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hi, I’m new to the forum.. wanting to know if anyone has experience of this- i fled my home town as I no longer felt safe because of my abusive ex…I went into a refuge really far away, but recently moved to a town that is only (detail removed by Moderator) mins on the train to where I fled from… I spent many years in this place so I miss it deeply- the friends, all the familiar places and spaces I felt happy in.. Now that I’m not that far away I am feeling so down/frustrated about not being able to go there (cos of ex). Part of me wants to just get on a train and walk around my old home town and meet with friends, and I feel like ‘fu*k it I should be able to do this!’…but part of me is still so scared to be there by myself in case I bump into ex. The thought of it scares me. But because I have suffered with pretty bad anxiety for as long as I can remember I often avoid situations that scare me but then when I push myself I sometimes deal with it ok and it’s not as bad as I anticipate… but I get that this is probably different to most other situations where I’m feeling general anxiety. and it has been a really intense time leaving ex/moving away/trying to get thru the days and make even small decisions etc etc.
One option i know I have is to have someone come with me.. I feel really c**p tho when I think about doing this.. like I want to feel independent. I don’t want to rely on others..
How do I know if I’m ready to go there? how do I know if I would be able to cope if I bumped into ex? I guess I don’t know until i try…. just wanted to see if anyone had had a similar experience.. It’s not helping that I don’t know anyone in the place I’ve moved to apart from housemate and a couple of family members who live in a nearby village..so I think that’s making me feel v isolated and I keep thinking ‘well I know people in [my home town], why can’t I just go there?’ 🙁
my mood is v low atm so that isn’t helping in general.. anyway thanks for reading x -
Hey HUn
If its something u feel u need to do, then do it, i feel like c**p every time i go into my old town, with time it gets better and dont feel so bad, i just go due to personal reasons to see one of my older child who is tempoarily staying there. I see no reason for me to go otherwise, my whole body sense the danger minute i enter the town. I too at begingin had a meet up with people i knew there, just to test water how much i had heal
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Hey Confused123 🙂 thanks for your reply. Sorry to hear it’s difficult for you but glad it gets easier each time.. Yeh maybe I will do it. I don’t know… I have a step daughter there as well who i havent seen for a long time cos my ex pretty much cut me off from her so would like to visit her in her new place… But there’s no rush atm. I just feel so angry at times that I never chose to leave my home town and feel sad that I’m not there. As I’m sure others must feel when they flee :/
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Hi Duvetday,
Welcome to the forum 🙂 It sounds like a bit of a quandary because on the one hand you don’t want to let anxiety dictate your life, but on the other hand you need to make sure you will be safe.
If you feel safe there and your abuser is not the stalking/harassing type but it’s mainly an anxiety thing then you could give it a go but support yourself to do it. I had really bad anxiety and still do at times and created a chart of all the places that made me anxious. I built up to the ‘scarier’ places by tackling the smaller places first. There’s no shame in bringing someone with you, you could make a day trip of it, or just do a lunch visit or something. If you decide to go, plan it well with locations you can go to feel safe, and maybe make it a fairly short visit in case it triggers and upsets you, then no big deal, you can go home and try again another day.
You can get charts off the internet for this technique which is called ‘Exposure therapy’ where you score your anxiety from 1-10. Each time you expose yourself to an anxiety trigger your anxiety will go up, but it always comes down, you just have to feel the anxiety and let it pass. Then the next time we do the exposure it will be a bit less, and so on. The only exception is if there is genuine danger but you will probably know if this is the case in your particular situation.
I live in the same town as my ex abuser but I mostly avoid his side of town as I would still feel all sorts of difficult, painful, mixed emotions if I saw him especially if he was with another woman. Just take it slow, you will get there eventually, it’s good you are building your life back up again.
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I had to go back to my old town really soon after leaving. I had an appointment there which I really needed to be at. It made me more anxious than I had imagined, as I knew that my abuser had moved away and the danger was mostly in my head. I am anxious about returning there or to the city my abuser now lives in, which is difficult as they are the two cities in which I was previously most comfortable and knew most people. I can definitely relate. I am hoping to build up my confidence in the city we used to live in together eventually. With the city he lives in now I think it is more reasonable to be cautious. I have friends living in the suburbs who I should feel entirely safe to meet, chances of him being there are incredibly slim. But if I was meeting friends who live in the area where he lives I would probably be cautious and get them to meet me at the main railway station, which is always busy and generally has a police presence and then stick with them like glue as we traveled through the city. And realistically I cannot meet anyone in the city where he lives now who might possibly tell him that I am visiting.
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