lifelibertyhappiness

[lifelibertyhappiness]

Hi Blueberry

I – well, all of us survivors – struggle with this so much. I have a new life that is full of things that bring me so much joy but I am still conditioned to react to stuff as though I am still with my abuser. As you say, tiny things set me off that not even my loving and respectful new partner would imagine were a problem. The flashbacks are utterly horrible and I long to get rid of them and to be able to embrace my new life.

But to comfort you, time does help so much. This time a year ago, I hadn’t yet been supermarket shopping on my own without my ex being there and telling me I was buying the wrong stuff. For about six months I freaked out every time I went to the supermarket as I was scared I would get into trouble for buying things, even though my abuser was out of my life. Then came a day when I did a big shop and it was only when I got home that I realised I hadn’t even thought about it. That particular flashback was over.

Sadly I still have a thousand other ones, as my abuser controlled every aspect of my life. Freedom is amazing but scary when you have been deprived of it for so long.

Things I have found helpful: I now have a support group of other women who have left abuse. We all have different backgrounds and our abusers did different things to us. But the power of the group is that they all made us feel the same and were all doing it for the same reason: to control us. And we get why other members are “still” struggling with something in a way that those who aren’t survivors really struggle. This is not a break up! It’s not even a one-off trauma, it’s years of abuse and terror. No wonder it takes a long time to unwind.

Also I ended up in hospital and met an IDVA from Victim
Support who has been really good. I wouldn’t recommend the hospital experience as a fun way of spending your day but I am so glad I can now contact the IDVA.

Something that is helping me also is Mindfulness. I hated it when I started but I now use the Headspace app every day and it is giving me good techniques for calming myself down and moving away from damaging thoughts about the past to noticing the present.

Oh, and obviously medicine! I have PTSD and am taking antidepressants and propranolol when I have panic attacks. I can’t say the NHS mental health provision has been great, but if you haven’t been to your GP yet to explain that you’ve left abuse then I’d really recommend it.

Keep going – and remember that you are one of the bravest women there is. We are so much stronger than we know for doing what we’ve done and we should be so, so proud of ourselves.

[lifelibertyhappiness]

Reading this has helped me feel like I’m not alone on a hard day. It seems to be taking so long to recover and there is something so galling about knowing that while I was trapped in my abusive marriage, I seemed stable, and now I am free I am so unstable. I guess it depends on each individual but how long have people found it takes for them to get back to a stage where they are not having anxiety attacks or suicidal thoughts every day? I am totally desperate not to be such a mess: I hate what it is doing to my reputation at work and my relationships.

[lifelibertyhappiness]

Thank you – I hadn’t thought enough about no contact but you all suggesting it has made me more resolved to do it. I have a meeting with a lawyer next week. it still feels so brutal, especially as he sent me a friendly email today, but I suppose that is him manipulating me again.

[lifelibertyhappiness]

Hi Sahara, getting my new flat was one of the best steps I took – for a while I was staying with friends which was nice as it meant I had people around when I was really struggling, but there is something so amazing about being able to shut your front door and know that it’s just you and you are totally safe. There are so many things that I take joy in every day in having my own place, especially that for the first time in my life my fridge is full of food that I was able to buy with my money, and every evening I can eat at what time I want and eat what food I want and eat the amount of food I want. These things are things that people who are not survivors will never understand as to most people they are givens, but for us they are huge blessings and cause for celebration. Similarly the fact that I can pay bills and every time I do I can remind myself that I am not the useless, lazy woman my ex told me I was, but a strong one who is capable of managing her finances and her post.

But there are so many hard things too – I hate going supermarket shopping as it triggers so many bad memories. Mostly I order online or pick up something on the way home, but even that makes me hugely anxious.

I think what I’ve realised over the past few months is that it doesn’t matter if you don’t get everything sorted at once. I was a really disciplined runner and gym bunny before my abusive marriage broke down, but for the past few months I’ve been too depressed and tired to do any of that. I was beating myself up for not doing it, but then a friend pointed out that I’d achieved a fair bit already in the past few months and not running really was a bit of a small part of that. I’ve recently started running again and feel great, but I’ve also realised that it doesn’t matter if life isn’t perfect straight away. The more amazing thing is that I’m free.

I really hope you start to love life on your own. The BBC Good Food recipes are really clear if you’re trying to start cooking, but even if you just do simple stuff it doesn’t matter because your life is your own and no-one can tell you that you’re doing it wrong as you are free!

[lifelibertyhappiness]

I guess I also worry that other people will think I am somehow making this up, when actually for me it’s more the case that I just either had decided not to think about how it was or made up stupid excuses for why things were the way they were, like not seeing friends etc. But do you guys worry that people just won’t believe you?

[lifelibertyhappiness]

Thanks everyone – I have a good counsellor who I’ve just started with who is helping me understand how this has happened. I guess I just need to be patient. What is weird is how much stuff I am re-processing if that makes sense. Often I’ll tell a friend about something that he did that I got quite used to and thought was normal, like getting really angry that I needed to buy new tights for work, and always implying that I’d laddered the old ones deliberately, and the friend will point out that this was entirely messed up and wrong. So much of my life that felt normal I now realise was not and was either something I’d chosen to accept because I loved him and thought I didn’t deserve any other sort of treatment.

But the other thing I am really struggling with today is that there were LOTS of good things about our marriage. He came to love my most important hobby, (removed by moderator) (though of course if I wanted (removed by moderator) something I either needed to get it for free or buy it with my ‘allowance’), and our time  (removed by moderator) together was really blissful. My friends point out that good times together do not compensate for years of taking and controlling my money and allowing me no say over how it was spent, what food we bought etc. But of course even then I worry about whether I have misinterpreted what was just loving behaviour! It’s such a hard cycle.

[lifelibertyhappiness]

Also he is always messaging me saying that he can change, that me leaving was a wake up call and that he loves me and misses me. It is SO hard reading that as I still love him, though I don’t want to be with him and I want to move on with my life. I feel at the moment as though I am waiting for some kind of external validation that leaving him is the right thing to do – even though all my family and my close friends who I talk to a lot about this say that it is. It’s almost as though I’m waiting for the relationships regulator, OfLove, to decree that I’ve done the right thing… but maybe that’s just me not being free of the trauma bonds that you describe, and that I don’t yet have peace in my heart about it.

[lifelibertyhappiness]

Thank you so much Confused123 – I guess it will just take time for me to get back to normal after nearly a decade. I am very impatient!

I also keep wondering if there is any way I have misinterpreted his behaviour or whether there is another way of looking at it but I guess that is normal too?

And what I also struggle with is how I ended up letting him take control of me! Why!?

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