Support for those in emotionally abusive relationships 4

[MadameOvary]

Hello everyone - end of last thread kind of took us by surprise!
Will copy in links etc

Hello, I have just arrived, from www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/1294180-in-need-of-interim-support-re-Emotional-Abuse-really ...
I'll just sit down and take the weight off my feet...

Sit down and take a load off Smashedpotato, ah heck, may as shorten it to Smash now :)

Feel compelled to post another 'brag-athon' - left my ex P two weeks before christmas last year and not ONE person phoned me or asked after me (pretty depressing, really) BUT - having spent 10 years with an antisocial git I am beginning to realise that as more and more of his antisocial ways rubbed off onto me, the less I saw any of my friends and the less anyone knew me or of me as it were.

Off work today (and tomorrow) as I've managed to hurt my back to the point I can't actually sit down (picture me typing, standing up like a rock-star keyboard player :)) but the point being that my phone has been going constantly today with friends and work colleagues asking how am I, can they get me anything etc.

Amazing and really nice to slowly start to know that it really really wasn't me for the last decade (had totally convinced myself it was me people stayed away from/didn't care about) but it's not!!

As I keep saying, will keep churning out my self obsessed thoughts here as I used to be quite the lurker and maybe someone out there is thinking/feeling the same and will be able to take something away from my ramblings :)

Haven't issued any tickets to the Far side lately - do I have any up-coming candidates???

may as well and colleagues......Solpadeine Plus has a lot to answer for (tsk!)

Bibi fills the thread night..... - DISCLAIMER - no in RL asked how I was over xmas 2010 - MN members were of course amazing and ensured the cats did DOT manage to eat my toes

Oh Bibi... no phone calls is a world away from people (my flaming mother) desperate to GET OFF the phone when you call her!

In contrast, the support PMs I had from people on here was immense! People who KNOW what it's like too, so it really helped!

Still does!

SmashedPotato: well done love, you are here! Now you know you have a place to come, to vent, to laugh, to cry to just SIT if that is what you want to do.

I have posted tons, I am not at the moment, but I don't know why.

I think I am entering avoidance again... I have to call for the Freedom programme to arrange that, but I haven't. yet.

I have not been to the DV support group in my village either. OK I've had DS all summer, and have been away and worked my butt off too but if I had have really wanted to, I could have gone to one meeting... maybe.

It's tomorrow, I have a check-out to do... so can't go this week either.

Trouble is, last time I did go, before the schools broke up, the woman running the group decided to have an off day so spoke about all sorts of stuff but not group stuff. bit of a waste of time tbh. I'm finding it impossible enough as it is to talk about stuff, last thing I needed was an off day...

I don't think this therapy stuff will work. Not this way anyway. I may need to go to Dr for referral, but that'll never happen. I am stuck.

I don't WANT to be in this situation. I wish it never happened. I want it all to go away. I am tired of carrying this fucking cross, I am angry, I was stupid, and I am now damaged. I don't know if I have the self-worth to do what I ought to be doing for myself, diet, exercise, fun. It's like I'm resigned. Like I'm giving up.

Sorry, didn't mean to bleugh all that out...

Well if you can't bleugh it all out here Hissy, where CAN you?

Not really sure what to say to your current way of feeling since my default setting has always been 'phew, that's over, I'm just soooo glad' and not really reaching the bottom of the barrel of the anger and betrayal and loss etc.

Me me me me me me me - did I mention me and how I feel lately

Sorry, don't mean to drag everything back to my own experience, suppose it's what we all post from though (own exp. I mean)

You're so couragous and I love reading all about your journey - sending you strenght(y) vibes and thinking could it be that you've given too much of yourself lately and maybe a break from thinking about this topic might be in order?

Dear Hissy,
don't know if this might help, but RL friend who'd been through all sorts of crap said try giving yourself an alloted time to think, then get up and do something else - anything completely different - like cleaning the loo or going out for a brisk walk to break it all up? I'm rubbish at that myself but can see getting a bit closer.
I have actually made a start on doing a bit more round the house. Still going through the circles of hell, but think that I may have risen a level, perhaps two.
None of us asked for this shit, no one does.
Lots of (((hugs)))

Hissy when I was stuck and didn't know what to do I stumbled upon a therapist who did Experiential Focussing.
This works both for articulate intellectuals who rationalise everything and feel little, and people who cant describe what is wrong. I was the first sort!

Anyway you have to sit and calmly identify the feelings within and give them a shape a colour a texture and feel them utterly. Without explaining them they can evolve and alter your inner climate. It all sounds a bit woo and I was very sceptical until I realised I was changing from week to week, thawing inside, moving boulders and crushing rocks until the dam burst and out poured all the pent up frozen shit. Another time it might be a fire starting and licking inside my ribs and burning up filling me with rage and energy.

You get the idea? You can probably do it at home if you are in touch with your feelings although it can spiral out of control sometimes. It was brilliant and I loved it and helped me through a very stuck stage.

And you can always just accept the stuckness and think of yourself in a patch of glue. It will pass and you will start moving again.

I love metaphors, can you tell?

I like your metaphors :)

notsorted - good idea, but I tend to avoid thinking about it all, but I am sure it all bubbles up underneath. I am reigning Queen of Avoidance, and also rule the Kingdom of Barrierdom. I can create walls and hide behind them. All this stuff I write, I can manage to do so, but don't ask me to speak it out loud. I'd cry.

I know that's not the worst thing in the world, but somehow I consider that defeat. I cried so much at the hands of that 'man' I'll be damned if I cry now.

LittleHouse - that sounds like it could be very useful. I get it.

Someone recommended Feal the Fear and do it Anyway. I have it, but not read it yet. I may need to do that. I feel fear at taking the next step.

The next step for me having been so physically, emotionally and mentally isolated from society is to re-join the human race. I'm not there yet.

Isolation is safe, hiding is safe. RL, real people? not so much. It's hard to trust real people when so many have either hurt you or let you down. Where do you find that last ounce of courage to dig deep and trust one more real person?

I also wonder if it's my feeling a lack entitlement to re-join society.

Thing is, even when you do open your eyes and see these fuckers for who they are, when you finally struggle free from the shackles they chain you with, when you see all their manipulation, all their crazy aimed at you to destroy you, and you manage to wriggle free, and see them for the monsters that they are, you feel such a total ffing idiot.

So I felt that abject idiocy, the monumental bone crushing stupidity of being with someone SO hell bent on my destruction, and if I cry, if I feel sad for all the totally pointless hell I went through, having 'blessed' DS with a total shit for a dad, denying him siblings, those are tears that should not be shed. I should not cry for that man, I should not mourn a relationship that was a total lie.

If I cry for what could have been, I'm the only one crying, there is nothing real to miss, it never existed, never could have done, there was never anything real to be sad over, so my justification for being sad, has been stolen by this man too. Not only was I not allowed to feel joy, I am now not allowed to feel sadness.

I did feel phew, but that has passed. Now I'm peeling off the dead layers and finding more and more dead layers.

Hissy, the tears will come, and they might be a bit hysterical at first but then it'll be the real thing. You KNOW that when you cry it will be a good thing, nothing to do with him. Fuck everyone else, crying is your way out into the world again, it's something you will do when you're ready, because it will burst the dam and I suspect you're happier -and safer- feeling angry.

I can't afford to break down. it upsets DS, there is no-one in RL that wants to know. It's in my best interests to keep going.

Like calling for prayer in Malta. no point me crying. No-one will come.

I will!! And the rest of this thread would/will I'm sure!

Writing is not quite the same as a flesh and blood person I know but could not just leave your last post just sitting there, unanswered, Hissy.

Have to sleep now while the painkillers are still working but more than happy to convert the 'twat be gone' minibus later, pick up willing participants from the MN bus stops and head for your door.

Hissy, I'll trade you my tears for some of your anger

Crying IMO isn't crying for "that man" or crying for "what could have been". It's crying for yourself, now: let yourself experience the pain you feel in the here and now. It can be very healing.

(For me, it is also crying on behalf of my 3-year-old self who was dumped by her mother and learned that she must therefore be unlovable, and only fit for abuse in later life, but YMMV on that one. But that too is a healing kind of crying: doing the grieving now that I didn't do in childhood because at that time I needed to keep idolising my parents.)

Your anger is a wonderful gift, though. Be glad of it. I believe that I would be far less depressed if I were more able to externalise my anger, instead of projecting it inward.

On a completely different topic: I have no idea if this will help anyone else, but one of the many things that helped me in understanding what the hell had been going on in my life was understanding more about my personality type.

I used the Myers Briggs type identifier (the link is to a test if anyone else wants to find their personality type). I am and have always been an INFJ, whose key characteristics include extremely strong empathy, and a tendency to project everything inward. Extremely good at relating to others, and adapting to being whatever other people want us to be. Therefore perfect for an abuser. And it also fit one of the reasons I saw for stbxh's abusive wrath: he believed I must be his dream woman, and, because he is an entitled arse, that I should be his dream woman, and he would rage whenever the real me appeared.

It also helps me explain my depressive tendencies: I'll project feelings inward, instead of for example expressing the wrath I should be feeling at stbxh and my parents. So that gives me an additional key to work on managing my depression: to know that I could use a bit more externalisation.

Anyway. HTH someone else.

oh bless you all! thank lovely ladies!

Dear Hissy, I want to give you a cuddle and say sssh, it will all pass, it will all pass in the end. I forget, but do you have a counsellor as well as the DV group? Or is it worth trying to say it out loud to the samaritans? Someone here has used them just to speak the words.

Like Puppy, I think I'm crying tears of grief now. I still grieve the what could have been - I've decided ex was a liar, has serious MH issues, has some kind of personality disorder and was abusive. So too much shit for change in any way now. This is absolutely silly but if he'd hadn't lied I would have had a choice - I would have protected myself and walked before I let myself fall in love. He manipulated and lied because that has how he always got by, he abused because that also worked for him before in a previous relationship and got abusive every time I tried to confront the truth or we bumped into the problems that he been trying to hide/avoid.
Anyway back to ourselves ....
Puppy, yesterday at the therapist I talked about feeling safe - my mother was not there mentally or emotionally in my childhood. I jokingly brought her up in the second session, but then said I'd dealt with that. Now we have begun talking about how a lack of safety in childhood ie absent mother, dysfunctional relationship between parents does colour how you perceive yourself as a woman. So I am crying for myself and what I never had and my need for safety in my family home. I feel back to my childhood self, building barriers to keep it all at bay, scared that I am all on my own.
God this is so hard, but we are all here for each other so (((hugs))) to you all.

meandmypuppy thanks for the link..going to look it up..xx
I don't feel angry or sad..nothing...blank... just extreme threat from him if that makes sense... prob not lol... like I'm running on adrenaline.

Oh god! I am INFJ too!

Can we ALL try and find 5 minutes to do the test and see what it comes up with?

INJF.. me too!

Sorry INFJ..doh!

Oh I came up as ISFP.
When doing the test I found it difficult to think of how I am now - coloured by existence of DCs and by licking my wounds from ex - with how I was pre-DCs.
Ehh?

ENFJ....am I in the right place?????