Feel like im going over the edge

[ConfusedandHurt]

So I posted a while back about my abusive relationship and how I was finding it difficult to let go and well I went back. I did get my own place to live instead of moving back but over the past few months things were going really well. We had started to rekindle things properly and I let him back in. Christmas came with family difficulties but we made it work and then new year came and well to say things took a turn for the worst is a little bit of an understatement.
My neighbour witnessed me being violently assaulted by the same person. This has been taken out of my control this time and escalated further.
I am not in the haze I was before and it hurts so much more this time. There is still ongoing disgusting comments and throwing about hurt.
I hate to say that I still love him as I know that it’s not safe but I just feel now that I deserve everything. I took him back so I deserved to be beat up and be name called (fat b**ch, cu**, loser and s**m) maybe I am this. I actually feel so alone. Anyone I speak to just wants to tell me that he is not worth it and that I need to stay away from him but I’m just finding it so difficult to detach. I don’t know how to let go.

[Anonymous]

Hi there, well this is going to be a little tricky as I also belong to the same group of people who advocate no contact and staying away from them. But, I am also a woman who has lived an abusive relationship, left and made it to the other side.

It’s very hard to let go. It should be easy but it’s not. It’s really an addiction. We are addicted to our abusers like drug addicts are addicted to drugs. The drug addict knows that the drug is doing them no good but when they don’t take it, they go through withdrawal, which hurts. The drug is causing the withdrawal itself but the addict is so far down the line of addiction that they can no longer see or feel clearly. They no longer know or begin to care what’s good for them. This is us. We also travel this journey like the drug addict, only we are addicted to abuse.

The only way the drug addict can get better and clean is to stop using drugs. The only way we can get better and healthy is to stop investing ourselves in abuse. The journey to get to that place is a difficult one. It’s one step at a time. No contact with the abuser is a first and valuable step. Educating ourselves about abuse is what helps us to stay away from them. Being kind to ourselves is what helps us to start appreciating ourselves again.

When we’ve been trained to always put another human being first before ourselves, even when that person treats us badly, it can feel almost alien to think about what is best for us. Putting ourselves first and loving ourselves, perhaps for the first time, is what eventually saves us from ourselves x

[Hopefulwishes]

Wow what an amazing way of putting it Greensaphire. This has really helped how I look at things. I am too struggling to leave. I have a house to go to that’s sat ready and waiting to welcome me but I just can’t leave. I feel like I’m trapped. Frozen in time watching the dames things play out day in day out.
ConfusedandHurt I feel what your going through. We have to think of our own happiness and remember what we deserve in life. It definitely isn’t to be treated like we have been. Best wishes x

[Empoweredhealing]

I’m so sorry that you have been horrifically abused again. Please know that you are not alone. Many of us who successfully made it out had to deal with the desperate loneliness and sadness of being without the person we thought we loved. Leaving and staying away for good require a lot of inner work. You’ll find that once you do the work to become mentally healthy, the unhealthy relationship will lose it’s control over you.
There is a clinical psychologist, Ross Rosenberg, on Youtube that explains the dynamics of the toxic relationship really well. Arm yourself with the knowledge of why you went back and also why your abuser have not and probably cannot change.
In the meantime, speak to yourself with love and compassion as much as you can. Treat yourself the opposite of the way your abuser treated you.

[ISOPeace]

You’ve probably read this before but do remember that it takes an average of 7 attempts for peoplensuffering abuse to leave. Also have you looked up trauma bonding? It may help you understand why you’re stuck and it’s not your fault! You are trapped in habitual loops of fear and shame. This is not your fault. You did not create your survival strategies, it was all laid down when you were young. Your patterns are trying to keep you safe even though they’re not appropriate for the situation you’re in. You are doing the best you can and you never deserve abuse. Somebody who is struggling deserves empathy and compassion. Unfortunately the cycle of abuse reinforces the belief that mistakes should be punished. Punishment/abuse keeps us stuck in fight/flight/freeze so we’re not able to use the thinking and intuitive parts of our brains.
You will learn something valuable from this experience that will help you for next time. You haven’t failed. You had the courage to leave before so I’m sure you will find it again. Sending you lots of love and hugs xxxxx

[Dolly2019]

I feel your pain so much. It is definitely trauma bonding and the pain is like no other. I left a (detail removed by moderator)year marriage and suffered less than I am now after a flash in the pan.

I feel physically sick at the thought of him closing down and moving on. It is a pain like
No other. It can drive you into a panicked state that is incomparable to any other pain. You will do anything to run and hide from it.

I have found writing on here really helps. Do you have a DV counsellor? An IDVA I believe they are called. Mine is invaluable.

I believe, this particular pain comes from knowing that when it is out of your hands, so is closure. I think, when third parties become involved (police, bail conditions), it ceases to be something between the two of you. It starts to be something that is controlled by others and so you can’t get the natural private closure that most endings have. These endings are brutal, sudden, often when you are still deeply attached to and in love with the abuser. It is going mental and physical cold turkey with no relief and no answers to questions.

That is when writing really helps. Journaling and getting it down. Write on here as often as you can and just purge.

Wishing you strength X

[ConfusedandHurt]

So over the past few days, things have gotten progressively worse, I’ve had family members tryin to influence me and being guilt tripped making me feel as though I deserved what I got
He continues to call me and while I don’t want to get him into any more trouble the messages he sends me are terrible. He is being so derogatory. I feel so low, I have asked my gp to r****r me for further support and I got a letter sayin someone will be in touch from (detail removed by moderator), my housing officer had been amazing she is going to assess me for personal alarm systems and I’ve got good support around me.
But even just (detail removed by moderator) he called me, I was in bed with a migraine and he accused me of being with someone else.
I have had to go thru the process of blocking him as he is asking what am I going to say (detail removed by moderator) etc
I just want him to leave me alone, its hard enough feeling the way I do, never mind the nastiness and the constant put downs from the person who said that he loves me.
Will find out (detail removed by moderator) then what the next stages are but I am done with him and his antics. He was the person who helped me to build up my confidence and he had been the one to rip it all away.
I actually feel like getting together all the Christmas gifts he got me and sending them back to him out of spite.

[Empoweredhealing]

It’s really essential that you limit any contact with him. What he’s spewing out is poison and you cannot heal while ingesting poison.

Not only should you not speak with him but try to have no contact at all. No emails, text, social media. Also people who minimize or blame you for the abuse is also spewing poison. Even if only because they’re ignorant about abuse. You have to limit these people’s ability to harm you.

[ConfusedandHurt]

So turns out his case has been deferred and he has had special bail conditions set, so I’ve got another (detail removed by Moderator) of hoping he just leaves me alone.
My family have been amazing support but its just the loneliness.
He has completely broke my trust in others, I just wish it was all dealt with (detail removed by Moderator) coz then at least I would have had some closure 🙁

[LtteLupin]

I’m going to say some things you will definitely have heard before.

But I want you to really, really listen.

Firstly: this is not your fault. (detail removed by Moderator) But he is always going to be the same. So your only option is to remove yourself from him.

Secondly: two things keep you in that prison. One is the physical danger and fear. He literally will not let you get out of the door (although thankfully you are out now and he’s elsewhere). And the other is … when he’s not there, you feel like all you want is to be next to him. Even if he’s cross. Even just to hear him calling you those names.

Do you know what? That’s because if you were next to him and he wasn’t actually terrifying you but being just in the usual casual constant abusive mode, that means you’re safe. When he’s just being normally mean to you, and he’s close by, those are two great signs: because then things are under control. He’s not being super nice, he’s not being crazy, he’s just kind of on a standard chronically mean level. Check. And he’s next to you. So he’s not out getting drunk or doing anything that might set him off, and he’s not getting paranoid by anything someone says, and you can monitor him by the second. Check.

So basically all is quiet on the Western Front. So what does your body do? Heave a sigh of relief. The oxytocyin flows. OMG. I love him. You snuggle up to him. You hope (yet again) that your humility and love and forgiveness and sweetness will melt his heart a bit and he’ll just go to sleep. You put your arms around him and wait. Wait. To hear his breathing change. Maybe you have a kind of nervousness in your chest or stomach (I always had fizzing kind of butterflies.) You hold your breath. He’s warm. He’s quiet. He’s … (the breathing changes and deepens and …) … asleep. He’s asleep. OMG. You are OK. He’s asleep.

I used to not move too much. I was afraid of startling him awake and that it might start or set him off. If I was very tired and lulled into a sense of security, I’d sleep well too, but sometimes he’d wake me in the middle of the night (about 3.45am was a favourite time) and switch the full lights on or shine a phone light on me or even sometimes make me go downstairs in my nightie or just with a towel round me and sit in the kitchen or on the sofa and be interrogated.

All the time doing every single thing in my repetoire to break the cycle and calm him down and get him back to sleep.

I loved him when he was asleep. I adored him.

Sweetheart: these are good things that you have learnt to do. These things have kept you safe. They have also got you out ok.

You learnt how to deal with the enemy. I’m not saying he’s the enemy. His behaviour, his bad self – that’s the enemy. And it’s like you’ve been behind enemy lines all on your own with zero support and just living on your wits, even though you could walk down a street or go round Sainsbury’s or call your mum. Even in that normal daily life you were in that war zone. And you couldn’t even really tell anyone properly. In case they blundered in and did something that would set him off big time.

But listen: you did good. You learnt how to survive. And now … you are not in the war zone any more. You don’t need to live or feel like that. So why do you still feel like that? Why are you still craving that safe zone, in his arms? Why? Why do you think?? Because your life depended on those strategies. You might have been dead without them. So your body is no b****y way going to reduce the alert level until you are totally 100 million per cent certain it is safe to do so. And when will you feel like that? Well not the next day, or next week, or next month, that’s for sure. And maybe not even the next year.

It has taken me years. Years. And even now I still cry at night for him. And then I see him and he says the same things to me and I wonder again at how he could and then he lunges at me and tries to pinch me or push me. I see his eyes. And I leave.

In my case, he went through a proper breakdown and his behaviour over the worst period was fuelled by the manipulation and lies of another woman (who wanted him, and my money) and another man (who wanted my money, and when I said no, tried to use him as a weapon against me). You couldn’t write it. Of course, now I have nothing. I’m out but they all fleeced me.

They abused and fleeced me because they scared me, and so I appeased them.

Appeasement is a good survival method. That’s what you’ve been doing. And you feel you need him next to you and with you to feel safe. And everyone keeps telling you that you should hate and despise him and if you don’t then you’re a total loser.

You aren’t at all. That love helped get you through. But now you have to start letting go. You know in your heart that what he does to you isn’t what you want and it isn’t the right sort of love. But trust me it is going to take time to debrief and decompress your experiences and get back to normal.

You’ve very most likely got PTSD. You are a solider and you’ve been through hell. And now you’re out, but your mind and body need time to catch up and lower the alert level to normal.

One day this will all fade away. And you’ll look back and put it in perspective and see it as others see it.

But right now you’re only at the start of that road.

Lovely, you do know there’s only one road out of this. And you know it means walking away from him and not looking back.

Just keep walking away. Keep going. I absolutely promise you, as do lots of others here, that if you just have faith and keep walking, then one day you really will have forgotten about him.

There are soooooooooo many good people in the world. So many. And they’re all in front of you.

You aren’t wrong. You’ve been right, and you’ve saved yourself.
Now you need to switch strategy to keep getting yourself safer and safer.
You’ve got the enemy behind you. So now carefully walk away.
And don’t look back.

You have done so good. Nobody knows how good apart from you. But we can all have a good guess. Think of other arms. Fall in love with someone on Netflix. Go for some long walks every day and talk it through to the air, just with yourself.

Tire yourself out so you fall asleep quickly. And give yourself Time.

[ConfusedandHurt]

I appreciate everything you’s are saying and advising, there has been a little bit of contact this past week and its just made me feel that I know I’m making the right decision. I think I also need to cut out some other people, mutual friends as they are not helping things. I’m not losing friendships, I’ve decided to think of it as having a cleanse.
I have no idea what the outcome of the(detail removed by Moderator) will be and I’m trying to not think of it. Keeping myself busy etc.
I’ve blocked him on all social media platforms, I’ve blocked his number on my phone. Its my only way forward I think. It hurts not seeing him but when I think of how he treated me and what he said to me I know that it’s not right and that I deserve better.

[Author]

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