Alice In Wonderland – The Bending Reality of Abuse
- Brainz Magazine
- Sep 17
- 4 min read
Updated: Oct 22
Written by Lindsey Leavitt, Transformational Coach
Lindsey Leavitt is a transformational coach. Her expertise stems from her lived experience of abuse, mental illness, and chronic pain. Lindsey's transformation has inspired her to utilize her knowledge and abilities as an artist/musician to advocate, empower, and lift others.
Wonderland glitters, but it cages. Drawing on trauma science and lived experience, this piece shows how emotional abuse distorts truth, why gaslighting erodes self-trust, and how naming the pattern helps you shatter the mirrors, leave the spiral, and start a grounded healing journey.
Down the rabbit hole
What if your whole life looked beautiful on the surface, but beneath it nothing was what it seemed?
What if the home you grew up in, the family that raised you, and the faith you clung to were all mirrors in a carnival maze, bending, twisting, and leading you in circles until you no longer trusted your own eyes?
That’s what betrayal trauma feels like. It’s Alice in Wonderland, dreamlike, surreal, and enchanting on the surface, but filled with hidden traps, spirals, and shadows that never let you escape.
The illusion of safety
From the outside, my world looked perfect. A father. A family. A church. Order. Light. Certainty.
But illusion is the cruelest prison. Wonderland sparkles; it distracts. The flowers sing, the tea party feels alive, and the colors dazzle. And yet, everything is off. The ground shifts beneath your feet. Rules contradict themselves. Up feels like down. Safety feels like danger.
Abuse hides in Wonderland because everyone is too busy marveling at the dream. No one notices the crack in the glass. No one questions why the doors don’t open, why every path bends back on itself.
Dancing with shadows
Have you ever felt like you were dancing in circles, caught in a rhythm that wasn’t your own? That’s the choreography of abuse. The abuser sets the tempo: hurt, help, hurt again. And you learn to move to it, thinking it’s your dance.
But what if the rhythm was never yours? What if the steps you’ve been taking, panic, shame, and silence, were scripted by someone else’s hand?
How many of us are still dancing with shadows, mistaking their rhythm for our heartbeat?
Wonderland logic
In Wonderland, nothing makes sense. One moment you’re told you’re loved; the next, you’re punished for existing. One hand hurts you; the other hand saves you. Which hand do you believe?
This is not random. It’s strategy. Abuse thrives on contradiction. Psychologists call this gaslighting: the systematic denial of reality until you doubt your own mind.
It’s Wonderland logic:
Drink me, shrink into silence.
Eat me, grow into shame.
Speak up, and you’re ungrateful. Stay quiet, and you’re complicit.
No matter which way you turn, the Queen of Hearts is screaming: Off with her head.
The house of mirrors
Living in betrayal trauma is like wandering through a hall of mirrors. Every reflection is distorted. Every version of you looks damaged, defective, wrong. And yet, somewhere deep down, you sense the truth: this is not who you are.
But how do you escape when every reflection insists you are the problem? How do you step out of the loop when every path bends back into the spiral?
The spiral
Patterns repeat. The same fight. The same shame. The same desperate attempt to fix what was never yours to fix.
This is the spiral of trauma, predictable and relentless. You think you’ve found an exit, but you end up back where you started. You’ve lost time, energy, pieces of yourself. You question whether freedom even exists.
Ask yourself: What spirals are you still caught in? What patterns feel inevitable but are actually designed to keep you disoriented?
Stepping out of the loop
The first act of liberation is recognition. Wonderland only has power if you believe the illusion. Once you see the mirrors, once you notice the spiral, you begin to step out of the loop.
Trauma science confirms this: healing begins with naming. Naming the pattern. Naming the betrayal. Naming the shadows for what they are.
But stepping out of Wonderland is not easy. It requires asking the questions you were trained not to ask:
What chains am I mistaking for jewelry?
Whose rhythm am I dancing to?
Through the broken looking glass
Wonderland is beautiful until you realize it’s a cage. The colors fade. The spiral repeats. The shadows close in.
But the truth, raw, terrifying, and liberating, is that the rhythm can be reclaimed. The mirrors can be shattered. The spiral can be broken.
Healing begins the moment you see through the illusion. When you recognize that the dream was a lie, and the nightmare was real. When you step through the broken looking glass, you finally find yourself on solid ground. Reclaim your rhythm, stop dancing with the shadows, step out of Wonderland.
Read more from Lindsey Leavitt
Lindsey Leavitt, Transformational Coach
Lindsey Leavitt is a transformational coach. She is certified in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). The model focuses on emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and mindfulness. Lindsey battled with anxiety and depression throughout her life. She implemented various therapeutic modalities, but none were effective. Finally, Lindsey implemented the DBT approach, which changed her life forever. Now she is helping others take back their power, regain control of their lives, and start living an abundant life.
