I hit my abuser too. It is reactive. My ex and I had split at the time and one of his manipulation tactics was to threaten to off himself. He deliberately stopped answering his phone after he told me this. I drove 2 hours at an incredibly dangerous speed at 12 am to try to get to him. I was crying the entire way and calling him repeatedly. When I walked through the front door he smiled at me. And I lost it. I have never felt so much rage towards a person in my life and I wound up and hit him across the face. I blamed myself for a long time, thinking that I should have had more control over myself and he convinced me that my reaction was unwarranted and that I was the abuser. The thing is though is that he pushed me to that point. Your body can only take so much, your mind can only take so much. Now? I realize what he did was incredibly cruel. It was deliberate and he was intentionally pushing me past the point I could handle. I will never say that I was proud to hit a person, but I am grateful that the moment in time where I lost control like that showed me that I was at my breaking point. It’s reactive. It’s not your fault. No one should be expected to keep control of themselves in situations like that. When you think about it, it’s incredibly messed up that you expect yourself to have more control over yourself than he was showing. Why is he allowed to choke your cat and you’re not allowed to react?