'I was 12 when Mum’s new boyfriend moved in. I didn’t know I’d spend years trying to disappear.'

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Sarah* was 12 when her mother's boyfriend first moved into their home.

"Mum called him our fresh start," Sarah recalled. "That sounded good back then."

It didn't take long before he started showing concern for her wellbeing. But every time he did, Sarah didn't feel protected. Instead, she was left doubting herself.

"You sure about that outfit? It's kind of loud," he'd remark. At other times, he'd ask a lot of questions.

"Where are you going? Who's going to be there? What time will you be back?" It started off subtle, comments that could be explained away as being overprotective. But by 14, Sarah says she was "walking on eggshells."

"I tried to be invisible. I watched his moods all the time. The kitchen was dangerous. Leave a dirty spoon, and he'd lecture me for 20 minutes," she said.

"I barely closed by bedroom door because he might think I was hiding something."

For Sarah, every reaction she had to her stepfather was wrong. "'You're being too sensitive', he said every time I got upset. If I cried, I was being fake. If I stayed quiet, I was pouting. If I tried to explain, I was talking back. Nothing I did was right."'

Watch: 6 signs that tell you someone has experienced abuse. Post continues below.

Her mother, often caught in the middle, seemed to genuinely believe her partner was simply trying to be a good parent.

"She'd sneak into my room and say sorry. 'He's just stressed about work. Things will get better. Try being more understanding.' But when it mattered, she'd defend him. His meanness became 'protection.' His put-downs became 'trying to help,'" Sarah said.

According to Leneen Forde Chair in Child and Family Research, Professor Silke Meyers, it's not unusual for one parent not to immediately identify coercive or emotionally abusive behaviours perpetrated by the other parent.

"I think there's always a chance that a parent may not recognise what the other parent is doing or aiming for in their interaction with the children until the harm is manifesting in concerning behaviours, whether internalised or externalised," explained Professor Meyers.

"Especially if the abusive parent is good at what they do. In other words, a skilled perpetrator will manipulate the system around them, including the other parent, to minimise the risk of detection of their harmful behaviour towards the child or children."

"Emotional abuse may take many forms."

Professor Meyers says coercive control and emotional abuse of children often mirrors what we know from the adult context.

"Emotional abuse of children may take many forms and often intersects with verbal abuse," Professor Meyers said.

"It may also include deliberately ignoring the child, rejecting affection or the need for comfort. There are many similarities between emotional abuse and coercive control. For example, when these behaviours form a pattern and are intended to undermine a child's sense of self."

Coercive control can also include strategic financial abuse, social isolation from family or friends to maximise control over the child and, significantly, reduce the child's opportunities to disclose the abuse.

"Social isolation and being very restricted in what a child is allowed to do, who a child is allowed to interact with and what a child may be allowed to participate in can all be indicators of coercive control," Professor Meyers said.

Coercive control of children often intersects with coercive control of the other parent, commonly but not exclusively the mother. That overlap can make it especially hard for the other parent to recognise what's happening to their child.

This is further compounded by children's normal response to this type of abuse, which can range from withdrawing and internalising to anger or defiance.

"Some children become withdrawn and may internalise the experiences, others may externalise these experiences and act out, meaning they may display aggressive or defiant behaviours," said Professor Meyers.

"This is where it's critical when settings such as schools or health care come in contact with children and young people for their problem behaviours, that they have a trauma informed lens to understand what sits under such behaviours and then respond accordingly."

"Breaking me down, bit by bit."

Like many victim-survivors of coercive control and emotional abuse, Sarah started to doubt her own reality, and her confidence began to plummet.

"Was I really selfish like he said? Were my feelings wrong? He messed with my head so much that I didn't trust myself anymore," she said.

School became her haven, until he intruded there, too, with the same subtle behaviours he subjected her to at home.

"At parent meetings, he'd sound worried while trashing me. 'She's got potential, but she doesn't try hard enough.' He wanted teachers to say I was causing problems."

Even her food intake was policed. Sarah's stepfather would comment on how much she ate, accused her of wasting food, and create rules around what times she was allowed to have snacks.

"I couldn't sleep. I'd listen to them talking downstairs. Were they talking about me? Did I mess up somehow? The not knowing was torture. I never knew when he'd find something wrong with what I did," she said.

By the time Sarah left for university, the damage from years of abuse had taken its toll.

"That mean voice in my head felt like my own thoughts. Dating was bad. I picked guys who treated me badly because it felt normal. Or I'd ruin good relationships because I didn't think I deserved them," Sarah said.

Still, she never thought of her experience as abuse, until she started seeing a therapist.

"What happened to me didn't feel big enough for those words. He never hit me. It was just years of him breaking me down bit by bit," she said.

Listen: Does ghosting classify as emotional abuse? Post continues below.

Professor Meyers says those long-term echoes are common.

"Our research on the effect of coercive control directed at children is still in its infancy, but I think qualitatively, we know that it has similar effects to what we've observed in adult victim survivors, including social isolation, mental health problems such as anxiety, depression and PTSD, eating disorders, self-harming and suicidal behaviours," she said.

For many children, Professor Meyers says, disclosure is the hardest step.

"I think the first barrier is making sense of it. We know from research on adult victim survivors that it can be hard to recognise some of these behaviours as abusive," she said.

Many survivors report that in hindsight they see patterns of abuse, but because coercive control tends to be more subtle, experiences can be excused or normalised.

This was Sarah's experience.

"It took me years to understand that his behaviour was never about helping me. It was about control. And it took even longer to realise that breaking free isn't just possible. It's necessary if I want real happiness," Sarah said.

"That twelve-year-old girl who learned to disappear is still part of me. But she's not the only part anymore. Maybe that's what healing really looks like. Not erasing what happened. Making sure it doesn't decide what's possible for the rest of my life."

*Names have been changed to protect identities.

Feature Image: Getty. (Stock image for illustrative purposes only).