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    • #42352
      Lovewithoutcause
      Participant

      Hi. I recently joined this forum in an attempt to find a way to move on from the past. I was in an abusive relationship for (detail removed by moderator) years. For the 1st couple of years it was mainly emotional/mental abuse with regular threat of violence. He was an alcoholic, but as we didn’t live together he was able to keep that hidden from me to some degree. I knew he liked a drink but it never crossed my mind just how much in reality. He would pick on literally everything about me. One minute he would say I was sexy and pretty, but in the same conversation he would change and say I was fat and needed to do something about it (I’m a UK size 14, just for a point of reference). after about (detail removed by moderator) years his alcoholism had really taken hold, and that’s when the violence started. On our last night, I finally stood up after he had physically attacked me to the ground, and said I didn’t want to be bullied and assaulted in my own home and I wasn’t going to stand for it anymore. That pushed him over the edge and I suffered the worst assault at his hands to date. I seriously thought my life was over that night, but something made him stop. He eventually went home early hours that morning but I spent the whole night awake. I kept thinking I could hear his footsteps approaching the front door but there was no one there. And I spent a few weeks getting over the injuries, but most importantly standing my ground. He tried to bully me into staying with him, but I kept reminding myself of the abuse and assaults.
      So, I’m more than a year on from that final night, but I still get panic attacks. The other night I needed to go to the garden centre and thought I’d go to the one by work on my lunch break. But then I remembered he was always going there around that time and just as I was getting into bed I had an anxiety attack about the fact I could very well bump into him. I hardly slept that night and changed my plans altogether to eliminate that risk and to calm myself again,.
      I also still get many, many nights where I lay there for hours in bed with all the assaults and nasty things he said and did over the years running through my mind. This has a knock on effect with me. I get down, I have low self esteem, I loathe myself. I look in the mirror and see the “ugly fat c**t” (his words) he made me believe I was/am.
      Why is it taking so long to forget? Or, not even forget because I never will, but to stop thinking about it like a habit. The last attack happened in my hallway and my bedroom, so every night afterwards as I got into bed all I could see and think about was that. So now it almost feels like I associate my room with that night, those injuries, the fear I had for months and months afterward of him coming back to finish what he started. I’ll never forget the pain in my body that night. The bruises. My head felt like my hair had been torn out at the roots from being dragged across the floor. My nose bled on and off for 2 weeks and my voice kept sounding strained because he did some form of damage to my throat. My body hurt in several places, so much.I’m sorry, I have rambled on a bit. But is there anyone else who has come out the other end but is struggling to deal with the thoughts running through their mind, with the psychological aftermath?
      Sometimes I get so down that I hit self destruct. I’ll try to ride it out with music and doing things I enjoy. But when I come down off that high, I really do come down. I end up snappy, angry and find it hard to not deliberately hurt myself in some way. Sometimes that feels like the only way to release the anger and pain. And the longer this struggle goes on, the harder it seems and the more annoyed I get at
      the fact I’m basically treading water. Very few people really understand what’s going on in my mind. If I hadn’t experienced it all for myself I probably wouldn’t understand these things coming from someone else either.

      xx

    • #42365
      Confused123
      Participant

      Hi Hun

      yes the abuse we experience is mind blowing , but we need to process it when we feel we are ready , i was with an abusive partner for (detail removed by moderator) decades, in the end my brain just switch off, when i left my brain couldnt accept teh abuse had happend so i had to switch off, peopel would say they were sorryabout what happned, i just couldnt remember and saw it as not that bad , luckily the tears that were forming and me not beign able to speak abotu it people accepted as things were bad.4 months after i had left him i started counselling , totally obvillious to the extent of abuse i went through as didnt recognise it .

      To my counsellor shock horror i sat their calmly telling the lady all about the abuse which i saw as normal as had to cope and apologised for crying as that wasnt allowed one of my ex sick rule . slowly i started talkign about the night he tried to kill me, after that i think it must of taken me just under 2 years to process that night , i just couldnt accept it and the state he put me in and my child in .

      Whilst living in rented accomodation i used to always debate to open windows for fresh air incase he jumped in and attack me again. We have to process what happend and slowly it gets better, for mem i needed a lot of counselling , slowly u have to accept u left him and are building boundaries to keep yourself safe and take samll steps to do things u love

    • #42394
      Lovewithoutcause
      Participant

      Our last night he almost killed me. And when I say it out loud, it doesn’t seem real. They say time is the greatest healer, but in this instance it is proving to be the slowest healer. I was so scared for so long after that. It took a long time for me to be able to talk to people about it. Until I could I had to remain quiet and ride it out until the dust settled. I finally told some of my family and few close friends because I couldn’t deal with it alone anymore. I needed people to understand why I was having so many bad days and was struggling. But I still think it is almost impossible for anyone who hasn’t experienced it for themselves to understand how hard it is. Not that I would want anyone to ever go through it, of course! It’s sickening what some people are capable of. I will never understand how a person can hurt another. Makes no sense to me.

    • #42409
      Confused123
      Participant

      Hi Hun

      Its the overwhelming fear feeling hthey built in us the night they was tryign to kill us , this is what i found so hard to understand, i thinkit mentally shakes us in our whole body that we just cant cope, my brain just switch off the night he tried to kill me, i remember during the whole process i was shaking so badly, i had tears strolling down my eyes, i was drifiting into unconsiceious and theen consieous, calming myself down whilst having wehat must of been a panic attacking, listening to the voice of my b in law on the phone telling me to remain calm when he kills me really f****d my head , at certain points oi felt i coouldnt breath. the whole night was nightmare, hearing my son voice in drift background that its ok he had calm his dad down and dad had made an agreement i jsut have to sleep with him then he wont kill me . I was beyond despair , looking at my son in his eyes knowing that he might still kill me anyway but i had no choice. When my son did leave room all i remember was he was beside me and i got the beating of my life , at that point i gave up as knew i had broken his rules of not to cry, i just cried , let him beat me cause i thought this is it and just closed my eyes . woke up next day and totally forgot what had happened. Took me ages to accept that the night did happen, i was scared to another level, just couldnt cope with the look of fear in my son eyes too. i think i must of cried slowly for 2 years just to understand how evil he really was, its the releif that i actually escaped that i shard to cope with , cause i was so close to death. For me talking about it with survivors, victims still trap and with my counsellor helped me loads as i couldnt deny it didnt happen . admitting it did happen and happened to me just made difference, any one would of been scared in that sceanrio but i had train my brain to just always cope but reality was i couldnt cope and should never of had to cope. If u feel brave and up to it talk about that night too, u can always private message me. U will find friends and family cant process it and prefer u to just shut up as it is vile to listen to , but u have to talk about it to process it, careful who u speak with as i find we are still vunerable

    • #42947
      Lovewithoutcause
      Participant

      HI, sorry I’ve been quiet. I actually typed up a long PM to you but after I hit send it said it couldn’t be sent and I’ve been fairly busy since then. Hope you’re well.

    • #42965
      Confused123
      Participant

      Hey Hun

      sorry to hear your message never went through, i know how much it means to keep in touch with some u can relate to . Hope u keeping well, will try and p m u

    • #42974
      SunshineRainflower
      Participant

      Hi Lovewithoutabuse,

      What you went through sounds absolutely horrific, I’m so sorry to read what he did to you, and I’m not surprised you are still healing from it.

      I have heard a lot of good things about EMDR therapy for trauma processing, have you had any therapy like this? I think time + other tools is probably the best healer rather than just time on its own, as we need ways of processing and properly healing from such horrific psychological wounds.

      I left my abuser during the emotional abuse and threatening stage (he too started to made me feel paranoid about eating too much and getting fat when I only weighed 8.5 stone as I was so anxious I couldn’t eat properly, these men are all the same!) So I never experienced serious physical abuse, but even I have PTSD symptoms like flashbacks, seeing his face, hearing his voice, and fear each evening that he might turn up in anger that I left before he could harm me further. I’m in a support group, have an appointment with a therapist and also on the waiting list for a local PTSD group, are there resources like this nearby that you could access? I have found them incredibly helpful, I found about them by doing a google search and also the helpline put me in the right direction.

      I am certain you can heal with the right tools, you just probably need more support especially in light of the horrors you have experienced.

      • #43040
        Lovewithoutcause
        Participant

        Confused123 hope you got my message this time.

        Sunshine – that’s really interesting. Time healing on it’s own is certainly a slow process so maybe I should look further like this. I get a lot of flashbacks and hear his words over and over some nights. I keep telling myself I’m safe, but the words and memories are stronger than my will to believe anything positive.

        I think I’ve become scared of relationships too. I refused to enter into another one. In previous relationships I’ve been cheated on, lied to, and made to feel worthless. So my last one was the icing on the cake. I don’t want to have to put trust in someone again and basically just wait for the day it all comes crashing down. If a guy shows interest, I try to laugh it off and say I don’t do relationships these days. Truth of it is I genuinely feel my heart, mind and body are safer if I’m not involved with anyone!

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