybe I’m the problem.
- Am I just being dramatic?
When you have been trained to gaslight yourself that way, your system eventually learns to bypass your intuition completely. Or worse, to shame you for even having it.
What Intuition Actually Is (And Why It Is Not Woo Woo)
Your intuition, that subtle knowing, that felt sense, the energetic read you get about people and situations, is primal. It is wired into your nervous system. It is not mystical. It is biology.
It is your body processing information faster than your conscious mind can keep up with. And it is excellent at its job, when you let it do that job.
Intuition is a body-led process. It is not just a thought. It is a felt experience. It lives in your belly, your chest, your skin, your gut. It might show up as:
- A knot in your stomach
- A creeping coldness
- A low thud somewhere deep
- Heat rising in your chest
- Or just a quiet knowing that does not shout. It just does not go away.
And crucially, it does not need evidence. It is the evidence.
The Difference Between Intuition and Hypervigilance
This is something that does not get talked about enough in abuse recovery, and it is important.
When you have experienced trauma, your nervous system gets wired to scan for danger constantly. You become hyper-attuned to risk. You can feel a mood shift across a room like a tidal wave. You pick up on the tiniest changes in tone, energy, and vibe.
But that hypervigilance, as useful as it has been for keeping you safe, is not the same as intuition.
Here is how to tell the difference:
Hypervigilance feels fast and urgent. It is thought-loopy, anxious, racing. It is waiting for the other shoe to drop even when someone is being genuinely kind to you.
Intuition is slower. It is solid. It does not race. It feels more like a thud, a deep knowing. It is not scared. It just knows.
Both are valid. Both served you. But as you heal, learning to tell them apart becomes one of the most powerful things you can do.
When Your Intuition Was Right All Along: A Personal Story
If you have ever experienced cheating in a relationship, you know this dynamic in your bones.
I felt it almost instantly. Long before I had any proof. Long before my anxious brain woke me up at three in the morning to check his phone, something I had never done before in my life. Long before the conversation that made me feel insane for even asking.
He could look me in the eye, swear on his life, hand me his phone, and give every logical reason to trust him. My mind tried to go along with it.
My body never did.
My chest was constantly tight. My stomach churned. I could not eat. When I look back and catalogue every single time my intuition showed up in that relationship, including on my wedding night, every single time it was right. Every. Single. Time.
I wish I had paid it more mind.
How to Start Rebuilding Trust in Your Intuition After Abuse
Rebuilding your relationship with your intuition is not a dramatic overnight process. It is gentle, repetitive, and it starts small.
Start With Low-Stakes Decisions
You do not need to trust your intuition on the biggest decisions first. Start with things that are not high stakes:
- Take a different route home without using GPS. Just let your body decide, left or right.
- Let your body choose what you feel like eating instead of what you think you should eat.
- Pick the seat in a room that feels best, not the safest corner.
- Choose a colour that makes you feel alive.
- Say yes to a small impulse. Say no to something minor that does not feel right.
Then pause. Notice what your body does. That is the work.
Try the Instant Answer Exercise
Have someone fire quick questions at you and answer instantly without thinking. Your first answer, before your brain jumps in to second-guess, is almost always your intuitive response. Practice this. It is a deceptively powerful tool.
Notice Where Your Yes and No Live in Your Body
This is a practice from the Somatic Keys course, and it is one worth coming back to regularly.
Find your Yes: Sit or lie down somewhere quiet. Take a slow breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Let your shoulders drop. Let your jaw unclench. Now remember a moment that was a full body yes. Something where every part of you knew: this is right, this is safe, this is for me. Notice where that yes lives in your body. Does your chest feel open? Do your shoulders relax? Do you feel warmth, a lift, a sense of expansion? Let your body anchor that sensation.
Find your No: Take a breath and shake it out. Now remember a moment that was a clear no. A boundary crossed, a conversation that made your stomach turn, a moment you wanted to leave but didn’t feel safe to. Notice where that no lives. Did your jaw tighten? Did your stomach clench? Did you feel cold, small, frozen? Let your body register the difference.
This is not about judgment. It is purely awareness. You are just shining a light.
Your Intuition Is Not Broken. It Has Just Been Buried.
It might be buried under years of people pleasing. It might be hidden under layers of gaslighting and control. It might be twisted up with fear and hypervigilance that has quite literally kept you safe.
But it is still in there.
And here is what I want you to know:
You do not need a spreadsheet. You do not need a perfect reason or a five-point argument. You are allowed to leave because something feels off. You are allowed to say yes because it lights you up. You are allowed to say no even if you cannot explain why.
You are allowed to trust you.
Intuition is not just a gift. It is also about your survival. It is the way you come back to yourself and feel more solid in who you are. It was given to you so that you could use it, not only for your safety, but for your joy.
She has been in there the whole time. She just needs to know you are listening again.
This episode is part of The Messy Middle podcast. If this resonated with you, submit your questions via the form on the podcast page and I may answer them in a future episode.
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