let's talk about A.B.U.S.E.
I worked at a family-run (husband and wife) language school on La Gomera until an abusive situation forced me to terminate my contract and seek new opportunities. I was the sixth teacher to leave the school in just seven months, which speaks volumes about the poor leadership and the establishment's bad reputation.
What follows is a summary of the incident, how it affected me, and how I chose to respond. I’ve included quotes from Finding your own voice by Evette Rose, as they perfectly encapsulate my experience and highlight the common patterns of abusive behavior. -
It was in March, just five days before my Kambo initiation, when I arrived at work in the morning. As I was preparing for my lessons, R., the husband of the school director (SD), walked in, visibly agitated, and began ranting about the rubbish bin in my classroom. His tone was angry from the start. I calmly explained what I knew about the situation, and he left. Assuming he was just having a bad day, I brushed it off and continued with my preparations.
Moments later, he returned—louder, angrier, and more aggressive. His accusations escalated as he circled back to the rubbish issue, this time hurling insults about me and my work. He was clearly trying to belittle me, painting me as a bad person simply because I dared to share my perspective on the matter and stood up for myself against his verbal attack.
“Abusers take advantage of the honesty and integrity of innocent people.” By this point, it was clear that his outburst had nothing to do with the rubbish bin (how absurd!) or even me personally. This was about him and his 'personality disorder' demanding attention. He wasn’t a frustrated colleague—he was an adult bully.
“Abusers gain control by demeaning and belittling others in order to establish their role.”
“When you feel bullied and disrespected, you tend to feel vulnerable. Abusers try to put you in a vulnerable position, as it’s easier for them to control and manipulate you.”
Everything I said to him seemed to fuel his fire. Even my kind words, diplomatic attempts, and light-hearted jokes about his temper had no effect; they only provoked more insults. My words had no power or impact on him. Trying to reason with him respectfully only escalated his aggression.
At one point, he stepped closer, closing the classroom door behind him, and unleashed his threatening tirade. I stood my ground, but in the back of my mind, I thought, If he dares to hit me, I will call the police. When he finished his rant, he opened the door and declared that he didn’t want me in “his” school, stating, “You’re fired!” He pointed aggressively at the door, ordering me to leave immediately. I remained calm and suggested that he take a moment to cool down. I reminded him that the decision about my employment wasn’t his alone; it needed to be discussed with the school director (his wife), who had hired me. My calmness and insistence only enraged him further. His behavior was irrational, dominant, and intimidating. “He attempted to dominate to establish his false sense of authority in order to get his way.”It felt like he was searching for a weakness in me to exploit—but he didn’t find one. When he realized he couldn’t intimidate me emotionally or mentally, he resorted to abusing his power as the school’s owner and demanded I leave. “Abusers tend to find your weaknesses and use it against you. The more they hurt you, the more they disempower you.”
I called the school director to inform her about the situation. I started by saying, “Your husband has just fired me, and I want to know if this is what you want as well?” I also asked if they’d had an argument at home that could have triggered his outburst. She was shocked to hear what had happened and asked me to wait while she called her husband to talk to him.
Meanwhile, my students began arriving, and I still didn’t know what I was supposed to do. The phone rang repeatedly, but R. refused to answer, sneering, “I pick up the phone whenever I want. You don’t tell me when I talk to my wife. I talk to her when I want to.” By this point, I suspected he was a controlling and abusive husband, but his private life was not my business. We were at work and here he promoted a rather immature and unprofessional attitude. “His tantrums were just like a child’s in that they would become progressively more violent and aggressive. This is a very common pattern for abusers.”
I recognized early on that R. exhibited narcissistic traits when I started working at the school. He pretended to be nice, but his smile lacked warmth or sincerity. He seemed indifferent to the school’s operations, delegating most responsibilities to his wife. His attitude didn’t directly impact me at first, so I maintained a gentle distance and focused on my work. However, it was clear that he held little respect for women, perhaps shaped by the cultural norms of the part of the world he came from, where gender roles are rigidly defined.
This incident eventually shed light on the school director’s behavior as well. It clarified why she seemed so powerless and insecure and why she struggled to set boundaries. Her demeanor likely reflected how she was treated by her husband at home. “If you are in an abusive environment for long enough, you start to think that you deserve to be abused.”
When my students arrived, the situation became incredibly uncomfortable. Over the phone, the school director asked me to go home for now, promising to call me later. Her suggestion was clear: comply with R.'s demands to keep the peace. “Keeping the peace protects the abuser. By being a peacekeeper, you give your power away, and it makes the abuser more powerful.”
R. declared he would teach the class himself, but as I packed my bag, I saw all the students leaving the classroom. He had sent them home with some fabricated excuse.
Once home, I called two trusted friends because I needed their help processing what had just happened. I was shaking internally—fearful, confused, and ashamed. In that moment, I found myself questioning my self-worth and even my own truth.
One of the friends I reached out to was an older, wise man trained as a social worker who had significant experience with aggressive and irrational behavior. He reassured me that I had handled the situation as well as anyone could. “You are not trained to handle irrational aggression,” he said. “And why would you be? It’s not part of your job.” His words gave me a sense of relief. He also emphasized that my safety must be the top priority in any workplace. He suggested I ask the school director if she could guarantee my safety for the remainder of my contract. He also encouraged me to speak up about what happened—not in extensive detail, but enough to bring awareness to the situation and share how it had affected me.
I decided to follow his advice. I called a meeting with my coworkers to address the situation, and though the school director wanted to speak privately in the back room, I insisted on doing it openly in front of everyone. I refused to let the issue be swept under the rug. While she seemed eager to keep the matter quiet, I felt the need to roar!
As we gathered in the reception area, I couldn’t shake the suspicion that R. might be watching us through the security camera that overlooked the space. Even so, I stood firm in my decision to speak openly and reclaim my power. As I spoke and shared my feelings, I noticed her eyes growing wet, though she managed to hold back tears. Her response was diplomatic, designed to shield her husband. She couldn’t guarantee my safety and even questioned why I felt unsafe around him. Her defense was that R. wouldn’t be present for nearly two months, so I had nothing to worry about—for now.
Her words hung in the air, but I couldn’t accept them as a solution. The school was already stretched to its limits. Teachers were in short supply, the reception desk often went unattended, one teacher was out with COVID, and I had canceled my private lessons to focus on recovering from the verbal assault. Meanwhile, the school director was juggling her responsibilities with a newborn in her arms. In the midst of this chaos, R. decided to go on a holiday, abandoning the team entirely.
"They don't care about teamwork; they only want power. They don't care about people; they believe they are the only person of value that exists in the world." I couldn’t help but wonder—what happens after two months? Her response felt inadequate and incomplete, but for a woman under her husband’s control, it seemed to be both the answer and the solution in her mind.
Had this occurred in the UK, the situation would have been reported to HR, and a structured process would have unfolded to address the incident. Here, there was no HR, no formal authority to turn to. The only recourse beyond this conversation would have been the police or an ambulance.
I knew that abuse escalates. I’m not sure where or how I knew this—it was just something I inherently understood. With that knowledge, I realized I needed to stop it at the source, to cut it out as soon as it began. Protecting myself and ensuring my own safety became my priority.
In this situation, the only way to guarantee my emotional and mental peace was to resign from the job. If a colleague is abusive, your boss or management might step in to address the issue. But when the abuse comes directly from your employers, there’s no recourse. The only choice left is to walk away. Follow your moral compass.
What I learned about being a victim:
Victims don’t want to feel alone and their feelings, emotions, and thoughts don’t want to be rejected, judged, or ignored. I wanted to be heard and seen when I spoke up about my experience. I needed people around me who supported me by accepting how the abuse affected me and not projecting their opinions on me.
Out of my five colleagues, only one approached me with emotional intelligence. She came to my classroom every day until I left, checking in with genuine care. She hugged me, asked how I was doing, and engaged in natural, heartfelt conversations. Her consistent empathy helped me feel supported and encouraged, making it easier for me to recover, regain confidence, and begin moving on from the experience.
In contrast, three of my colleagues avoided me altogether. They stayed quiet and distant, almost as though I were something to fear or avoid—a walking reminder of discomfort. The school director, meanwhile, seemed eager to brush the incident aside. She never followed up or inquired about how I felt after the meeting, leaving me to navigate my emotions largely on my own.
How ‘being yourself’ can inspire or help others?
I was thinking if I could do something for the school director who I suspected was in an abusive relationship with her husband for a very long time. I knew I was stronger than her and more able to address "the elephant in the room" without guilt or shame. Then I dropped the idea of saving her. Saving her was not my responsibility. Shifting my focus to her trauma would have distracted me from addressing my own feelings and delayed my healing. Instead, I recognized that being myself—standing up for my worth and setting clear boundaries—was a powerful act in itself. By modeling self-respect and courage, I showed her that change is possible. Vulnerability, often mistaken for weakness, is a profound source of strength. It’s the bridge that connects us to others on a human level. This realization freed me from the burden of fixing someone else's life.
I feel like the divine uses me to create some kind of a tower moment in other people’s lives like it was part of my purpose or something.
- I remember that before the incident, I had a sense that some kind of conflict was brewing in the background. I picked up on something in the environment that made me feel unsettled, and this feeling persisted for a couple of weeks. Something in the energy around me had shifted, and it was challenging because there were no tangible signs to explain why I felt this way. Then, I started teaching a new adult student, and I sensed an aggressive streak in him. He even admitted that he had been a fighter in the past.
At the same time, Ayahuasca and Kambo were likely still working within me, clearing my energetic and astral fields and realigning me with my soul's purpose. Looking back, I believe there were subtle, invisible signs leading up to this "tower moment" at the language school.
In addition to the abusive incident, the school director handed me an updated contract. She explained that they had not been registering my hours correctly, and I discovered that I had been underpaid. I had been raising concerns about discrepancies in my salary calculations and questioning parts of my contract for months, yet they had brushed me off. Strangely, after the abuse, they suddenly gave me the answers I had been asking for, which felt like an attempt to console me with money. This only confirmed that my decision to leave the school was the right one.
How to bounce back abusive/ narcissistic attacks?
“The key here is to honor yourself enough so that you don’t get lost in the confusion that an abuser can create with their manipulative behaviour. Be absolutely clear within yourself about who and what you are.”
More useful quotes on abuse:
“Abusers will play games with people until they find a person who is submissive enough for them to dominate. Once they have gained control, the dominance kicks in. When abusers become more in control of others, they become more dangerous. Once they have achieved their goal of power or a favourable position, they will seek out even more.”
"Abusers are on the lookout for potential partners who have low self-esteem, poor boundaries, and insecurities. They deliberately choose weak partners as it is easier to manipulate them. Abusers have an incredible urge to control their environment and the people close to them. They lack the verbal tools to communicate their needs and in many cases, as a result, they use violence and force to express unspoken words and emotions. The abuser normally fails to recognise that the person on the receiving end of their actions is traumatized by their behaviour."
“As a child, we were taught to never question our parents or authority figures. Children were not allowed to say “no” to adults because they are our superiors and they allegedly know what they are doing. The consequences of this are that we stop questioning people in authority. This includes people who are in roles that give them the power to make decisions on behalf of loved ones, such as a father/ mother figure, priest, and teacher just to name a few.”
“If the abuse becomes normalized then you stop recognizing how bad or dangerous your circumstances are.”
“Poor personal boundaries and fear of confrontation allow an abuser to get away with their unacceptable behaviour.”
“Abusers can be violent and stalk if you decide to leave the relationship. Disagreements could escalate into arguments and even violence. There is a freeze instinct that kicks in and you reach a point where you feel safer to just put up with the conditions, even though the conditions are unsafe and unhealthy. Feeling frozen contributes to many self-sabotaging decisions.”
"The recipient of the abuse tends to suffer in silence because he or she feels either too ashamed to ask for help or often due to blackmail from the abuser. The abuser ignores the partner's needs, rejecting them and making them feel that they are not worthy of being believed or listened to."
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If you believe you (or someone else) might be in an abusive relationship or simply want to educate yourself on the topic, I highly recommend Evette’s book. "This book draws on Evette's personal experience in overcoming the trauma of abuse. It provides valuable insights into understanding the cycle of abuse and, most importantly, offers guidance on how to recognize and break free from this cycle."

Here's a link again to the book, click HERE
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