Fresh Start: When Love Turns into a Lesson

Welcome to your weekly newsletter, delivered from my heart to yours. This week’s theme is all about recognizing the red flags in a relationship, with supportive journal prompts to guide you.

Hello beautiful souls,

A brand-new week is here, offering us another chance to reset, reconnect, and reflect. Whether you’re easing into Monday with a calm heart and coffee in hand or rolling into it after snoozing the alarm one too many times, you made it, and I’m so glad you’re here.

Weekly Reflections

Sometimes actions speak louder than words, but when you’re caught up in someone’s charm, love bombing, and carefully crafted manipulation, those actions can become hard to see for what they really are.

We often overlook red flags because we’ve been conditioned to believe that intensity equals love. That attention, even if it’s inconsistent or controlling, means someone cares. But real love doesn’t confuse, control, or belittle you.

This week, I invite you to reflect on the early signs. Those gut feelings we often ignore, the words that didn’t quite match their behaviour, the moments we felt small but brushed it off. It’s not about blame, it’s about awareness. Because once you start seeing clearly, you start healing deeply.


This week, I’m drawing from The Freedom Programme. A powerful UK-based course that highlights the subtle and not-so-subtle tactics abusers use to gain power.

Here are just a few of the common tactics:

The Bully – Uses intimidation, threats, and anger to instil fear.

The Bad Father – Undermines parenting, uses the children as weapons, or withholds financial support.

The Jailer – Controls what you do, where you go, what you wear, and who you see.

The Liar – Gaslights you into questioning your own reality.

The Headworker – Chips away at your confidence, criticizes your every move, makes you feel worthless.

The Sexual Controller – Pressures or coerces intimacy, ignores boundaries, or uses affection as manipulation.

The Persuader – Uses guilt, emotional manipulation, or past trauma to excuse their behaviour.

The King of the Castle – Expects to be served, obeyed, and praised. Seeing you as “less than.”

The Charmer – Appears wonderful to everyone else, making you feel like the problem.

The Tactic Switcher – Alternates between kindness and cruelty to keep you confused and dependent.

Sometimes, it’s not just one tactic, it’s all of them in rotation. They introduce these tactics slowly and subtly. Until you don’t recognize yourself anymore.

Journal Prompts for Gentle Self-Inquiry

1. Have you ever ignored your gut because someone made you feel like you were “overreacting”?

2. What behaviours did you once think were signs of love, but now recognize as control?

3. How do you define safety and respect in your relationships today?

4. What would you tell your younger self about love, boundaries, and worth?

5. Looking back, were there moments in a past relationship where words and actions didn’t match?

What did they say, and how did they behave? How did it make you feel at the time, and what do you see differently now?

6. Have you ever mistaken intensity or jealousy for love or passion?

Reflect on how it was shown to you and whether it made you feel safe, empowered, or controlled.

7. Were there times you felt like you had to walk on eggshells to keep the peace? Explore what triggered those feelings and how often they happened. Were your emotions dismissed, or were your needs heard?

8. Did the relationship isolate you from others? friends, family, or even your own interests?

9. Journal about any gradual shifts you noticed in your social life or independence. Who were you before the relationship, and did you lose parts of yourself along the way?

Your Feedback Is Needed: For A Brave Young Voice

One of my daughter’s best friends, a strong and thoughtful 17-year-old, recently wrote a poem based on her experience with her first proper boyfriend. A relationship that, sadly, became abusive.

She plans to read this poem aloud at an open mic night, but she’s feeling unsure. She's worried the content might be “too graphic” or intense for the audience.

With her permission, I’m sharing the poem here, unedited and in her own words, in the hope of gathering feedback from this incredible community.

Do you feel this poem is appropriate to be shared at an open mic? Would you want to hear something this raw, honest, and real?

Personally, I believe her courage and words will resonate with many others who have been through something similar. I believe many will feel seen through her words. But I want her to feel supported by the wider community, by those of you who read, write, and create from the soul.

A boy, a love once bright,

A hand so gentle, a heart alight

But in the moment, all turned cold

A shift in him, a story untold.

His eyes, once warm, were now so hard.

A flash of anger a life scarred

The sting of his fists, sharp as a knife

The first mark of pain in our shared life.

I stood in silence, the weight in the air,

Wondering how love could turn to despair

In that instant the trust we’d grown,

Fell apart with the touch of his hand unknown.

Was it the pressure, the fear, the pain?

Did he not know how much I’d remain?

Did his hands once tended lose their way,

Caught in the darkness with nothing to say?

I don’t know what broke inside his soul,

But I know this hurt was never my role

Love should not bruise, should not fear

But in the moment, I questioned my heart.

Still, I hope for healing for both of us here

That I find strength to face the fear

Each time it came I’d brace for the blow.

A twisted love I come to know

The silence between the words unspoken

Yet every strike left me broken.

The first was a shock the second a scar,

I told myself it’d be the last by far.

But promises faded like whispers in the air

Every time I’d return to despair.

His touch once tender, now a cruel chain,

Each time it hit, I felt the strain.

But I stayed, caught in a web of his lies,

Chasing a love that wore a disguise.

The promises broken, like fragile glass,

Fell to the floor as the moments passed.

I couldn’t leave, though the walls caved in,

Foolishly holding on to where we’d been.

Each tear that fell was a silent plea,

For the boy I knew, the one he’d be.

But what was left of him in the dark,

Was just a shell with a broken heart.

He’d call it love, but love never hurts,

Not like this, where truth disturbs.

Each word he’d say, so cold and untrue,

Made me wonder if I ever knew.

Still, I clung to what we could have been,

Fighting shadows of the love within.

But love is not meant to twist and break,

Nor build its life on fear and ache.

Yet even now, as the years unfold,

I long for healing, for a story retold.

To find the strength, to walk away,

To let the sun break through the grey.

I tried to escape, to run from the fire,

To find a way out, to climb higher.

But every step forward felt like a trap,

Pulled back to the past, to his cruel snap.

Each time I turned, to leave it all behind,

The weight of his voice would haunt my mind.

He’d promise change, beg for one more chance,

And I’d believe, fall into the dance.

A twisted rhythm, a sorrowful song,

I thought I was weak, but I was wrong.

I fought to break free, to reclaim my grace,

But every time I fled, he’d chase.

He’d pull me close with whispered please,

A fleeting touch, a false release.

Then in the quiet, when I thought I’d won,

He’d drag me back, like the setting sun.

The shame was thick, the guilt would cling,

I’d question if I had the strength to sing.

Could love be real if it held me tight

But kept me prisoner, bound in fright?

The door was open, I had the key,

But every time I tried, he’d pull on me.

And I’d fall again, into the lie,

Hoping that love would never die.

It twisted my mind, broke my soul,

I couldn’t remember who made me whole.

Each escape became a fleeting dream,

Drowned out by his angry scream.

And one day, the walls crumbled away,

The cage I was in, I broke it, I’d say.

I stepped through the door, out into the light,

No more shadows to haunt me at night.

The silence was loud, but I didn’t care,

I breathed in the air, no weight to bear.

The chains that held me had finally fallen,

I’d let go of the lies of his calling.

But in the stillness, a strange thing grew,

A hollow inside that I never knew.

For so long, I’d been tethered to pain,

Now, in freedom, I felt the strain.

No more cries, no more fights to win,

But the space inside was vast, cold within.

I thought I’d soar, feel the world anew,

But instead, I stood still, lost and untrue.

The world felt distant, unfamiliar, unknown,

No familiar voices, no place to call home.

Had I been so consumed by what I’d left,

That now, I was wandering, lost?

The freedom felt empty, the silence so loud,

No weight on my shoulders, but no joy in the crowd.

I’d escaped the storm, but where do I go,

When the freedom I sought leaves me hollow below?

Please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments or reply to this newsletter directly. She would truly appreciate it.

Thank You & Closing Words

To everyone who continues to like, subscribe, comment, and restack... Thank you. Your support means more than you know. It keeps me writing, sharing, and showing up each week.

If my writing has ever spoken to you, inspired you, or helped you feel seen, and you feel called to support, you can treat me to a coffee here:

https://buymeacoffee.com/carladarcys

With love,

Carla 💛