Struggling in the aftermath

[Lucy22]

Hi everyone, I’m new here and was looking for some advice.

I broke up with my abusive ex boyfriend a few months ago and the longer we’ve gone no contact the worse my mental health is becoming. I suppressed a lot of my emotions during the relationship to keep the peace and keep him in my life and I look back now on things that happened and I don’t know how to feel, especially as I don’t remember some incidents of abuse which I wrote down at the time in my diaries. It’s almost like I feel numb to the specific incidents when I think about them.

But I’m also in constant emotional pain, crying daily when I’m alone, my mind spiraling to dark places. Yet no matter how much my therapist tells me it was abusive it doesn’t feel validating enough for me to accept what he did is equal to the pain I feel. Whilst my therapist has been supportive in their reactions perhaps it is precisely because of the professional nature of the delivery that I feel like maybe what happened ‘wasn’t that bad’.

I do hobbies most weekdays, I see my friends and have fun, see family regularly, have a stable job, see my therapist. Objectively my life is stable and ‘okay’. Yet I feel like I am living a double life, calm and relatively normal on the outside then I come home and I am a wreck. I even seem to be pretending to my therapist because I don’t want to waste time talking about aspects of how I feel when I’m still desperately wanting their opinion on certain incidents which we are slowly working through each session.

I barely enjoy eating, watching TV, gaming, or reading anymore. I enjoy my hobbies whilst there but it is a struggle to make myself go in the first place. I’m anxious all the time, can’t relax, I don’t remember how it feels to feel safe, I don’t feel safe in my own body. I still live in the same house that we shared, I still have some of his furniture, but I can’t get rid of it as it has nowhere to go. Lately I have a constant low level pit of anxiety/dread in my stomach. I am reminded of various incidents of emotional & physical abuse and sexual coercion just by looking at furniture, remembering where he stood or sat, what he said, his expression.

I feel like I convince myself daily that what my ex did ‘wasn’t that bad’ because there is no one telling me regularly enough that yes it was, though I don’t know why I’m needing such an excessive amount of validation. I worry I’ll never accept it because I don’t know how, I’ve spent so many years putting up with things from various people in my life including him that were emotionally abusive or manipulative or wrong etc that I’ve got a complex of being able to ‘handle’ things in order to survive.

Does anyone have any advice? What things have helped aside from therapy?

[Lisa]

Hi Lucy22,

Welcome to the forum and thank you for sharing with us.

I am sorry to hear about the abuse you have experienced and the ongoing impact on your wellbeing. I hope you find the forum a safe and supportive place to be with others who understand how difficult it is to come to terms with the aftermath of abuse. As you mentioned, the memory of what you experienced can make you feel as though you are not healing- it takes time as we all deal with things in different ways. You are not alone in feeling this way and I am sure others will relate to your post.

Keep posting when you can- there is support here for you.

Best wishes
Lisa
Forum Moderator

[Author]

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