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I didn’t lose my intuition.
I was taught to override it.
Not by a single person, and not all at once, but through repeated, normalized language delivered by those closest to me. I took me a long time to learn that closeness does not equal care, that proximity does not automatically warrant trust.
Because when you grow up without consistent guidance, whoever shows up becomes authority. And when someone is close to you—when they work with you, confide in you, stand beside you in rehearsal rooms and late-night conversations—their voice ends up directing you.
And what I had been told sounded reasonable. Encouraging, even. It sounded like advice. Like care. Like opportunity.
It didn’t sound like grooming.
That was the design.
When I first started telling people what had happened, the question came quickly:
“How did you end up in a world like that?”
It was difficult to answer.
Because I wasn’t the troubled teenager people expect in these stories. I was the overachiever—the one dominating awards nights, exceeding expectations, “has it all going on.” From the outside, my trajectory looked exemplary.
But what people don’t always understand is that entry into these worlds rarely feels like danger at first.
It feels like acceleration.
Like recognition.
Like being seen—fully, finally, and intensely—in ways we never experienced before.
And when that kind of attention arrives at the same time as opportunity, it doesn’t register as a threat.
It registers as validation.
I didn’t walk into something dark. I walked head held high, heart and eyes wide open, into something that felt like light.
Looking back, I can only now see where my system failed—not because I lacked intelligence, but because I had allowed interference to take over my intuition; I had outsourced my sense of self-worth. This was both conditioning and adaptation, and the good news about this is that both can be reversed, because what is innate to us can never be lost, and so I catalogue these phrases here, with translations to help you decode what they actually mean.
Here are the exact phrases that programmed me to override myself. Instead of limiting access to those who groomed me, I expanded access. So if even one of them could help you see things differently, hit the brakes in abusive relationships, then this would have been worthwhile.
Note that these are not dramatic commands. Not obvious coercion. Just small, socially acceptable sentences—repeated often enough to reshape our reflexes and hijack our choices.
Here are the top five:
1. “Whatever you do, you have to maintain this relationship with him.”
Translation: your boundaries are less important than his value.
When I confided that someone much older had crossed a line with me—something I hadn’t wanted, something I didn’t experience as romantic—I wasn’t met with concern.
I was met with “strategy”—maintain the relationship.
Not: Are you okay?
Not: Did you want that?
Not: That doesn’t sound right.
Just: don’t lose access.
In that moment, the focus shifted away from my experience and toward his perceived importance. And without realizing it, I learned something dangerous:
That discomfort is negotiable—but opportunity is not. That instead of feeling violation, I should relabel this as having discovered a step-up.
2. “He’s really into you.”
Translation: his desire matters more than your discomfort.
This phrase was often delivered with a kind of excitement because we are conditioned to label desire as something to be sought after. Desire, in this framing, wasn’t mutual. It was directional. His feelings became the main event. Mine became irrelevant.
For those of who grew up in environments where affirmation was scarce and criticism was constant, we don’t stop needing validation; we make ourselves more susceptible to it. So we develop reflexes that make us more “easy to choose.”
We are chosen because we are easy. Does that change how we feel about this now?
I learned to value those who spoke kindly to me. To trust the ones who made me feel chosen, encouraged, elevated. But it took me years to recognize the difference between someone who speaks nicely—and someone who is genuine. The good news is that we can unlearn. We can recondition.
3. “He really likes you. He’s a great guy.”
Translation: your unease is invalid because he is socially approved, and isn’t it nice to be wanted so much?
This one is particularly powerful because it recruits social proof.
He’s a great guy.
Meaning: other people like him.
Meaning: you should too.
Whatever I felt—confusion, hesitation, a lack of alignment—was quietly overruled by his reputation and desire. My internal experience was treated as less reliable than external consensus.
So I learned to distrust the part of me that didn’t match the group narrative. Because being wanted sounded far better than the alternative. Though there were some thoughts there, too.
4. “He can help you.”
Translation: access is worth more than alignment.
This is the sentence that collapses everything into utility.
“Help” in this context can mean a variety of things where closed doors suddenly open through proximity to someone with power, status, or influence. And embedded within it was a subtle trade:
Endure this, and it will benefit you.
What gets lost is the question: at what cost?
Because when access becomes the priority, boundaries start to feel like obstacles and self-sabotage rather than protection.
5. “He’s very famous—what do you think of him?”
Translation: his status should shape your perception.
This question sounds open-ended. But it isn’t neutral. It comes preloaded with hierarchy.
Fame enters the room before the person does. And suddenly, we are oriented not to our intuition and genuine feelings, but to how we should feel, according to social standing and the fame factor.
This is a recalibration of our instincts, where we feel a certain pressure to adjust our instincts to match external optics, where his perceived value meant that we would also be seen as “higher.” The truth is but the opposite. Having been in the rooms I once wanted access to, I can tell you that being valued as the “young promising assistant” feels nothing like having your own name on the guest list. Even then, this “off” feeling doesn’t justify the disentanglement because the more we outsource our self-worth, the more compliant we become to these more successful men and the less we search for an exit.
None of these phrases on their own sound harmful. That’s what makes them effective. They operate within the boundaries of what is socially acceptable to say. They don’t alarm. They don’t shock. They don’t register as danger. But together, repeated over time, they form a system that quietly teaches you to turn off your own intuition.
Not through force. Through normalization.
What I experienced wasn’t just about individual people making poor suggestions. They were my closest friends and people I grew to trust through proximity. Including women. Including mentors. Including men I’ve dated.
That’s the part we don’t talk about enough.
Because it’s uncomfortable to acknowledge that the voices we trust can sometimes carry forward the very patterns that disconnect us from ourselves.
Naming it doesn’t mean assigning blame. It means we can finally see through the fog, and articulate clearly what actually happened. Cataloguing restores clarity.
Today, I still hear these phrases sometimes—in different forms, in different rooms. But they don’t land the same way. Because now, I translate them, and in that translation, I return to something that was never actually lost— only overridden: my ability to recognize what feels right for me.
Every conditioned behavior and reflex can be reconditioned to honor our strength, instead of making us exploitable. We just have to decode the language that spreads like a virus in our system.
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