Hurting

[NotYourMaid]

Sometimes I want to (detail removed by modertor). There just isn’t an outlet for all this pain I’m feeling. All the pain is trapped inside with no healthy release. I can’t go anywhere. I can’t buy anything. I have to ration all my food. I can’t do anything.

All my hobbies have slowly been eroded.

I just sit at home struggling to learn a language that is vastly different from my own.

I feel so lonely.

I’ve slowly alienated all my friends. I don’t have any friends in this country.

I can’t really talk to my family, because my sisters specifically said that they don’t want to hear about my abuse because it’s too triggering for them (one of my sisters had also been in an abusive situation). And I understand. Abuse is tough to hear about. So they only want to hear about the good things in my life, or the small fluffy things like memes and gifs. But I don’t have any happiness in my life right now. And I don’t have the emotional capacity for light humor. I don’t want to talk to my brother because I don’t want to men right now. They all seem like monsters to me. And my mother keeps asking me if it’s really abuse. She keeps saying how nice he was when she met him.

I don’t really want to contact the women’s shelter again (although I should probably try). They don’t speak English, so they have an interpreter with them whose from a different organization. And not trained in abusive situations. When I was explaining that I slept, for several weeks, in a place, in the house, that is not a bed, (it’s a hard flat, surface) because I was scared of my husband, she thought it was funny and started laughing. So, I don’t really want to repeat that experience.

The only thing holding me together right now is this forum, my language class (it’s going well), and the non-profits that are helping me.

But it feels like a thin thread that might snap.

I feel like I post here too much. But I just… I’m tired of writing words of pain in journal. Because even then the words feel trapped. Everything about me feels trapped in silence.

I don’t know how to release the pain. It’s just trapped inside.

[NotYourMaid]

I guess, maybe… I’m asking for advice?

Like, how do you deal with this pain? IS there a way to safely release it?

[EvenSerpentsShine]

For me, the most painful time was when I was just starting to see what was going on. When the scales fell from my eyes. Suddenly I questioned my whole life and it all seemed awful. I felt trapped and very alone.
I wonder if this is what people mean by the trauma bond. That when we’ve suffered so much abuse we just want someone to put their arms around us, but we’ve been isolated and the only people left are the abusers and so we crave and accept their affection and solace even though we know we’re just perpetuating the abuse cycle.

In the end I just gave up on finding solace and decided to fight. I lowered my expectations of people and just kept going. I saw myself as a sad little fox caught in a cage. I prepared. When the cage door creaked open ( and it will I promise you) I was ready to go. I went like a shot.
prepare, get tough, go inside and find what it takes, protect yourself, watch, wait, your time will come, when it does you’ll recognize it and you’ll be ready. This may be the most miserable time of your life, it was for me. It will change. 💗

[NotYourMaid]

Oh my god yes!! This is EXACTLY how I feel! I guess these feelings are, I don’t want to say normal, because abuse shouldn’t be “normal”, but usual. They are usual feelings.

It’s weird that, we all have different situations, we live in different countries, but the emotions around abuse are the same.

Thank you. I needed to hear this.

[NotYourMaid]

@EvenSerpentsShine

You escaped your abuser? Does it get better?

[EvenSerpentsShine]

Hi NotYourMaid, yes, it does get easier. At first I was really anxious, for a few weeks. I couldn’t sleep very well and I had stress hormones coursing around my body all the time. It was Yukky, but I just focused on doing one thing a day that moved me a tiny step forward. Some days it was really difficult, and other days it was really easy and I got loads done. But, even though I was anxious I really enjoyed the small pleasures of everyday life even right from the start. Just being free of the heavy hand of his ‘rules’ and criticism was joyful and I found my sense of humour coming back and just enjoyed small things. That’s still there for me and it’s really magic! I take time to chat to strangers, eat sponge cakes, go to the pub, be complimented by the guy in the phone shop, watch little flicks of birds flitting in the trees, work at the (detail removed by moderator), laugh at a joke made by someone I hardly know. It’s all good. Life without being shredded psychologically by someone is just nice. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all easy! I had to give up everything and start again. But, I’d rather do that than be ripped down all the time. Like you, I spent some time sleeping in an uncomfortable place just to get away from him. I’m really sorry that the translator found that funny because it b****y isn’t .

[EvenSerpentsShine]

How are you doing now by the way NotYourMaid? What are your thoughts about where you are at the moment?

[NotYourMaid]

I started doing the Bloom course that one of the moderators on this website recommended, and I think it’s helping. I haven’t done any of the writing, because I started watching it when he was home. So I didn’t want him to see me writing anything that sensitive.

I’m a bit better. I won’t say ‘a lot’, because it changes so fast. One moment I’m ok, planning and daydreaming about escaping, the next, I suddenly feel like it’s impossible and my mood comes crashing down.

So, yeah, I’m going to finish the Bloom course, then re-take it again, the second time around writing down notes.

Thanks for answering my question. It gives me hope. I know that my sister escaped an abusive situation, and everything turned out fine for her, but she doesn’t want to talk about it, and I respect her decision because I understand that she doesn’t want to relive it. But it’s nice to hear about people who made it out, and their stories, because that’s another thing that helps. Knowing that someone made it out.

Which means that I can make it out.

When my mood is low, sometimes even escaping doesn’t sound that great. Because it sounds like even after leaving, it’s still hard. It sounds like the first year painful.

It’s good to hear that you recovered/are recovering. It gives me hope.

[EvenSerpentsShine]

I really do believe you can recover and I really believe you will, and, definitely life is much better without having an abusive person around, there’s no doubt about that! I think it is normal for people to come onto the forum and share when they’re feeling worried or low, so maybe it doesn’t give a very balanced view of how people do recover and move on and live happy lives. Like so much in life, our attitude and mindset can have a role to play and we do have some control over how we decide to deal with misfortune. Self blame is a terrible thing, and I think overcoming that is always time well spent. I think when I really realised the deep truth of that, it was a turning point. For me too, I understood that he would never change and so trying to ‘help’ him in any way ( even arguing and explaining and hoping he would understand ) was a waste of time. That was a real moment of moving on too.

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