How do I move on

[Purpleheart]

I finally escaped my abusive partner after (detail removed by moderator) years of dealing with both psychical and emotional abuse (detail removed by moderator). I was with him since I was (detail removed by moderator) and he ruined my confidence and stopped me developing as a person through my early 20s. He was controlling, aggressive, hit me, forced me to have sex with him, called me all kind of names and told me that no one would ever love me like he did. After years of bottling this all up and trying to hide it from my parents and what small amount of friends I had left I finally decided to leave him. I still haven’t opened up to anyone about what I went through.
I am now in a new relationship with a guy who treats me amazing but the past is affecting this relationship and I have recently been put on antidepressants because I had a breakdown. How do I get over/move on with my life? I’m happy in this new relationship but my previous abusive one is haunting me and I’m scared that it will happen again because this one is so good. It’s almost like I can’t allow myself to be happy.

[HopeLifeJoy]

Hi Purpleheart,
I’m happy to read you are out of your abusive relationship, it sounds like you have been terribly abused, I’m pleased for you that you are in a loving relationship now.

I think you have to talk about what happened , write your story down, tell it someone, tell it everyone, let it out, and ask your gp to refer you to a therapist or search one yourself, someone who can help you go through your past traumatic experience, it takes a lot of courage to do this I find, but it is necessary to process what happened to be able to move on.
Then you are hopefully free of it and can move on.
Wishing you the best, keep posting

[Purpleheart]

Thank you! I never thought I would have a “normal” relationship and I really don’t want to loose this one. My new boyfriend tries so hard to understand and help me but I’m worried that if I open up to much and go into detail with him of what my ex did he will do something silly to him. You are right I need to talk to someone and get it all out. I try to push it all to the back of my mind but I overthink about it all the time. I’ve even been having nightmares that I’m still in the abusive relationship and when I wake up I feel like I can’t breathe until I realise he is not in bed next to me. Thank you for listening to me I’ve never really spoken to anyone properly about this.

[AlwaysSorry]

Hi Purpleheart,

I love the name 🙂

It’s good to see you posting here and to read that you managed to escape the horrendous abuse he put you through. Indeed, talk about if you can. I’m sure your GP can refer you to a therapist as well. You can also tell your story on here if you feel like it, it’s a safe place where everyone will understand it. I’ve told many parts of mine on here, it does help. Perhaps when you start opening up to someone, it will make it easier to open up to your new partner so that he might understand why certain things seem to upset you or worry you. It’s difficult to explain our triggers but perhaps it could help if he knew – maybe not knew everything but knew enough, if that makes sense. It’s up to you and what would make you feel the best.

[Purpleheart]

I never thought I would leave him. It took meeting someone else who quite literally saved me to get out of it. Yeah I was thinking about seeing a therapist/getting counselling. I feel like you’re right I need to open up and I don’t think
I will ever feel better unless I do. I just feel almost embarrassed and ashamed that I let him do all those things to me for so long. Why didn’t I get away sooner? It feels like he is still controlling me now and he’s not even in my life anymore.
Thank you for replying to me on here

[Author]

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