[ti]brain[/ti]Recovering from Abuse

[melissa]

Soooo... one of the major impetuses behind me reaching out for more nb community is my recent exit from a toxic relationship. For 6-7 years, I was in a coven (I'm pagan) with an abuser. For me, it was emotional abuse- manipulation, isolation, gas-lighting, shaming, etc- including some really messed up and confusing stunts where she would bounce between making negative comments about my gender/trans* people in general, and then "love-bomb" around the same stuff. She decided to "retire" from the coven when people started calling her on her behavior. I'm currently taking a break from the coven, and talking to a therapist. Anyone else on here recovering from this sort of BS? How do you get through it?

[FaerieKim]

Emotional abuse sucks. The gas lighting, the hot and cold behaviour, the insults and drama. It's soul destroying.

I've been through similar. I don't know what to suggest. Stay resilient and hopeful. Therapy can be useful. Time will heal. Do something good for yourself. It's good to reach out for support. Look after yourself. You're worth it.

[EchelonHunt]

It was 4-5 years of abusive relationship that I finally managed to cut myself away and that was when I began embracing my non-binary identity.

You aren’t alone! It will take time to heal, we are here to help you and support you however we can!

[Ativan Prescribed]

Lots of therapy and lots of just trying to get away from it all, but two kids from the relationship which are not close at all now because of their mothers lies and lies and lies and general bullshit.
So years and years of it always nagging at me, the phone call lies, the everything is my fault even though I wasn't there.
She was going to get married and the day before, she found him dead, heart attack.
She just had to make it my fault by insinuating that I did something, she repeatedly asked over the course of months.
She would borrow money and then expect me to pay it back, by saying it was for the good of the kids, but she borrowed it so she would then accused me of hating my kids because she borrowed money she wasn't going to pay back.
The list goes on and on, the gaslighting was the worst, I was too busy taking care of everything to pay attention to her latest scheme to just annihilate me in front of the kids.
She has no friends. She always does the big party thing and nobody shows up, she has done all of this to everyone, but me especially because she could use the kids as a weapon.
I spent months at a time in psych units for trying to kill myself, there were times that made me homeless, and I didn't want to even ask her for help, I would rather sleep outside in the winter than deal with her.
She slammed herself against a corner in the house over and over so she had bruises everywhere and then took pictures and told me if I didn't do what she wanted, she would have me arrested.
I didn't do what she wanted and she didn't do that, because she knew it was a step to far and I would take it out on her with prejudice.
She showed the pics to friends and they freaked until I told them how she did it and said look at the pics again, and besides, who do they believe about anything she says, they didn't believe her, lost more friends again.
But after staying away for a few tears, I found out that she had breast cancer and I was worried for the kids, but she beat that and the kids got just that much closer to being old enough to escape from her.
The the cancer came back and she called me to tell me that she had it before and now that it came back she is going to die, so I told her I already knew and didn't care, asked her if it was a sympathy call, because she wasn't getting any from me, that the world would be a better place if she died, she hung up on me and I never heard from her again, but apparently she made it through the cancer again or she was lying and never had it in the first place, that is something she would do, so why bother to pretend even to care, it was just more of her shit that somehow she was going to blame me for her getting cancer, so I don't care.
It was a revelation for me, it took a few days before I realized that the kids were on their own and this was her trying to get sympathy, I guess she really did have it come back, one of the kids told me.
I said nothing about the phone call, if they said anything about it, it would have taken the pure joy of that moment away.
It was the single best thing I ever did for myself and I have been more happy because of it than I have for over a decade, I beat the fucking shit out of her game playing so bad she hung up, and never called again.
There is always a way to regain yourself from that kind of shit, therapy is a big one, just having no contact is another, destroying them and getting the best of them all in one swoop is the greatest though.

[Yuki]

Mar 11, 2019 4:17:39 GMT 8 melissa said:

Soooo... one of the major impetuses behind me reaching out for more nb community is my recent exit from a toxic relationship. For 6-7 years, I was in a coven (I'm pagan) with an abuser. For me, it was emotional abuse- manipulation, isolation, gas-lighting, shaming, etc- including some really messed up and confusing stunts where she would bounce between making negative comments about my gender/trans* people in general, and then "love-bomb" around the same stuff. She decided to "retire" from the coven when people started calling her on her behavior. I'm currently taking a break from the coven, and talking to a therapist. Anyone else on here recovering from this sort of BS? How do you get through it?

Most of my life has been emotional abuse. I don't think I've ever really gotten through it.. just a lot of focusing inward and learning to be aware of my feelings and where they're coming from. If you understand them, it makes it easier to deal with and then it's not so bad. But this is from someone who can't afford therapy. If you can do therapy, I'd definitely suggest that because it would probably speed things along quite a bit.

But... Time doesn't really heal all wounds but it does make them easier to manage. Sometimes you'll be doing great, and other times you'll remember some of the ways that people treated you and it will make you sad. Or it'll make you wonder if it was your fault. But that gets fewer and farther between with time, too.

[Ativan Prescribed]

A big thing to stop is ruminating over the past, that endless loop of a thought or two that is just the same as the abuse was.
You can have a few of those, stop one and the other ones start up, it's the replay of abuse.
There are the I should have said or done this ones that are scenarios that you constantly try to make come out without having to actually do a redo.
There are the hurtful phrases that keep coming back again and again, and those change as soon as you stop them.
The only way out is to learn to stop ruminating over the past, let it go, there is nothing you can change except you and that's really all there is to it.
It isn't as easy as just stopping it, it's the find and pay attention to everything that stops or interrupts that flow of evil braindump.
Inventing things for distraction are temporary, you know that you are using them for that and they lose the power they had.
But the things that you aren't actually doing and are just things that seem to change it, remember what they are.
Everytime it comes around to another rumination, think of those things and it can work, outside influence of things that you are not so much doing as they need the outside to work.
It's like a traffic light, you go when it turns green and stop on a red, but the real thing with the lights is that you can't control those either.
So those kinds of things, it isn't you driving away from the light, it's the light itself, the concentration waiting for it to change.
Little things can add up to a lot of things, once you gain some control over it, then you can just stop ruminating if it starts.
They can prescribe side effects along with the money given to big pharma for you turn at the side effects, but I wouldn't ever use those, they don't work very good but the side effects do.
CBD seems to work, I've been smoking the flowers that are low THC and high CBD, and they make a difference in how I am thinking, before bed I get to sleep easier and stay asleep.
And that is taking away a lot of things that I could easily let go into ruminating, which when trying to sleep is the worst, or disco music that you can't stop from going on and on in your head...