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    • #80274
      teabag
      Participant

      Hi everyone.
      I’m coming up to the (detail removed by moderator) when I left. I’m still detoxing from his trauma but I’m feeling very low. I’ve little friends and they don’t understand DA. I spend a lot of time at weekends on my own. I’ve recently started to feel that I don’t belong anywhere and this is reinforced by the families lack of care who live abroad. Nobody talks or mentions DA.
      I should be happy now, I completed two courses and got myself a great job full time. Even here I don’t feel good enough.
      Why when I’ve done so well am I feeling this way?
      I’ve also finished therapy that I was having when I was with my ex. I wasn’t able to do the “choices course” as I never heard back from WA. Read the freedom book and it didn’t really help me. Have read tones of other books. Gaining understanding of myself and his behaviour, yet I feel worse that I did at the start- probably because I was in survival mode.
      I was just wondering have you experienced similar? What helped or didn’t?
      X

    • #80277
      HopeLifeJoy
      Participant

      Hi Teabag, I don’t know, it is hard isn’t it…I just know all your efforts will pay off some day and you’ll get a sense of joy pumped back into your system.
      You seem to be doing really well, with courses, job, therapy and learning everything about the dynamics of domestic abuse.
      Now it’s maybe time to do something for just yourself?
      Do you spend any time to do any activities that you enjoy? Selfishly? For no other reason but to feel good?

      I don’t know the magic formula, I am trying too to feel better, I’ve started a mini project to see if I can focus on something for self care, it is so very silly I almost don’t want to tell, but I decided to just focus on my skin complexion and getting a toned body by the end of the summer. I am a visual person so maybe if I feel better in my own body, I’ll start feeling better inside too?
      It is kind of my little security blanket project to make me move forward which I hold on tight to, it makes me go outside and makes me take care of myself. I’ll let you know if it helped. It does make me feel better a little already tbh 🙂

      • #80283
        teabag
        Participant

        I haven’t started doing things or projects for me. I am starting to care for myself a little better. I’m finding work, mundane things like shopping and cooking for myself hard going and I don’t understand why. Why can’t I survive like other women. I hate leaving my home I get anxious so prefer to stay in my room where I feel safe. It’s like part of me is going forwards and the other back. I feel so alone and totally unloveable. The one person who can take this away is my ex but I know that isn’t real and he is a horrible person but I have nobody and I hate it. But I do have half myself back…..

    • #80289
      HopeLifeJoy
      Participant

      I know what you mean, you are living on automatic pilot just going through the motions but without feeling any pleasure and on top of it suffering anxiety so you seek to be in a safe environment.
      Safety is the most important thing so it’s essential you have a place where you feel safe, it does recharge your batteries but only just that far.

      No other woman can move on easily, it is an illusion, we are all recovering, going through it differently but find it all difficult and trying whatever works best to move on, sometimes having bad periods then good periods.
      We are most of us finding ourselves alone, I sure am physically alone, but I don’t feel alone so much because I always listen to music, hug my teddy and tell him my joy and sorrows 🙈 – I don’t care if that sounds crazy, look at the film Cast Away, if Tom Hanks hadn’t talked to his beach volley ball he would have gone mad ☺️ – and talk here and to anyone who will listen to me outside 😬

      You are very lovable and achieved so much, work, courses, taking good care of yourself, left your abusive relationship and staying away from him despite feeling lonely, you have such magnificent foundation, now a little joy needs to enter your life and you’ll be fine.
      You are totally allowed to choose an activity or project just for your very own pleasure, not because you have to, like basic self-care are necessities but don’t offer that little extra treatment that we need to feel alive again, to feel exited and look forward to the next day because you have an activity planned for yourself.
      What would make you happy, what would bring you that little smile saying I would actually really enjoy doing that, something effortless where you gain energy from and something you feel safe doing. It can be anything you like. What where the things you liked doing when you were a child ? Or before entering your abusive relationship?
      Explore this…🙂

      Sending you a big hug 💞

      • #80312
        teabag
        Participant

        Thank you. Your response has brought a lot of comfort to me.x

      • #80326
        HopeLifeJoy
        Participant

        😌

    • #80323
      AlwaysSorry
      Participant

      Hi teabag sweetheart

      I just wanted to say I hope you can feel some pride in all you’ve accomplished while you have been away. I admire you for being able to do all that while dealing with everything that comes with such trauma.

      I wish I knew how to make the sad feelings go, I really do, but I think the suggestions given are a good start.

      I wish you friends who will understand and who will comfort you, I guess mostly I wish you friends who you feel safe enough to be vulnerable with so you can get all the hugs you need. I wish you may find all that you wish for

    • #80361
      fizzylem
      Participant

      Sounds like youve been busying yourself and have come to a stop – and so youre now left with how you feel x

    • #80362
      ballet
      Participant

      Speaking for myself, I found that it felt the hardest when I started making the most progress.

      Right after the relationship ended, as hard and horrible as it was, I had a temporary source of comfort and hope – I’d found strength to cut contact with him and I knew that things would be different now, because at least he was no longer in my life. I felt confused and frustrated when the depression set in later on, and I felt as if I were just going through the motions, not really living. Now I know that it was because that initial surge of energy was over, and I had to settle down for a long hard slog. Leaving felt like climbing a mountain, and although that was daunting, at least I could clearly see where I had to go. The long slog feels like going up a hill that has such a shallow gradient I can never quite see the end point, and even though I know I’m making progress, it feels more tiring and tedious than it did at first. Does that make sense?

      Another reason why it gets harder as you progress is that with progress comes insight. I used to minimise and excuse what my ex did to me for ages after I cut contact. It was only when the full enormity of what he’d done started to hit me – “He really did that, and it really was that awful” – that I started to feel all the grief and shock and humiliation and pain. Before those emotions were muted, because I just hadn’t understood the seriousness of my own situation. There’s no way to recover without developing that understanding, and there’s no way to carry that understanding without experiencing some very hard painful emotions. And as the saying goes, “the only way out is through.” We just have to keep going, even when it’s exhausting, and try not to fret about how long it takes. One thing I do is to remind myself that even if I’m not where I want to be, I’m miles away from where I was.

    • #80395
      HopeLifeJoy
      Participant

      That made a lot of sense Ballet, thank you for illustrating the aftermath of abuse so clearly, I enjoyed reading this.
      Climing up the mountain seemed indeed easier, when we’re helped by adrenaline pumping through our veins, it seems time passes quicker and we achieve more in less time. Then recovery takes a whole different tempo, the slow ascent up to the hill you described. What a pain. I much rather climb another mountain than a hill full of slow pain and emotions. But we can’t choose can we. That’s the menu served after abuse. The Recovery menu ☺️
      And maybe because the pace is slower going up that hill, we can dig our hills a little firmer into the ground and become stronger more persistent and more patient.

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