BellaBella

[BellaBella]

I’m pleased to try to help ☺️

I had some really heart wrenching times where I had to cull people from my life that I really cared about because they had a foot in each camp, as hurtful as it is, this is when we learn who really are our people!

The secret is to become as private as you possibly can. I only say this from personal experience but I had to remove everyone from my life that associated with the abuser, it was hard but I did it while it was my choice and before circumstances forced it.

Your people are people who knew you before, people that are behind you without question, and you’ll make new friends too.

Make brave decisions to always move forward, sometimes I smile to myself and think ‘who is she’ about myself when I brush off the latest bull#@&T that inevitably finds it’s way to me, even with no social media, a new phone number a conviction and a restraining order!

It’s ok for me to say it now, I would have tried to listen back then but wouldn’t have believed it gets better. I do remember just how hard, horrible and hurtful it is before you get to the point that you see it for what it is.

Counselling and meds help too 😉

Take care both of you 💜

[BellaBella]

You did well to get that into so few words and it sounds oh so familiar 🫣

Having been there, my advice is to continue to keep your distance whether possible, if you share children then communicate only about them, anything else is off the table!

I’m pretty sure you’ll be vilified no matter what you do and I also expect that you’ll have been spoken badly about long before the threats.

Listen to the family and friends that tell you to block and resist every urge to break that.

If you don’t share children then 💯 no contact is the way to go, he will weaponise his son and that’s another form of abuse.

I had to walk away from step children and a number of grandchildren after a very long physically and mentally abusive relationship just to ensure that the grand children were not used as pawns, it broke my heart at the time but spared them a whole lot more grief than if I’d stayed in contact.

I also looked after him through illness mostly fake but some pretty serious too and the thanks I got was scars I see every day.

You’ve done your bit, it’s time to support you 💜

Stay strong and take good care 💜

[BellaBella]

It is absolutely their normal behaviour and a really difficult part of the aftermath to deal with.

What I will say is that you know the truth and that needs to be enough, abusers deal with a world of lies whereas we only want the truth to be heard. If you tackle the lies you may be subjected to more and even worse.

No response to this behaviour is the biggest response you can make, it’s hard, but trust me its the best way forward.

Stay strong and take good care 🙂

[BellaBella]

You’re very welcome and it is hard to know what normal is, I have experienced the same so I really do know how you feel. For quite a while after I got out I couldn’t think for myself, only question what he would say or expect me to do because the control had been there for a lot of years.

Good on you for going to the GP 🙂

I also got some fantastic support from an IDVA while waiting for a DA Charity Support worker, who was also amazing and access to free self-referral, therapy who I am still with.

Now is the time to let people help while you learn to be the new you and learn to be able to help yourself again.

Take good care 🙂

[BellaBella]

Hello bluebird28,

It’s a horrible time being in limbo and you are so brave for making the decision to leave.

You’re not alone, there are lots of us who have felt exactly the same way. I don’t know if it’s the same with your GP but mine has a mental health nurse who I was referred to after seeking help from the GP and she was amazing. I would hope that if you reach out to your doctor this would be viewed as you doing the very best by your child by making sure you get the help you need to be the best Mum and seen in a positive light.

I can only use myself as an example but I suffer with Complex PTSD, Cognitive Dissonance, anxiety and depression as a result of an abusive relationship, it’s very hard if not impossible to deal with these things alone so getting the right kind of help is really important. I promise you, there is no shame in asking for help.

Therapy is the right way to go too! We can have such a messed up jumble of conflicting thoughts as a result of abuse, I can honestly say that before the abusive relationship I would never have considered needing medication or therapy just to function but I do, and with the right help we can start to unjumble our thoughts and think for ourselves again.

Please don’t wait, you have hit a milestone making the decsion to leave, if you can access support and help now it will make the next steps on your journey more manageable.

Take good care 🙂

[BellaBella]

Echo EvenSerpentsShine’s comment at least then you have made it clear you are not missing and have just removed yourself from him.

My thought would be to not contact him at all, you’ve made the break and gone away which is really brave. The next step is to keep it that way 🙂

[BellaBella]

Hello Lostcomet,

Firstly well done for reaching out it’s another positive step you’ve made.

I’m sorry you’re going through this, I know it’s awful but keep going through the right motions, taking the support available and moving forward with your life.

I promise it does get better but it’s not easy! I’d liken it to a rollercoaster ride with out any fun.

I hope your treatment goes well and take good care 💜

[BellaBella]

I agree with Eyeswideopen.

When I left I severed contact completely and left it to the police and the courts. Publicly by him I was painted as the abuser, the controller, stark raving mad, a druggie, an alcoholic etc while privately receiving messages of love and please come back, I need you.

When with him, he wholeheatedly admited to being a violent manipulative, coercive bully when it suited, mostly to garner my help, support and forgiveness for his ‘condition’, to keep me ‘onside’ and it worked for many, many years.

We have to listen very carefully as abusers will tell you everything you need to know if you really hear them and whatever information you share with them will be taken down twisted and used against you very effectively.

It may sound a bit bonkers but we inadvertantly give them ammunition to use against us, because we experince first hand the feelings that come with abuse, we give them the words, actions and ability to mirror being abused. In my case being mirrored, my likes, hopes dreams, fears, values, morals, the lot. and not knowing what that was lead me into the abusive relationship in the first place!

From personal experience, I don’t believe there is anything to be gained from sharing information with an abuser and everything to gain from maintaining your silence towards them wherever you can.

Take good care 🙂

 

[BellaBella]

Hi Notyourmaid,

You’re not a monster, you’re feeling like one because you spoke your mind, often keeping quiet is the only power we have so when you break your quiet it feels like failure because then you’ve let on about the horrible impact they’ve had on you.

One of the things I learned in my first round of counselling a good few years ago now was that I’m allowed to be angry, I thought it was a bad thing because he was always angry and I didn’t want to be the same as him! The difference is how that anger manifests itself!

All plans being ruined sounds so familiar and such a horrible place to be. In a way there’s grief involved in realising that loving them is pointless but taking back control of your life is empowering albeit very difficult.

I hope you have someone professional to talk to, if not I’d suggest trying to, it can be really helpful in sorting out your feelings as you allow yourself to have them again and to put into perspective how you can move forward with your life.

Good luck and take good care 😊

[BellaBella]

Best valentine’s day ever!

No grand gestures for the benefit of looking like a prince on social media!

No arguing with myself over what is an appropriate gift for the man that physically, psychology and emotionally abuses daily!

No pretending to feel spoiled and special!

No post relationship begging for forgiveness, no love bombing, no look at me and what I’ve done for my next victim posts on social media, because I’m completely inacessible but more importantly completely disinterested!

Just a bunch of my favourite flowers from my best friend and a small but very tasteful and wholly appropriate gift from an interested party that understands where I am in life and remains respectfully in the friend zone and best of all my lovely daughter happy, smiling and enjoying being with her mum.

Here’s to the other 364 days ladies 💜

Take good care 😊

[BellaBella]

That made my heart lurch!

Its hard to write down how we feel without using pages and pages of words and you’ve done it in just a few words that speak volumes.

Take good care 🙂

[BellaBella]

It can.

My abuse started with a certain look, progressed to vile language, hidden objects, broken possessions, things thrown at me, (specific detail removed by Moderator), to a slap, a punch, multiple punches, a scalding, a kicking, an assault on my child and so on.

It took years and years but by the time it had escallated from things that could be mitigated with ‘sorry, I didn’t mean it’,  I was so lost there was nothing I could do to protect myself or my daughter.

I’m not saying that it will escallate for you, I’m saying that it can. I wish now that I had ran at the first sign, everything in my gut told me that it was a red flag, but I listened to the excuses and apologies and made it all better.

What I know now is that there are certain behaviours that are wholly unaccaptable under any circumstances. Be clear with your boundaries and if they are broken, listen to your gut and don’t minimise unaccetable behaviors.

It’s good that you are here and asking the question now 🙂

Take good care x

[BellaBella]

Sadly abusers often have groupies that despite knowing exactly what they are continue to support them. I remember feeling wounded to the core when I saw some of them publicly trying to mitigate his behaviour by smearing me on social media! One of them even a memeber of my own family! I’d read somewhere in the early days of leaving about abusers needing to feed off their targets so any reaction positive or negative gave them what they need. So I learned to be silent in response! Our lack of reaction and silence is deafening to them and to anyone who looks to be supporting them! The less you respond the more they look to be abusive.

The other thing that hit home very hard was that anyone who is aware of the abuser and continued to be a part of their lives in any way is complicit, and that left a very nasty taste in my mouth as I realised that they were playing a part setting up the next victim, and history was about to repeat itself for the umpteenth time. I feel fear for the replacement.

I promised myself to maintain my dignity and to do everything in the right way regardless of what was said about me because I actually know I’m a good person and can now see through those that are not. I did remove myself from the lives of a few people I considered to be close friends, that I loved and I told them why ,very simply, that I could not associate with people that condoned abuse.

It hurts like hell to feel like you’ve been made to feel and I will never understand how manipulative and horrible some people can be, especially some women, we should have each others backs!

I’m still silent in that direction, the abuse still continues, the violence has gone but the smear campaign is still ongoing but I just don’t give it the brain space even though I know if I responded I could discredit each individual in the very same way and they know it, but thats what I think gave me my power back, I can if I want, I just dont! Staying silent, learning to be strong, getting a conviciton and restraining orders to protect me and my daughter was a long hard and very worthwhile journey. The opinions of a very small group of toxic people really don’t matter in comparison to that!

What I do now is try to use what I have experienced and learned in the right way, I have publicly spoken up about what happenend to me in in the hope that we can break the silence and encourage more women to seek help.

The previous comments are absolutely right! Dignity is the key, the only way to maintain this is to rise way above these people, hold your head up high and your middle finger much higher 😉

Take good care 🙂

[BellaBella]

Hello Broken123,

You are clearly a caring and thoughtful person, you have done all of the things that a caring and thoughtful person would do.

There is a time when thoughtful and caring turns into something else and we start to sacrifice and compromise so much we actually hurt ourselves.

I believe that is part of what happens to us as a result of abuse, so much so that we are constantly trying to prove just how really, very good we are!

It’s time to stop now, be thoughtful and caring to yourself and your children.

You’ve done more than enough and you don’t need to do it anymore.

Take good care 😊

[BellaBella]

Not sure why I said it twice but hey we deserve it 🥰

[BellaBella]

As are you Yesican 💜

[BellaBella]

As are you Yesican 💜

[BellaBella]

And to you Hazydayz 💜

[BellaBella]

Hi RoseSprigs,

You’re more than welcome 🤗

Months is a long time, I think both times mines been really quick but while waiting I did have and IDVA then Support Worker who were really good ears in the meantime.

I’m not sure of any DV specific ones but it might be worth calling one of the helplines for advice on this, also we have a mental health nurse at our GP who was a godsend, maybe your GP could signpost you?

I hope you manage to access what you need soon 😊

[BellaBella]

*take good care!

[BellaBella]

Hi Bov94,

I feel your pain, it’s hard enough to open up without that response! A red flag as far as that person is concerned!

You don’t have to have experienced abuse to have compassion and understanding although sadly I’ve heard comments like that myself and it hurts.

We have to be so careful of who we trust (who knows who is sharing what other information that we are not aware of!) but also develop a little forcefield to deflect such nieveity.

It takes time but I’ve reached a point where I just don’t care what those kind of  people say anymore, it’s better than being triggered or overthinking, we’ve wasted enough time putting the thoughts and feelings of people who are not worth it first, it’s your turn and you absolutely do not have to justify anything to anyone.

If you have to deal with them it’s a shame but I certainly wouldn’t respond, I would actively avoid responding as if it was never said. Something tells me for whatever reason you’d be banging your head against a wall!

Hold your head up high and your middle finger higher (metaphorically of course 😉 )

Rake good care 😊

[BellaBella]

Hi Castlegirl,

Having been through the system all the way to conviction and sentencing it is a very difficult journey and evidence is of course key.

Is it worth it? It was to me but it was hard even with solid evidence and some great support.

One important factor to bear in mind is that lack of evidence does not mean it didn’t happen to you!

I’ve had some varied encounters with police officers, some completely unaware of the nature of what we go through and others trained in DA/DV that were amazing!

One thing that’s sticks in my mind is that whether or not there is enough evidence to charge, each report of DV/DA contributes to building a picture of the perpetrator to the police and it stays on file. This could be helpful to you in the future and also helpful for any future victims.

I didn’t do Claire’s Law till the very end of the relationship (I wish I’d done it at the 1st red flag) but what I know now is that everything I had to report over the years is now added to it regardless of whether he was convicted of the particular incident or not.

Whatever you do needs to be absolutely right for you.

If you decide to talk to someone I’d suggest making sure they are DA/DV trained for starters and making a report does not mean that you have to go all the way or indeed for him to be aware that you have spoken to someone. It starts as a conversation but that needs to be with the right person.

I’ve learned the hard way that our law is not designed to cope with these types of crimes so the framework that the police and CPS work to seems to work against us! But that’s a whole different topic!

Ultimately your safety is the most important thing. What you can do is share the information for your peace of mind and to contribute to building that perpetrator picture building.

Take good care 😊

[BellaBella]

Hi Loopy2,

I remember many years of ‘I’m not doing another year of this!’ and then I did until something in me snapped, it wasn’t the worst thing that had been said or done to me by far but it was enough.

Looking back now, it’s not that long ago, but long enough for me to be more self aware, I realised that I was at my weakest point ever but had to find a way to be the strongest I’d ever been. What made the biggest difference was speaking up to the right people and by that I mean professionals. By pure accident (had to be fate!) I ended up blurting to a DV specialist who looked after me until I had a DA support worker of my own, my IDVA was great in the interim too. Then there was a particular police officer, DA trained and so on. Before long there was a small army of people helping me to learn to be strong, without them I would not be here.

My circumstances were severe but I don’t think that makes a difference, any abuse is abuse and it does something to us that keeps us going round in circles like a hampster, trying to make sense of things and sort ourselves out, I believe that is part of what keeps us trapped.

There is a lot of support out there and you can reach out while still in the relationship to help you find your way out. Speaking to a professional who is also someone who doesn’t know you can really help you see things from an outsiders point of view. I found self referral to a councellor (it was free through the NHS) was a huge help too. Those posters we see on the back of public loo doors or leaflets in shops etc are real and there are real people waiting to help you.

If you were advising a good friend, someone you really care about on what you’ve written, what would you say?

It’s also good to write things down if it’s safe to do so, there is so much coming back to me now that I’d forgotten, I think it was a way of protecting my brain, so to make a note has helped me see a pattern to the abuse and prevented me from continuing to minimise really bad stuff that had become normal life to me.

It does take a lot of personal courage to make the break, it certainly took me a lot of years and many more than 7 times but it can be done 🙂 there are lots of us out there at different stages with different stories but the common theme is that abuse is not acceptable in any form and you are worth so much more than feeling like this.

Getting out and staying our is really hard work but I promise you once you are there and moving forward you will start to feel so much better and with the right support, you’re not alone!

I hope that helps and take good care 🙂

[BellaBella]

I’m not surprised you’ve been feeling angry about that, I’ve had some very angy moments for similar reasons that involved even contacting members of my familiy he’d never met offering day’s out and free stuff! These things are ploys to make you make contact, so really pleased you have a way to deal with it (and a councellor).

Going complete no contact was one of the best and hardest thing I ever did, but my god did it work in the end!

It is very hard place to get to but I now have the mindset that I don’t care what is said/posted/written about me, I have noone in my life connected with the abuser in any way. The abuser has a world of lies at his fingertips and I only deal in the truth, so I turn my anger into a superpower which is to not be drawn back into his game at at any cost. There is one big comfort to be had though, and that is; our silence toward them is absolutely deafening!

I do use my voice and my story in other ways, in the hope that by sharing in the right way with the right people it may just help others that have experienced or are experienceing abuse and/or the after effects.

I do still get triggered and probably always will, so next time I’m going to find a wall and give myself a hug, so thank you 🙂

Take good care x

[BellaBella]

I’m sorry, personally I think there is only one answer to your question which is to leave. I don’t believe that there is any such thing as an isolated incident.

Personally, I ignored/missed 100’s of red flags before the violence came, once it did it came again and again and again. In the end it there was violence to my child.

No matter how much you are told you can or he pulls at your heart strings, you can’t fix him.

Be brave xx

[BellaBella]

Hello Typ1,

Your post brings a tear to me, I remember those feeling very well 🙁

It is trauma bonding and it is the most powerful and awful trap to be in. I don’t know if it will help you but I picked the single worst thing he had done (which was monstrous) and every time my mind wandered, I pulled it back with that memory.

I think I’m lucky in so far as there were not actually many genuine good memories at all, I have to remember that I was lied to from the start and none of the relationship was real because I met a monster in a person suit. Each memory that I though was good was either preceeded or followed by abuse and the memory created by him to gloss over a kicking or damage to property or some other frightning episode. I’m telling you this in the hope that you might be able to do something similar to help break that bond.

Tell yourself it’s early days and you are doing well. give the meds a chance and if that doesn’t work have them reveiwed.

It wasn’t my first rodeo with the perpetrator of my abuse so I knew exactly what his MO would be when I finally got out which was to move on and very fast, the first time round it ripped my heart out which was his intention. Now I am somewhat wiser I know that the abuser has to do that to validate themselves, if they are having ‘normal’ relationships then it seems that you were the problem, you’re not, you are having all the feelings of someone that belived promises and it’s bitterly disappointing.

It’s hard to belive right now but you will be happy again, it takes time but start small, my first step was to make sure I never left the house looking how I felt! I also now make the effort to compliment one other woman a day, could be hair or shoes, anything to make someone smile, its infectious!

Our minds automatically want/need closure and I belive we have to make our own. Some questions can’t be answered so we have to park them to move on.

I referred myself for talking therapy which really helped, I do believe that it is the professional help that I had that gave me the tools to both stay out and keep moving forward, even though it seems I’m further down the recovery road than you atm, I am still utilising support, I still get triggered and start my next round of talking therapy soon and would suggest to you to take as much professional support as is available to you, they know what we are going though and are equipped to help us become stronger when we are at our weakest.

Take good care xx

 

[BellaBella]

Hello RoseSprigs,

You’re not alone in feeling like this, unfortunately I could have written your post myself 🙁 and I’m sure there are lots of us feeling the same.

Talking therapy really helped me with this part of recovery because no matter how much I thought about it myself, I couldn’t believe what I’d allowed to happen!

The truth is, it’s all on the abuser, we are not in control of our own thoughts or minds at that time and it can take a long time before we truly are again.

All the self recrimination in the world wont solve this one for you, so stop it! It’s not your fault at all.

The secret is to be strong now 🙂 Accept what you can’t change and be kind to yourself for what you’ve been through.

Take good care 🙂

[BellaBella]

You are more than welcome 🙂

Feeling like you have over reacted is part and parcel of what happens to us during abuse, we search for a way to make it OK, it just isnt! Even now some time has passed I have to check myself from thinking was I to blame, if I’d just done or said what he wanted and my god, the things I have covered up for him over the years made me my own worst enemy in the end!

I learned to minimise some really serious abuse over a prolongued period of time, it made it easier to cope with day to day life. It took my daughter to call me out on that in front of the police to realise that I was actually protecting my abuser, it’s what I had been trained by him to do!

If it helps, I too have a disability that I was born with, I have constant pain and limited mobility but I’ll let you into a secret, when we have challenges such as this that we have to live with daily, if we look at ourselves hard enough it makes us far stronger, not weaker! We’ve managed to have children, run a home, find different ways to do normal day to day tasks that should be easy but are really hard for us. We are stronger than we know so channel some of that strength into helping you to find your inner ‘warrior woman’.

One thing that kept me going after I made the permanent break was the need to put right the awful impact that the abuser had, had on my daughter, I needed her to see that it was wrong and that her Mum had become someone to be proud of. I had convinced myself that I’d protected her from what was happening to me/us and I couldn’t have been more wrong.

There will be a right time for you to make the break and for it to be permanent and as Cat24 said too, there is lots of help out there, I could not have done it alone and you don’t have to. It’s not plain sailing, it’s actually really, really hard. Even after conviction and reastraining orders the abuse continues for me, just in different ways, I get upset, frustrated and sometimes so angry at the injustice of it all, but not for one moment do I wish I’d not made the break.

You do not have to accept feeling like you do and live with it, you deserve to have peace in your life first, regain your dignity and then work towards finding what being happy looks like for you.

Take good care 🙂

[BellaBella]

I definitely will and yes we are fantastic!

Good luck to you too 😀

[BellaBella]

You’re very welcome and definitely not alone!

It’s when we share that we realise how common the themes are. On my first day of the freedom program I asked if it was possible for someone to be every single type of abuser on the diagram because he was!

It takes a long time to actively block those intrusive thoughts but we can learn to do it.

Thank you for your best wishes and keep going xx

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