People mean well but don’t get it

[Happybelle]

So it’s been a long time since it all happened and I live somewhere else now.

Have started reading some self help books. The people  I’m living with now cannot fathom that I’m still having difficulties and that the hardest decision was the one to leave. The other helpful advice they had was to not get into that situation in the first place. I completely lost my cool and now feel bad about that.  It is just proof that you cannot know what it’s like unless you have been there.
it’s the old “I’d never let it happen to me” thinking. This is why I don’t talk to anybody about it because they simply will not and do not get it.
Am healing well by myself on my own terms and nobody else needs to get involved 🙂

Yes we can ladies!!

[Tian]

Hello Happybelle,

Your situation sounds very similar to mine.

I had friends. They helped me leave. Then (I kid you not) a couple of months later they couldn’t understand why I wasn’t over it and living my best life.

I have learned not to talk about my past with new people. But it doesn’t stop them prying. My newly-hatched boundaries are pretty flimsy so I end up in tears pretty quickly into a “tell me all about your family” interrogation. One day I’ll have the strength to rebuff them but right now I am, at times, a bit of a soggy mess.

I think (from what I’ve found the strength to read) the first 2 years are always likely to be rocky, then year by year it should get better

Stay strong and take care of yourself xx

 

[EvenSerpentsShine]

Hi HappyBelle and Tian,

its really true that you don’t get it unless you’ve been through it.
I find that people try to be understanding but actually they always have a piece of the jigsaw missing and they can’t get the whole picture.

I think they don’t really understand why abusers would do what they do. There doesn’t seem to be a clear motive. It often comes unstuck here I find.
The only thing that reconciles me to this, is that I just know that I would have been exactly the same if I hadn’t gone through it myself. Not proud of that, but I have to be honest with myself, I know I would have reacted just the same way that most people do.

I take your tip, to not talk about it to people, to heart. I think you’re absolutely right.

[Tian]

Hi EvenSerpentsShine,

Yeah, that.

I wish I had a doughnut for every conversation that went “but WHY would he….?” I answered “because he is batpoo crazy” and they assumed I was ….batpoo crazy myself?

Because for decades I helped him hide the crazy.

Now I’m not there I sense he may be spiralling. But who knows? The main thing is, I’m not there.

 

[Happybelle]

Thanks ladies. It helps just to blurt it out and share. 🙂

[Fallenofftheradar]

I’m struggling with this myself, why am I not living my best life now. All I want is him again and I have to keep talking myself out of it.

I think other people don’t get it, because they simply don’t love him the way you do and what you’ve experienced with him. They see him as “just some guy” and who does he think he is, not as someone they care for and love deeply. You see the nuances of the situation, not just the bad stuff, and feel empathy for why he is the way he is, brainwashing yourself into believing his excuses.

So without those emotions for him it seems clear as day, but it isn’t when you have or had deep feelings for him, then he’s not just some guy who mistreats you.

I am starting to understand that it won’t get easier until enough time and space passes for him to be “just some guy I used to be with” for me. But I don’t know how long that will take, if ever. For now I’m just incredibly heartbroken and it feels like it is of my own making because I chose to walk away.

 

[EvenSerpentsShine]

Hi Fallenofftheradar
Thinking about your post, I find that my problem around these issues that you talk about,  is that the relationship was very intense, and everything else can seem a bit pale in comparison. I think there is some kind of addictive element in this, as I know people have similar feelings when trying to give up addictive stuff, from cigs or chocolate or alcohol! to stronger stuff.
But I have to admit that the level of attention I get from him just isn’t replaced by anyone else! And it’s hard going back out into the world as ‘just someone/anyone’.  I do think that however horrible the bad side is, we stay stuck because the ‘good’ side is intense.

Thet kind of take up our whole bandwidth. When they’re gone it’s just a lot of empty white noise.

I don’t have any answers to this, but I do think that we have to just start to listen to the silence, the white noise, and slowly maybe we’ll start to hear quieter voices coming through the static. The intensity of these relationships is also unreal, part of the delusional and unreal nature of what’s happening. We’re lured in a bit, but all that glitters is not gold.

I have been overwhelmed recently by how many people are giving me real and amazing compliments. In the past I would have dismissed them. But I’m actually taking them on board now. I’m accepting them. A result is that I’m starting to feel part of a real and deep connecting web with others. Surprisingly this is starting to fill the gap where his love/hate used to be.

Im not saying we should all become compliment junkies, but there are other things out there that we start to hear when the bandwidth is freed up.

[Fallenofftheradar]

That’s beautifully put, and went a lot deeper than my initial message, but I think you hit the nail on the head there.

Thank you for such a beautiful reply

[Happybelle]

@evenserpentsshine….. hit the nail on the head there I think. The rollercoaster intensity and how difficult it can feel letting go 🙂

[EvenSerpentsShine]

Thankyou for your lovely replies Happybelle ❤️ and Fallenofftheradar, ❤️ .  As Happybelle said at the beginning, we can heal ourselves. We can, and we will.

[Author]

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