By Anna Hertel, Author of Brick by Brick: A Memoir of Endurance, Healing and Becoming
The media would have us believe that leaving an abusive relationship is a single brave act, set to dramatic music. The reality is a carefully crafted escape route on a long, arduous path, powered by fear and courage, and guided by a finely attuned “pattern detection system” built for survival.
In my early 20s, I came out of two back-to-back relationships built on coercive control, each operating in vastly different ways, with no language for what had happened to me. My path forward didn’t start in a therapist’s office. I wasn’t ready for the cognitive work. My body knew what it needed, and perhaps for the first time in a long time, I listened. Training for my first Ironman triathlon began that journey, though I didn’t know it then. Not every moment in life is the right time for deep therapeutic work. And, as with most things, the training had two sides: one healing, the other destructive.
How do you describe coercive control to someone who has never experienced it?
It lives in ordinary interactions in broad daylight as well as behind closed doors. It is disguised as care: opinions about habits, friendships, help with everyday errands. It’s framed as “building a partnership,” until it becomes a one-way road. An individual canceling plans with their best friends because their partner had another wonderful idea, and they’ve had a few fights lately. No one wants to be the friend who suspects ulterior motives.
In a survivor’s mind, these small, consistent tactics erode her trust in her judgment until she accepts his version of reality. This is gaslighting: not a one-time disagreement, but a consistent manipulation of her sense of what’s real. When she pushes back, he pushes harder by preying on her sensitivities and fears. Bending to his version will feel like the only way forward. If the survivor resists, the abuser questions their loyalty and love, uses accusations about keeping secrets, and plays the wounded one. This creates a cycle, forcing the survivor to react rather than choose, trying to smooth over something that can never be made healthy and ultimately causing the survivor to stop believing their instinct that something here is very wrong.
This is why survivors grow defensive when friends question their partner. It touches a wound she can’t explain, even to herself. Friendships drift, and isolation deepens.
And yet, in a quiet moment in front of the mirror, they may catch the eyes of the child they once were. Those tiny moments add up. Quietly, the survivor begins to map their way out, watching, planning, and waiting for circumstances to align, until they create their moment to leave.
What did training for an Ironman give you that therapy couldn’t at that stage of your life?
When I signed up for Ironman Lake Tahoe 2013, my mind wasn’t ready for the cognitive load of working through “it.” It was easier to put a proverbial lid on it than to invite language into things that might have eroded me even more. This is NOT to say therapy isn’t useful; it is the best thing when the time is right. But I needed to feel something: a rush, a win, a new way of establishing boundaries, structure, and purpose. Training gave my body something to hold onto before my mind was ready for the rest. It was challenging, and it gave me a raw sense of joy, living proof of how interconnected fitness and mental health are. Through repetition and small gains, I became a new version of myself.
It’s a lot like writing Brick by Brick: first you put the story down as it happened, and the deeper material comes later. Trauma works the same way. First, you stabilize, then you do the heavier work.
Was there a point where sport became another form of self-punishment rather than healing?
Absolutely. Like the start of a relationship, it began with rose-colored glasses. Then ambition crept in, and I measured myself against professionals. The same harsh voice that had run my life inside those relationships found a new target: me. It showed up as disordered eating and being hard on myself around food and drink, with rules like running a mile or two before I let myself eat. For a while, healing and harm were wearing the same training clothes. A fantastic coach helped me reframe, and that protected me from going further down the wrong path.
Where I am now
My new finish lines have become checkpoints. I will probably always walk the line between discipline and self-punishment because, on tough days, the internal voices shift. But this is where self-knowledge lets me reframe, so I choose the compassionate voice between my body and myself. Sport gave me a chance to recreate a home within myself when I had no other way to find it. Therapy and writing eventually gave me the language I needed to make sense of everything. And now? I have earned the humbling privilege of sitting with others through their pain. Healing is an ongoing process of integration, never a straight line.
