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So I’ve been out of my abusive relationship almost (detail removed by moderator) months.
I realise every day, week, month is different and your enotions can change immensely from day to day. So much so that sometimes I feel unhinged.
I wasn’t prepared to still be feeling this way after the relationship ended. I don’t want him back, I’m not kidding myself or idealising the relationship so I don’t know what is wrong with me but I am in so much pain I cannot hold it in. I miss him more than I ever thought possible I feel like I’m drowning. My kids fell asleep to me crying, today I am failing. -
You’re not failing my lovely. You are surviving. Leaving your abuser was an incredibly brave thing to do. It’s normal to feel the way you do. It’s very likely that as well as grieving the loss of your relationship, you may be experiencing ptsd. Have you spoken to your GP?
I left my abuser (detail removed by moderator) ago and I still have days when I think about him. I also have children with him, so I’ll always be connected to him through them. I won’t lie to you, It’s not easy but you’ll get through it. You are strong. You survived the abuse, you escaped, you have ensured the safety of your children.
My children have heard me cry, and I felt the same way you do. Sadly we can’t protect them from everything, so please don’t punish yourself. Children are very resilient. Tomorrow is another day, give them a big squeeze and tell them you love them.
Strube X
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Dear Justmum, i felt like that, i created a thread on here called ‘I miss him so much’ it might help you to look at it & the responses.
Some months on that strong feeling subsides. I still think every day of him & have unanswered questions in my mind, i have found as time goes on your thoughts & feelings change so much. Things gradually become more tolerable. I think it is the minds way of managing stressful memories and events. When I first split up, i could not look at any photos or think about any nice things to do with him. I did not look or think about anything nice, I think I was subconsciously putting lots of information in a safe place at the back of my mind. Only the last few days have I allowed myself to think about some photo’s. I still can’t look at any photo’s but last night I started thinking about a few of the nice photo’s that we had, remembering what the photos looked like. I believe this is another layer of the onion that i am peeling off working through my heartbreak, trauma & search for understanding. I am now more comfortable with seeing his christian name on TV etc, when we first split even just seeing a similar name would set me into a spiral of anxiety. Now I can tolerate looking at the name without quickly averting my eyes. It is the passing of time and maintain NC and doing your own healing that makes you calmer. XXXXX -
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Perhaps you are feeling grief and as in grief you will pass through stages until you will get up one day and your feelings will not be raw and your thoughts will be elsewhere. Two years after I had left a violent abuser, I was walking down the street and it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t thought about him that day, or for several days in fact. I realised I was moving on, but for two years it felt like grief because, despite him, I had been in love. I was also forgetting to look over my shoulder and check the street, because I was also feeling safer. I hadn’t felt happy in a long time, but I was feeling it then. Love and fear take time to recover from. x
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You aren’t failing, sweetie.
Recovery is slow after abuse, and we are hypersensitive to many things and easily triggered. It’s like our senses are in overdrive.
It’s all part of the trauma.
KIP once mentioned that she thought that even after we have left, we repeat the cycle – tension building, outbursts of crying, then we feel a bit stronger again, and then it repeats…almost mimicking the cycle we lived in when with our abusers.
It’s a bit like a phantom pregnancy or something, or a phantom limb. Our abuser isn’t there any more, but it’s almost like they are. It takes many weeks and months to gain in strength.
I found that reading up on Distress Tolerance saved me. I still use it now, when I am triggered and start to feel emotionally ‘unhinged.’
Please take a look at on the Internet.
Be gentle with yourself, and compassionate. It doesn’t matter how fast you are going : as long as it’s in the right direction, you will get there X
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PS Please don’t feel bad about crying.
My kids saw me crying at the beginning, and I felt very guilty, but people told me that my kids needed to know that I was human and that tears are natural.
My kids have long forgotten my tears in the early days, as we have laughs now. You will too. I promise. x
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Hi justmum, I have been having a blip recently and got very low again and I’ve been out for quite a long time. My children have also seen me upset again which I always beat myself up about. I always make clear to them afterwards that my happiness is not their responsibility and they mustn’t worry about me because I will talk to a safe adult like my counsellor or a friend to help me. I hope this shows them it’s OK to feel sad sometimes and that they deserve to ask for help too. It’s a very slow process to healing but the good bits between the relapses get better and longer. Be kind and patient with yourself xx
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Morning ladies, thankyou for all your replies, I couldn’t bring myself to respond last night but I read and re read all your posts.
I really did mess up last night, I was messaging him like a mad woman. It’s crazy I know. I feel like an idiot this morning but today is a new day!
I’m also on week 3 of freedom programme and I’m not sure if this is having a bigger impact of my stability than I thought it would. -
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You’re right, HA.
Reading up about abusive types, they don’t care what kind of attention they get, positive or negative, in fact they are so twisted that it energises them to know that they are causing you pain ( sick people).
The greatest revenge is to ignore them and to treat them like they aren’t even there. Like they are nothing.
They tried to dismantle you: now it’s your turn to focus just on you and to treat them like they aren’t even in existence.
They are nothing. They contribute nothings positive to anyone’s life, only causing chaos and pain. So they should be treated as such. They don’t deserve our tears.
Of course, when you are traumatically bonded at first, you do cry and plead and rage. I did. I wouldn’t now. But I’m not ashamed that I did: it just proved I was normal. Now, he lows I have changed.
When I had to face my ex at court, he was going mad that I wasn’t giving him eye contact, remained calm, was chatting happily with the court clerks, and was flicking through a magazine in the waiting room rather than act traumatised around him.
I had to prime myself to be like this- telling myself he was nothing, and I was going to act like he wasn’t even there.
The silly fool is still trying to affect me by pushing boundaries. Any of this used to literally make me tremble and quake and throw up, but I made a decision that this is what gave him his power- so I wasn’t going to give it to him any more.
If I am forced into situations where he encroaches on me, I try creative visualisation, and imagine a big protective bubble around me, telling myself he can’t touch me or affect me.
Yes, a few hours or days later it might hit me and I might feel triggered and need to ask for support- but at least he hasn’t seen evidence of it! X
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Dear justmum, this emotional pain & yearning that you feel despite making a clear firm decision to end it. I felt/feel exactly the same. I think these feelings are a combination of something he is doing now, in my case it was my ex,s silence, together with trauma bonding. I finished it ,was fairly sure & still today I wouldn’t consider being his partner again. But I think that I have suffered so much since this all happened, I wish he would have not cut me completely out of his life, but be kind,respectfull & decent,this would have helped manage the sorrow that I felt.if he were like that I believe a good 70% of the sadness & desperation would not have been there.
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Thank you for your feedback Serenity. I noticed your comment about them trying to dismantle you. Since I split from my ex, many times I have felt sorry and sad for him. I still do, it causes me great upset thinking how dysfunctional his life is. I asked myself, did he care about my feelings when he was lying, confusing me and making me mentally unstable and getting enjoyment out of doing so. I believe I was a toy to be played with by him, his friends & family. It helps to balance things out when you try to look at things from all angles. Just before the split and at the time, I tried so hard, made multiple attempts at contact and talking, he ignored each attempt. Thank god for this wonderful support, the forum. So many of us women are breaking away and healing because of it. Hopefully we can help the women who are sitting on the fence to make the right decisions too. X*X Isnât it a wonderful feeling knowing that we are healing & getting so much support from here and the men donât even know it. I imagine them scratching their heads wondering how we are doing so ok.
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Yes, HA, I agree.
This forum and DV outreach, Freedom courses etc- they help us to regain our power, which leaves our abusers flummoxed. They can’t believe that we are that strong so as to not be destroyed by it.
About a year ago I wrote something on the site:
‘I would have lost it now..without this forum- especially in the early days. I think my ex is wondering why I haven’t naively fallen for his games, or crumbled, or seem to be ‘one step ahead of him.’ Little does he know I have found amazing support and wisdom both here on this forum and at my local DV support group! He is probably wondering where all my strength has come from!’
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Yes you are right, without this forum and the abuse books i read the outcome for me would have been hugely different: I would without doubt have stalked him, possibly even going to his workplace and most definately gone to his house; I believe I would have kicked his front door in with such force I would have broken the wood (i’m not joking! I am (removed by moderator)Â professional woman who has never been violent to anybody); I likely would have smashed his windows; I would have got arrested (i have zero criminal record, have never been in trouble with the police and am an upstanding member of the community); I may have got the sack from my responsible job of (removed by moderator)Â standing affecting my pension and ability to keep a roof over my head. All catastrophic life changing things purely as a result of being so abused by a man who virtually destroyed my life.
Due to this forum I have done none of the above. I have maintained dignity, respect and NC. I am so proud of myself. He must be shocked at my coolness. X*X
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