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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Keeping going after abusive relationship

31 replies

2013go · 03/11/2013 22:34

How do you/ did you keep going after an EA/SA relationship?
I don't have the pride of having ended it and I feel like I am on the ropes- time seems to be making it worse not better.
Feel very very stupid and worthless and hopeless like all I believed about people was naive and wrong.
Have a good counsellor but days get harder not easier.

OP posts:
MatildaWhispers · 08/11/2013 00:27

Hi again 2013. I get that wanting to switch it all off thing too, interspersed with total opposite feelings of thinking that I an accept it/heal/'woo'ness.

I think you need to make sure that you are speaking regularly with people who do understand and have been through similar, via MN or in rl, just so that you can kind of adjust to the believing it/accepting it etc.
If you are having a really bad day remember that there are also helplines that you can ring, I recently phoned a SA helpline and rambled on, and it wasn't something I could have ever imagined myself doing a year or so ago (even a helpline was too 'woo' for me before!), but actually it was helpful.

2013go · 08/11/2013 18:15

I had a nice chat to dsis yesterday, she's far away but coming to visit soon. So that's some nice rl support. Everyone has got so sick of hearing it! But I explained to her that what's hard is I can't tell anyone how much I loved him as they're all so anti him they don't get that bit/ get angry if I say it. Everyone says lucky escape, stay away forever etc and I agree, but it's not done and dusted after that because behind that is the grief.

OP posts:
Kernowgal · 08/11/2013 19:04

I still have imaginary conversations with my ex where I tell him, in front of all his friends/workmates, what an arsehole he is. I find he enters my thoughts because something reminds me of something he said or did, and bang, the anger resurfaces.

When we split, I felt almost nothing towards him: no love, no hatred, maybe pity. People describe it as numbness, and I think that was probably it. It was only once he'd moved his stuff out and I could properly relax that I began to feel angry at how I'd let him control me.

I'm the opposite to you in a way - I didn't love him at the end and my family still think he was a great bloke, which makes it harder to talk to them about imho. Had my parents cottoned on to how much of an arsehole he was, I might have felt more supported. But that's probably my fault for holding back on his nastiness, to protect them in a way.

RedBushedT · 08/11/2013 19:09

I'm a good two years down the road now and I still have off days. For me, I find comparing it to a person who has escaped a weird cult helps.
I look on it that in a way I was brainwashed by my EA ex, my reactions to things are still skewed but I'm feeling more like my own person every day. Just like escaping a cult, rebuilding a life after escaping a twattish ex will take lots of time. Hang on in there.
I have found these boards invaluable for helping me accept what happened, and they give me hope that I will be a better, stronger person in the long run. Smile

springytick · 08/11/2013 19:39

After I left my horrifically EA ex, I also researched cults. I longed to see an 'exit' counsellor to debrief, to drink in some sanity from someone with all the right info; someone to reassure me and confirm that he was mad and dangerous. There were two of us in our cult: he was the leader and I was his proselyte. I couldnt tell anyone, there was no-one at all I could talk to about it, no info at the time. I eventually found a site buried deep on the web - Sam Vaknin. At long last I found something that made sense to me, which fit ex like a glove (NPD). My family also thought he was marvellous. Still do. Hmm

2013, although the whole process has been cut short for you (because he ended it), you missed out the pure mind-bending hell of getting to the point where you know you'll die if you stay with your abuser. I wish I was exaggerating. It was pure horror and I did go mad for a while. It was a terrifying time.

Maybe you're going through the choppy waters as you process it all - only he's not there to interrupt the process, which has to be a good thing (which may be an academic comfort for you at the mo, I appreciate that). Maybe you have to accept you'll be a bit 'mad' for a while. All part of detoxing from his poison. You do, and will, come back into focus eventually.

I don't know if I've posted before on your other threads that after I left my abuser I literally shook and was in an awful state, couldn't sleep, off my head - it really was like detoxing from a drug. I asked someone (a supposedy knowledgeable bod) if it was possible to be addicted to a person. She said she'd never heard of it. (I now know it is extremely common).

springytick · 08/11/2013 19:43

*extremely common in abusive relationships, I should clarify.

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