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    • #40165
      Escaped not free
      Participant

      Woke at five again this morning and again within seconds my heart is pounding, by neck is in knots. I feel like I’m in danger from myself. I think it’s myself. I know I don’t feel safe. Trying to breath slowly and concentrate on where I am but finding it incredibly hard. I’m so exhausted. Wondering if I made a mistake coming off antidepressants. But didn’t feel they were good for me, felt like a zombie in morning and thought I was in a better place to cope. Feel like I’m back to square one. I’m frightened. All I can think is its me I’m frightened of, that I’m gonna do something bad. That I’m not gonna cope with stuff. Not capable of anything x

    • #40170
      Nova
      Participant

      ENF Hoping you start to relax a little, please call WA for a chat through these symptoms. You are capable and your coping, it’s your feelings and the mediation contact which is causing this. Any contact is going to set you back.

      Can a third party be with you for this so that you don’t have to absorb all his negativity.

      Maybe take a walk out somewhere different, call a friend go for a coffee and chat..
      I find when this happens I give myself and hour max and then put ear plugs in and eye mask thingy so no light! To try to relax and Or read a bit just to try change my thoughts by distraction.

      If its any comfort …It’s a process that we will all go through to be rid of him, he is the same person for all of us ladies..in many ways. DM me any time.

      Cx

    • #40172
      Escaped not free
      Participant

      Thank you cuppa. I’m trying really hard. Got myself up and moving, (detail removed by moderator). Getting him sorted for that. I don’t like to bother friends at weekends, they are always busy with activities with their husbands and children. I don’t actually feel able to talk to a friend just now. Feel like I’m in surviving mode. I’m just trying to be normal around kids and it’s exhausting. They go to their dads (detail removed by moderator). I always worry about that also. I’m just a big ball of anxious fear and worry. I don’t have my mum anymore to lean on. When I’d ask for help is get told what to do which actually didn’t help me, but having my mum around made me feel a little safer like nothing immediately bad would happen. She would take over me completely though, take over with my kids which I hated. Now I’m telling myself I’m not capable, not safe with them. It’s horrible. Really frightening. X

    • #40183
      KIP.
      Participant

      I had this and still do when I have to deal with my ex. It’s triggers and mine comes from PTSD. Disturbed sleep like this is awful and typical symptoms. I’ve woken and jumped out my bed before I’ve managed to calm myself. Actually made it downstairs and woke pacing up and down the living room. I leave the light and a radio on. I’ve even woken at 2am leaving the house in a panic in my dressing gown! (it was snowing and it was only the cold I believe that woke me). That’s part of PTSD. Your body reacting to extreme stress. I found NHS psychological services were useless and I had to get my GP to refer me privately to a specialist. She saved my life. Contact with these abusers make the condition much worse. Can you go back to your GP? Get a good referral to a clinical psychologist who specialises in domestic abuse?

    • #40191
      Escaped not free
      Participant

      Yes, it’s horrible it’s like I can’t relax a single muscle and need to move but paralysed with dear at the same time. Like if I go and shower or go downstairs then the bad stuff will start. It’s like it me I’m frightened of. That I’m going to do something that puts us in danger or upsets the kids. You are right it’s because I’ve had to sit and be told over and over that I am the cause of everyone’s unhappiness. Objectively I know I’m not doing that but on an instinctive level I feel like I’m responsible and incapable. That’s the best I can describe it. My go wasn’t very helpful when I asked for a psychology referral. Told me to give it time and keep going to counselling. The counselling has been a life saver but it allows me space to talk about what’s upsetting me. And I think through that I’ve managed to see do much clearer but this has just thrown me again and I don’t feel equipped to help myself. I will maybe go back. I find it embarrassing and shameful and then they start asking about the kids and I feel like they are judging me as a mother yet the kids are my total focus. X

    • #40192
      KIP.
      Participant

      My parenting skills have never been mentioned. It’s not about that. It’s about getting me to a place where I understand I’m reacting to abuse the way I’ve been programmed to. Questioning reality. She’s rewiring my brain and thought process. Each traum is met, dealt with and processed with new logical thinking. Worth every penny.

    • #40193
      older lady
      Participant

      Hello. it may be that because your self-esteem has been attacked by your children’s father and your mother that you are being set up to fail at an incredibly high standard, one that no-one could reach? You’re having to justify yourself and I get it. I felt for years that I had to always justify myself, answer for myself not being perfect and it was because of the constant criticism I was exposed to. My daughter’s father’s mantra was always ‘the problem with you is you’re stupid’ or ‘you haven’t learned your lesson yet’. This was said to me, a grown woman, with a professional career, who had managed to live decades without him in it. It’s hard though, when you’re in the middle of it, to see what they do to us clearly. My achilles heel was always my child. I was afraid of losing my child if I wasn’t the perfect parent, and I am convinced this is because he always threatened to take her from me for being a ‘bad’ mother, or a ‘mad’ mother, and so on. Even years after our relationship, still, if I didn’t answer the phone to him straightaway, I was a ‘w***e’. If i was out and didn’t want to tell him where or why then I was a ‘w***e’ who shouldn’t have the care of a child. So i was afraid, that he would convince people only too ready to approve of him and disapprove of me. I often think that nothing was more disempowering to me than becoming a mother, because I was vulnerable to society and its stereotypes and prejudices about women and what a man or society (and the media) will say about women as single mothers. He felt powerful over me when I became a mother. He does NOTHING for our daughter. He throws us a bit of cash when he feels like it. Can you see what is good about you? I’ve read your posts and what you describe is really good parenting of your children. I remember my own mother saying to me when my daughter was born, ‘its not about you anymore…’ and I was thinking, ‘when was it EVER about me?’ His attitude was the same. I’ve been expected to give up my career (that i worked so hard for), live on the breadline, have no social life, let my looks and health go, and live around a child who has been encouraged to disrespect me and see her father as the powerful one, the father who treats me like a ‘stupid, untrustworthy w***e’. Well, no thanks. I started reading around, when I couldn’t get out of the house, looking for other women’s thoughts on this. I read a funny book by Ariel Gore “The Mother Trip” and she said something like one of her best purchases for herself was a big sofa. I needed ‘permission’ in a way, to be less perfect than the pressure others were putting me under. It was about their control and my achilles heel. I don’t know if this is anything like how you are feeling. I know its always more complicated with the abuse. The other thing is sleep. I have a funny relationship with sleep and depression. If my sleep is disorganised (through stress) I can start to get depressed and pretty quickly. So I make sure I manage the sleep first because often it helps prevent me descend into depression. Unfortunately sleeping tablets don’t help, so I have a routine that I follow to give me a better pattern around sleep time. xx

    • #40194
      Escaped not free
      Participant

      That sounds really helpful. I’m so glad you have something that’s helping you. X

    • #40197
      Escaped not free
      Participant

      Thank you older lady. I get accused of the EXACT same thing. Once because I went to the cinema alone after work because I wasn’t sleeping. He found out and went mad. He doesn’t see me as having any entitlement to life that doesn’t entirely revolve around serving needs of others. And yes, my counsellor says I’m too critical of my patenting, like I go above and beyond to make up for him and to counteract what he says about me, and my mother. My friends constantly tell me they don’t know how I do it all. I think I’m starting to crash though. I have a week coming up with no vhildren or work which I have NEVER had and I don’t know how I feel about it. Starting to think I maybe do need a bit of a break though. Just be responsible for me for a week. X

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