When does it stop hurting?

[SunshineRainflower]

I’ve had a better day today and managed to bake and go to the gym but am still feeling sad and fragile. I have been thinking about how there are so few positives about what happened and I think that’s why getting over this feels like a never ending mountain. When I met him, I was distracted as I had just been on a few other dates with men who turned out dreadful and I also really liked someone I had been talking to online but who was going hot and cold on me before eventully ignoring me. My ex was on the same site and I thought he seemed ‘sweet’ but he seemed a bit boring and I even kept forgetting his name! It’s so frustrating, strange and irritating how I have spent so long thinking about someone who I initially couldn’t even remember his name he was that irrelevant in my life. He was very persistent and consistent and still wanted to meet up after I delayed it for a while. I expected us to just have one date. When I started to like him and got into a relationship with him, I felt so full of hope after years and years and years of being alone with a lot of dating disappointment. It felt really lucky, and unexpected. It felt like the luck I felt I badly needed. Now my brain has to adjust to an entirely different set of thoughts – those that represent the reality rather than what I thought was happening. I have created a chart to explain what I mean:

– My belief *The awful reality

– I had a lovely new boyfriend
*I was with an abuser pretending to be a lovely man who had created the illusion of a relationship with me

– I had met someone who cared about me
*He didn’t care about me at all, seemed to enjoy hurting me emotionally and physically and I have reason to be believe he was planning to do something awful to me, so the opposite of care and love – pure evil and hatred.

– I had met someone who liked and respected me
*He was hiding his contempt, scorn and disrespect for me which started to leak out in his words, actions and expressions before being unleashed

– I had met a man who liked me so much he was committed and faithful to me
* He was cheating on me with multiple women, possibly prostitutes, possibly dogging, possibly even slept with men (there is so much awfulness in this whole sentence alone I feel like this stuff alone could take years to heal from)

– I didn’t need to be on a dating site anymore because I’d finally found someone!
* Soon I’d be single again, realising it was all a dream and a nightmare in one, and would not only need to start dating again, I’d also have to heal from the trauma he put me through and learn to trust again delaying my chance of meeting the right person even longer and making me doubt humanity, especially men

– I had a future with someone
* I had no future with this person, it was all a lie

There is so much horriblness, such evil, such awfulness that it is no wonder I have been getting depressed. How do you digest so many awful things and get to a place of feeling ok, when trying to digest just one of the things makes me feel sick and depressed.

Also, I was thinking, was your abuser good at ‘reassuring’ you? When we first met I absolutely LOVED his voice. In fact it was a huge attraction for me as it was deep and masculine with a nice accent. I also loved talking to him on the phone, we used to have these long conversations where I would have been worried about something and he would reassure me. Often it was my gut telling me something but he was so reassuring, it felt like being bathed in velvet like it was intoxicating listening to him and I always felt so much happier after talking to him (until the last phonecall where he sounded insane). So yet again another thing that freaks me out is how reassuring he was, how he was able to reassure me whilst actively going behind my back and doing the very things I had been fearful of, and probably much worse, awful things I can’t even imagine. How evil is that and scary? It is like something out of a horror film. Like in the film ‘What Lies Beneath’ where the wife thinks she is happily married living in a beautiful lakeside house with her ‘lovely’ husband until she realises the terrifying truth about him. Thinking about it, the ghost of the girl in that film could be a symbol for her gut feeling trying to warn her about her husband.

[Serenity]

Hi Sunshine,

When I met my ex, I didn’t much like him either, but as with your ex, he was very insistent and in the end, something switched and he hooked me in.

My ex also had a very attractive accent ( lol- he was very loud: I ended up hating his booming voice! He needed to drown out other people with his volume!).

Yes, my ex was very good at the ‘intermittent reinforcement.’ Just as you were struggling to cope with how horrible he’d been in one moment, he’d turn it around by uttering words so poetic and wonderful that you berated yourself for imagining the worst about him. Of course, those flowery words were fake; the horrible moments were the true him, and only the tip of the iceberg regarding what he was truly capable of.

My ex had contempt for me, not the undying love that he’d professed, and as I have said before, I think he had secret plans to kill me.

I think we need to keep reminding ourselves that the contempt wasn’t only for us ( only in so much as they were angered that we possessed qualities that they didn’t, and showed up their weaknesses): their hatred and contempt is for all humanity, and we were just the unlucky people who got swept away by their fake promises and became their targets. If it hadn’t been us, they would have done exactly the sand to the next person. In fact, I know my ex is doing to his current beau ( dominating her, that is).

It feels very personal when we have been in an abusive relationship, and of course they do attack our individuality and use our qualities against us, but they will be like this with other people- in personal relationships, the workplace, etc. Even if they manage to hide their true nature for a time when it profits them too, the real them will slip out from time to time, in their inappropriate jokes, questionable reactions to things, etc. People will slowly realise who they are. Unfortunately, some people will be taken in and not realise for a few years what a monster he is.

It is very upsetting to be faced with the truth of who they are. It’s unsettling and traumatising. But I keep telling myself that it’s better than being that frog in that pan of water, who thinks he’s in a nice warm bath but is, in fact, being slowly boiled alive.

Big hugs x*x

[Serenity]

PS: I have only just seen your private message and have replied x

[Tiffany]

I don’t know if I am able to offer much help. I am going through a sad and fragile stage too. I have even had to take time off work. But this will pass too. I wonder if you could write a third list of your reality since leaving him. You don’t have a partner obviously, bit you have made huge strides in other ways. You have your own flat. You are working on a business. You have reduced contact with a whole host of other abusers. You are recovering!

[SunshineRainflower]

Thank you for your replies Serenity and Tiffany. Tiffany I like the idea of adding a third column to the chart, it might make it feel less depressing. I wish I was feeling positive about things but I’m just not, not at all. Serenity it is useful to think that he is contemptuous of humanity rather than just me, I know it’s true deep down, but he left me feeling so rubbish about myself, and it reminded me of the boys at school who used to bully me, plus my brother so brought up all those old deep seated fears of being unlovable, worthless etc.

I feel so tired, disorientated today after a dr sent me to A&E because she was worried I was going to hurt myself. What a nightmare it is trying to get over this.

[Author]

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