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    • #44217
      Tiffany
      Participant

      I’ll start this by saying that today my self esteem has reached the point where I am worried that I am posting too much on this forum, and that people will hate me for cluttering the boards up with stupid stuff. I left my relationship fairly recently and without any idea at the time of how bad things were. We were engaged and I knew I was unhappy and concluded that I didn’t want to marry him. I moved out, with the foresight not to give him my forwarding address.

      I knew some of his behaviour was unacceptable. But I now can’t believe how many things I didn’t recognise as unacceptable.

      Since I left I have felt like I am under a deluge of memories. Stuff I must have blocked completely from my mind when it happened. And now daily life happens and it is totally innocuous but it triggers intense and vivid memories of abusive episodes and I can’t believe I let them happen. Today I had skin pain (it’s a part of a chronic illness, which is flaring up in the stress of dealing with the aftermath of the breakup) and I had on a jumper with a tighter neckline than I normally wear and it triggered a memory of him grabbing my throat when I was in pain, and then getting upset when I freaked out, telling me that I was overreacting. That feeling of anxiety and panic that he is going to strangle me. And that made me remember that he used to hold his hand over my mouth and nose when I was talking too much – and then tell me I was over reacting when I struggled and forced him away from me, telling me I could still breath and he would never hurt me and I should trust him. Up until yesterday I would have sworn that there was only one incident where he was physically abusive – (detail removed by moderator). But even if he never went far enough to cause permanent damage, even seconds of suffocation is physical abuse isn’t it?

      People keep telling me not to think about it. But I can’t block it out. And it is affecting me at work. And he told me so many times that I wasn’t strong and well enough to do my job. That I couldn’t cope. And I think my bosses are trying to help me by telling me that it seems like I am not coping but all I can hear is that I am not good enough, and that I can’t do what I do. And I am afraid all the time. And I feel so alone. And today is the first day I have wished I was going back home to him. And I don’t understand why. I know what he did. But I can’t reconcile the lovely caring person who helped me cope with chronic pain and years of illness with the man who made my illness worse, who controlled and threatened me and scared me. And I don’t know how to start feeling better. I feel like I could handle the abuse better than I am handling the memories.

    • #44222
      SunshineRainflower
      Participant

      Hi Tiffany,

      You are not cluttering up the boards at all – feel free to post away, that’s why the forum is here, for us to support eachother and get stuff off our chest.

      It sounds very much like you are suffering from PTSD, have you spoken to anyone about these symptoms like a GP or therapist? It’s very hard to cope with but is also treatable. I had lots of terrible symptoms with it initially which have currently calmed down but it tends to turn up again at random times. I’m awaiting counselling which I hope will help.

      Bascially your brain is trying to process what happened and make sense of it, and because it’s so shocking, senseless, bizarre, illogical, traumatic, painful, cruel etc the brain struggles to process it and let it settle.

      It’s normal to have doubts and think ‘oh god, maybe he wasn’t that bad, should i go back to him?’ but you need strategies to cope with this because basically these men are dangerous and if we go back we risk our lives. Write down all the abuse he did so that you can read it when you feel confused, especially if he is trying to hoover you back in.

      I have the exact same thing about anything being on my neck as you, because my ex put his hands around my neck then denied having done it and got angry when I brought it up. Now I feel queasy and panicky if something touches my neck due to the strangulation fear.

      What has helped me is:

      – Writing down in a journal every day especially the thoughts that are bothering me
      – Painting the thoughts that are currently plaguing me. Something about the creative process seems to unlodge the trauma and help it process and heal
      – Video diaries each day and stuff that’s bothering me which are for me alone

      The above has helped me a lot but I’m taking it a day at a time and continuing to seek support. Have you got any support in place like a counsellor, DV outreach worker etc?

      If there is a counsellor attached to your work you could book in with them to discuss the PTSD type symptoms and talk about how to manage them at work?

      It sounds like you are being hard on yourself, leave lots of time for rest and relaxation and remember that you have been through a trauma. In time you will heal (I’m on the healing journey too) but you have to listen to your body and your intuition and get the support you need.

    • #44223
      SunshineRainflower
      Participant

      P.s I also totally get how you feel about trying to reconcile the ‘nice man’ with the ‘abuser’ as my ex was exactly the same – apparently lovely, sweet, caring, wonderful but also evil, cruel and dangerous. It’s the most confusing thing to get your head around and is called Cognitive Dissonance (having two conflicting thoughts in your head at the same time).

      The way I see it is, the ‘nice’ part was the mask to lure us in, it fits the Cycle of Abuse and is the Honeymoon stage. A lot of the niceness is sadly manipulation – we would never stay if they were abusive all the time.

      Remember that you deserve someone who is genuinely good, kind, loving etc ALL the time, not nice-abusive in a never ending repeating cycle of pain and confusion.

    • #44260
      Tiffany
      Participant

      Thanks Sunshine Rainflower. I had a much better day today. Went out to a summer fair with my sister and then we met up with a cousin for ice cream.. Got a bit sunburnt – wasn’t as covered up as usual, but my sister told me I looked very put together. She has always been much more stylish than me so that gave me a real confidence boost. I’ve been making a big effort with things like matching accessories. Not really something I have ever done before, but I am feeling really uncomfortable in a lot of my clothes – too many memories attached. So it feels good to create new outfits with the handful of new items I have got since we broke up. Money isn’t plentiful but I got a couple of dresses and a t-shirt in a charity shop and a friend hosted a clothes swap event where I got a couple of other things. And my dad gave me nail polish to cheer me up (he is pretty cool) so I have been matching nails with outfits or lipsticks and wearing makeup which my ex mostly hated and feeling powerful. I wish I could do this to work too, but clothes get ruined where I work and power-dressing would be foolish.

      I haven’t got any professional support in place yet. It took me an entire day of ringing and then panicking and hanging up when I hit voicemail before I managed to talk to womens aid. I have a real fear of being called by unknown numbers – I think that one is from a phone stalker a year or so ago, not the abuse. But I guess the abuse plays into it too. I took a day off to go to the doctor, but unfortunately she couldn’t provide any non-drug related help, and she agreed that drugs weren’t really what I needed. I’ve been on anti-depressants before and had some nasty side effects due to my health condition.

      My local domestic abuse outreach program is only open during my work hours and I don’t even get a lunch break in which I could call – not that that would be a conversation I would want to have on work premises…

      I have just been given the details of some low cost counsellors so I need to summon up the courage to start contacting them and finding out what the waiting lists are like. The NHS ones were over 6 months, which is why the doctor didn’t put me on them. I’ll maybe take another day off work to do it. Then I can go and see the DV outreach people in real life instead of on the phone.

      And in the meantime I am thinking of treating myself to a paperblanks notebook for a journal. I have loved them for years, but have never felt it was justifiable to buy one. It could be this months treat…

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