Recovering from a lifetime of trauma

[Starla]

I’ve been in traumatic situations most of my life. Throughout my childhood I witnessed and was a victim of emotional/psychological abuse. In my late teens I was groomed and abused, and this all resurfaced in my early twenties when he reappeared in a place I felt safe and was making a new life for myself. Soon after that I got together with my abusive ex and went through over a decade of abuse. In the middle of that I went through about a year of being badly bullied at work.

This is the first time that I’ve lived without constant abuse (there is necessarily some contact between us still because of the children). I want to move on with my life and actually live without fear but I’m in such a bad place mentally and emotionally. I’m on a fixed term contract at work and need to make some decisions fast about what I do next and then actually follow them through, but I’m genuinely terrified of working somewhere else, or for someone else, and I don’t believe I’m capable of doing anything else. I know that I’m safe where I work now, and I know that moving to work elsewhere exposes me to being bullied, manipulated, and gaslighted. I can’t tell the extent to which that’s true or my mind telling me that because I’ve been through so much trauma. I am particularly vulnerable to manipulative abuse and gaslighting because I’m autistic.

How do I recover from all this trauma and stop it from taking over my life and making ne afraid all the time? CBT doesn’t really work for me to be honest (the C bit particularly because I’m so logical). Can I recover? Or do I just need to find a way of dealing with it?

[AlwaysSorry]

Hi there Starla,

I love your name – it’s also the name of one of my favourite Smashing Pumpkins songs 🙂

You’ve been through so much trauma and hurt, it’s good to read you can finally live a life free from any such abuse. I haven’t tried CBT myself, but perhaps trauma counselling focusing just on you and talking through the traumas you’ve had to endure might be better for you? Perhaps talking with your GP about anxiety medication might also be beneficial?

Is there a way to extend your contract where you are currently working?

Have you ever spoken out fully about what happened to you? I find writing it out can be very helpful, it’s almost as if putting the words on a piece of paper / computer takes them out of my head and gives me a respite from them for a time.

It sounds like the traumas you’ve endured are really affecting you still which is only natural, but I believe we can all recover, it’s just sometimes finding the right treatment that works for us. For some therapy isn’t the way to go but rather medication, for some it’s a mixture, for some medication does them no good. Sometimes we have to experiment a bit till we find what works for us. Perhaps we can’t completely rid ourselves of the trauma, but rather learn to live with it to a point where it’s in the background enough so that we may still enjoy life without fear.

Keep posting x

[Faraway]

Hi Starla,
It sounds like you have been through so much. I’m in a similar situation where I have left an emotional and psychological abusive marriage. I’m in the early stages of my recover. I take medication and talk to a counseller. When I joined this forum not so long again my emotional state was a mess. There are many people here that are happy to reach out and offer advice and support. I have posted about things that I thought were silly questions but to my surprise many people reached out to me and told me they had experienced similar things. I feel so comforted talking on here and it brings me a tiny bit of piece that I’m not crazy and I’m not alone. For me I’m just taking tiny steps, it’s hard but that’s all I can do right now. Keep posting because you will be supported xx

[Twisted Sister]

Dear Starla

I am so sorry to hear all the abusive relationships you’ve suffered and the bullying. It’s no surprise you would feel scared of moving to a different job.

It’s also great to hear you are now free of that and can start to recover from it all.

I would speak to your GP about your current dilemma. It seems obvious that you will need some long term trauma therapy. This will support you in lots of ways, as well as to process all that’s happened to you.

Trauma therapy is specific in it’s gentle approach, and takes account of your experiences so far in life

Regarding your work, you say you are on a fixed contract. How long have you done this for, and what did you do before?

As in, was it something similar, or that you had transferable skills, which is very likely you do.

I understand that you would be scared of going to a new environment, especially given all the bullying. There is a lot of bullying in work, but you have now worked without it, so what made that different? Why is there no bullying here, as although fairly common, it isn’t in every job.

You are capable of doing other things,but understandably you don’t feel confident about that.

It’s usually, after abuse, to feel like you are not capable and don’t have confidence.

Maybe a work related course could help. Have a look around in your area for courses running that help people into work after abuse. Your local women’s aid might run confidence building, and be able to support you, also with finding appropriate therapy.

Do keep posting, and thinking about how much you can do.

Have you seen your actual job description? If you don’t have a copy, do ask for one, or download it off your companys records and have a read about the variety of tasks and responsibilities and skills it lists, that you are actually doing.

Focus on the breadth of what it states you are doing now.

Do keep posting and asking, and reaching out for lots of support, hopefully this can start to make up for all the lack of support for you that you’ve experienced before now.

Warmest wishes

TS

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