Anyone recover from something they never thought they could?

[SusansLove]

Thanks to anyone who listens or answers, and before starting you should know that I have been to endless counselling, read books, talked it over a billion times, repeated positive mantras but I just can't seem to heal myself and wanted to know if anyone has ever recovered from something they could not imagine ever recovering from?

I know there is a lot of "affairs" and crappy men on here, but I think what mine did to me and put me through was at the top end of the scale - made a lot worse to my psyche because until it happenned I honestly thought we had the best relationship ever, the most loving partnership and I trusted him probably more than I can actually comprehend or explain.

What he did to me was sudden, prolonged, intentional and designed to cause me maximum possible suferring. He had no mercy and seemed to enjoy it. I knew him for years. As close as people can be.

I was just here tonight looking for a little hope. A hope that after someone you love and trust and have known for years like family does stuff to you that you can't understand or come to terms with - do you ever get better?

I feel like I pretend to, but it never goes away.

Hmm family annihilator sounds about right. Such a headfuck, as hollie says (group hug and to hollie)

I tell you what, I no longer care what it was that caused it - I just know I was struck down with a scythe in one vicious swoop; then pulverised. I kinda don't care what was behind it, I just know I was left for dead and struggled MIGHTILY to get up. I couldn't understand why I wasn't able to get up. My focus now is me and getting well, not the perpetrators and why they did it.

I'm probably talking rubbish bcs i'm so tired! Night night xx

not rubbish at all. wise words spring and ones I will fall asleep too. hugs xxxxxxxx

I totally understand not being able to make sense of it.
I assumed that I needed to understand why they did what what they did,as part of my healing process.
But yesterday I was told that this isn't necessarily needed.
Maybe we just have to accept that there is no reason. Force ourselves to forgive them - only, forgive them only for our benefit, not theirs !! So that we can move on.

Woah, hang on! But I'll join in the discussion about forgiveness - what it is and what it isn't; the right time and the wrong time - in the morning

I have never, ever, EVER found it helpful to think of someone who has screwed me over as 'evil'.

It's been much more helpful for me to think of them as seriously fucked up.... and even more helpful to go a step beyond that and think of them as human beings who come with a set of genes that make them predisposed to certain behaviours, and who on top of that have life experiences that are sometimes so traumatic they can completely re-wire the brain and make them do crazy fucked-up things.

Some people can change from being functioning, socially acceptable individuals capable of all the usual human empathies, to having dark, desperate and fearful thoughts that in turn make their behaviour dark, desperate and fearful. You may never understand what triggered it, but clearly something triggered it. (Whatever it was, it's not your fault. You must never blame yourself, only circumstance - and, if you like, the vulnerability of brain chemistry.)

That's not to say your feelings of anger and hurt are invalid. You have every reason and every right to feel bad about what happened to you. I think it's important to allow yourself to feel. Acknowledge the feelings, don't suppress them... but don't indulge them either. Let them just sort of flow over you.

That, of course, is often easier said than done. You could look into EMDR therapy to help you... personally I found it really useful.

I just wanted to share my own experience... not playing devil's advocate so much as trying to look at things objectively, philosophically and physiologically... all I can say is, it works for me, and allows me to stop being so consumed by my anger and hurt.

Wishing you all the very best.

I need help to NOT be consumed by my anger and my hurt.
My current counsellor said she was unable to do that, doing need to find a new one.

EMDR

EMDR isn't widely known about, and it sounds nuts. I was dubious about it, but desperate enough to try anything. I kept an open mind... and I'm pleased to say it paid off. It wasn't a magic bullet, but it certainly played a big part in my recovery from chronic psychological turmoil.

Thanks to all for the posts. A few observations.

I think that the word "evil" is something I've never used before when someone "fucked me over", or how I ever thought about it. But when you're faced with the black and unfeeling eyes of someone who, like Springy says, is cuttign you down with a scythe and leaving you for dead while laughing - what you're dealing with actually is evil. I remember as a teenager reading M Scott Peck's Book - The People Of the Lie - and everything about this situation rang of "evil" and that is what is hard to accept from a much loved partner whom you trusted and felt you knew. Perhaps not a "helpful" label and I know as you say Peg he would have had deep seated reasons for such disgusting behavior and your explanations of how person can exhibit behavior like that is helpful. I do know deep down that there is something massively wrong with him to treat another human being that way.

As for "forgiveness"....that one is difficult to put into words. To me, forgiveness is letting go of the desire to punish or see retribution in action and to see that person "pay" for what they did and in that you find release and healing. Believe me, I have never - not even in the early days - felt much anger towards him, or a desire to see him hurt or to see "right" comes around. I think maybe if someone cheats on you you might feel that way, but this total annihilation creates so much shock and confusion you have little room for anything as arbitrary as revenge. I don't forgive or not forgive. He ceased to exist as a uman being I knew, or ever knew, when he did this. He's not a person to be forgiven, because he doesn't exist. I wish I could explain that better but in truth I never think of him because I don't remmeber him. All that is left are those scars and that feeling Springy describes of being bewildered and unable to get back up again.

I am sorry to hear other people experienced betrayals and mystifying attacks from those that were supposed to love them but at the same time took a lot of comfort from feeling I wasn't alone.

I do want to choose life, I do want to find acceptance that this behavior was not my fault, that I was in the worng place and the wrong time and did nothing to cause it. I do want to heal myself.

I have no interest anymore in him. I only want that trauma which is haunting me to fade into dust so I can be free to enjoy my time and love myself again.

IT is very difficult to love yourself when the person who was most meant to love you, failed to do so. Especially if you had a lot of trust in them.

SusansLove

What happened to you is a huge life event and it will always be a part of who you are... but there are ways you can turn it into something much more manageable, maybe even take some positives from it (I appreciate that probably sounds crazy right now!).

I suppose if you were to see this thing haunting you as an evil demon, well you can't banish the demon forever, because it is a part of you.... but when you confront it head on, you can slip the handcuffs on it and then pop it in a little box in a corner of your mind, and it can do its stupid ranting and and raving in there, relatively ineffectually in the bigger scheme of your life... rather than this demon having the free run of your entire soul (which I think is how things feel for you currently).

It's a weird metaphor but the best way I can think of to describe it!

I think this is what you can hope to achieve in the long run, however you go about it. And achieving this should allow you to find some peace, and make you feel like you've got things more under control, so you can get on with your life again and have much more room in your soul for the positive emotions like joy and love and wonderment.

Sorry to keep banging on about EMDR, but if it's something you'd consider then I think it's important I let you know how it works (from a patient's perspective!):

• Your point about not really remembering him sounds like you've pushed down a lot of the feelings as a coping mechanism. But they will be working away under the surface, and making you miserable. Sometimes you need to bring them back up, hold them up in front of you.... then give them a massive punch in the face.

• The way EMDR works is that it takes you right back into the trauma, makes you remember stuff you've blocked out, and intensely feel the feelings you felt at the time of the trauma... and then it sort of cleverly teases out the knots. But not in a long, drawn-out way as most people consider therapy to be. EMDR doesn't take many sessions - 2 or 3 is the norm.

• It's VERY intense and you would need to accept that you're going to have a horrible time for a little while - emotional turmoil, bad dreams, lots of crying - but it's all about getting the things out of your system that have been eating away at you for years. If you can be 'cleansed' in this way, you hopefully will then rediscover the tools and the strength to heal yourself and move on.

• It's not for everyone and you'd need to explore the option with a psychotherapist to see if it's suitable for you. All I know is it worked for me, and so I advocate it.

i started feeling very anxious when you described that Peg but I know tht's what I need to do.....pull it out. I sit there sometimes and try and access it but honestly can't. It's blank.

EMDR can help with that.

Of course there may be other techniques that work better for you - NLP, CBT etc but I imagine you've tried those already, and personally I think in this kind of situation it's more effective to go straight to the one single root cause, rather than trying to unpick your whole life from childhood onwards (which I've never found particularly helpful).

Counselling honestly does nothing for me. When I talk about it I feel like I am talkign about a film or something that's didnt really happen. There's no emotional connection directly to it so no way to "get it out", cry and move on. I think maybe ideas like this are worth looking into. Does sound terrifying tho

susan, your post really resonates with me and what other posters have said.

I've experienced similar but probably not as suddenly as you.

Exh systematically tried to destroy me. After a complicated court case, the judge ruled that I had suffered significant emotional harm at his hands. The judge wiped the floor with him but still ex won't accept what he did.

I have found counselling does nothing for me. My three counsellors all expressed shock at some of the stuff and that didn't help.

I read about narcissism but didn't feel that particularly fitted ex. The Lundy Bancroft book has helped me understand a bit better as ex fits one of the profiles spot on.

I sometimes wonder if I am suffering from PTSD as I can't move on.

Maybe I am better when I am busy and getting on with things rather than thinking, analysing and trying to consciously work through it. I don't know.

I will continue to read this thread with interest.

Sorry Truth. I also think PTSD-like symptoms are at play.

Yes, I am also better when I get on with things. I feel normal /happy but then little things cause triggers. New boyfriend does not call one night and I literally feel my ex at my shoulder saying "see? I told you you were nothing, everyone will think so eventually". Not as in hearing voices, but just imaginary interractions all the time. He's always a voice behind me telling me how much he hates me. Sounds so silly but that's what it's like.

On going, in the aftermath I know there is a limited capablity to feel love. A limited capability to truly connect to others and to life. I don't live in the past or the future, just in each little moment as it unfolds. I used to plan and be very organised. Now I forget everything and only think about that day. I'm rubbish with my finances and I leave everything at work to the last minute and then stay up all night catching up. It's a bit like a world of limbo.

I have the potential to fall in love with my new boyfriend, or with one or two before him but something inside me self-sabotages. I push away. I set them up for falls and then say "ah, see, I knew you were lying about caring about me!" and to me it feels very real.

I deep down don't envisage myself married or with a family again and that's sad because it was all I ever wanted. I don't sleep well or relax well and need to be always busy doing something. I also have very exxagerrated responses to small pleasure...sitting for ages watching something little like candle flicker or kids playing. Like I am detached from the world and not a real person inside.

It's no way to live!

My ex fits so many "profiles". The Book Runaway Husbands ran true. The book "Mr Nice Guy" rang true. He has hit a fair few check parts for psychopathy or sociaopathy (after he did this never before) but I have grown tired of trying to analyse his behavior beyond the effect it had on me.

I know a lot of the worst abuse laid not in what he said and did, but in the way he maintained a perfect public facade and took me down without me even realising what he was doing. The way he minimised the things he did to make me feel like they wer not even a big deal. the way he would not acknowledge anything, or show any remorse or even look at me as if he recongnised me as someone he knew. All of that was much worse and has disturbed me.

I really want to try right now and have a normal relationship with my boyfriend, and open up to him but have no idea what to say. I kind of tld him what happenned (like 5% of it) but how do I tell him ALL of this? I'm ashamed. I feel like if I tell him he will think there is something wrong with me, or it will sound like Jeremy Kyle or that he will think I am weak or dirty or something.

Susanslove, I feel the same way about traditional psychotherapy/counselling. It only ever served as a 'crutch' for me while I was going through difficult times, it never helped me actually resolve anything.

EMDR was the only thing that really had an impact. Even then, it wasn't a magic bullet. It does take a bit of time to 'unlearn' the feelings and behaviours that have made themselves at home in your body following a big trauma.

At the moment you don't have the tools to begin the unlearning process. EMDR will - hopefully - clear the path enough for you to locate those tools and then get to work!

In answer to your OP, yes, but it took 5 years.

I wonder if your counselling was too soon for you? It sounds as though you're coping by dissassociating with what happened. Maybe in time, when you are feeling sufficiently secure about the here and now to really delve into things, therapy would work better for you.

And the shame will go. Honestly, it will. For me, after the shame came anger. Boiling, all-consuming anger. And then, peace. My betrayer is just not relevant anymore.

Keep the faith-you will come to a place of peace in time. Just carry on coping in the meantime. And whatever else you do, forgive yourself.

Ultimately I think you start to get make it through to the otherside once you focus attention back on you, and how you want to live.

Once you reach a place where you accept that you can't change or control someone else's actions or events that are in the past.

For me I chose to forgive. When I say that I don't mean forget or ask for reconciliation or anything like that. I mean a conscious decision to put the episode behind you. You will never understand why he did what he did and you can't change the fact that he has acted the way he has. But you can make choices for you. What I would say though is like all grieving processes, which after all you are grieving ehat you thought you had and the person you thought you knew, this will take time.

Take a day at a time.

I have to say that I am not an expert but here are a few things that have helped people close to me.

When you imagine the voice saying negative things can you imagine a voice ( your voice )saying positive things to counteract it.

The person who did this to you had power over you and now they don't have the power anymore.

You are a survivor and you are worth a lot and I think that as the others have said you just have to keep telling yourself this.

Do you think relaxation techniques would help you for when you feel overwhelmed ?

SusansLove I would guess that you will never understand why he did what he did, but even if you did, it wouldn't change what he did. It wouldn't help you heal and it wouldn't change the future. In other words, the "aha" moment would be hollow. For your own sanity, stop chasing it.

When someone does something so horrific, when you go from feeling so loved and protected, to feeling like someone has cut your heart out with a dull butter knife and shit all over your life, your dreams, your "too good to be true" marriage, you leave behind the person you were, the marriage you thought you had and you forge a new life. You find strengths you didn't know you had. You are wiser. In the end, you become a new person. You're on the right track here when you said "It's difficult to explain though beause I know a bit of me isn't normal or right. I can't feel love the same way. Can't see life or other people the same way. It's like I am a percentage of the Susan that once was."

That's the truth. The old Susan is gone. And she's not coming back. I've been where you are - not the same scenario, but I know what it is to go from the top of the world in a relationship that everyone envied, the stuff that dreams are made on, and crash to the bottom of a dark pit of betrayal. I am a year and a bit past the day that changed my life forever. The life I knew, the marriage I knew, gone. Maybe I lived in a bubble all those years of delusion or maybe I didn't. At the end of the day, it no longer matters.

For you now, what matters is not what you had or why he did it or "who was I married to" - because whoever he was, he is no longer. What matters and where you need to place your heart and your energy, is where you are now and where you want to head in life, and who you want to morph into for the next stage of your life. The old life is gone, and the girl you were is gone as well. You have to find the new you dear heart. A new Susan, a different Susan, a new life. At times you will weep for what has been lost. You will miss the girl you were, but she isn't coming back and that is probably the most bitter pill of all. That sweet innocent "I'm the luckiest woman in the world" is gone.

Continue with your counselling. Do the Thrive course (google it on Amazon). Continue to talk to your friends. Talk to God. Most of all, don't try to "heal" in a restorative way or find yourself again or get your old self back. Heal in a progressive "I will forge a new life and a new me" way. Forget trying to understand him. Get to know yourself now, the new you that has emerged out the other side of this hell you have been through. x

So to actually answer the question - yes I did recover from something I didn't think I could recover from - but not how I envisioned getting through it. I wanted the old soft tender-hearted trusting woman I was back. But she's gone and in her place is a more mature, wiser, albeit more cynical creature. I don't like her as well as the woman I was, but I respect her more and accept that she is who emerged from the rubble.

Reading these latst posts has been incredibly helpful. Such wise words and ones that really resonated with me as realistic. Vernazza I feel you have it spot on. The words you are saying "ring true" for the first time. That girl can't ever be around again and I think you saying that made me feel comforted, like I can let go of that expecation and I love the idea of a new Susan who emerges from the rubble. I want to find my fight after reading this!

gildedcage your post is very poignant.

In my experience, I hit the bottom before I started to see a way out. Some days were better than others but it took time. I spent ages torturing myself with playing thoughts back and wondering about what-ifs. It is still a process and I've found it is harder to fake it till you make it than it is to wallow in grief. I have to force myself. In time that 'force' became a routine. It is hard work and it isn't a straight forward trajectory, but it is possible to recover.

I have never been the exact same person since but I have gained a great deal of knowledge and insight about myself and life. I still read a lot and think quite deeply about things but I've taken stock and currently trying my best to deal with my 'new normal.'

I did all that too InTheBox. Endless hours a days spent wondering "why?" and "what if" and what I had done or how it had happenned and reading every book and every website and taking endlessly to counsellors.

I've come through all that, hit rock bottom when I was on the phone to Samaritans every week, and I am generally okay - but still don't feel over it.

I think what Vernazza said to be was particularly welll targeted for my specific situation where what I need to do is find out who is going to emerge from the rubble.

I feel quite settled inside my brain when I look at it from that new perspective. I felt a pressure to go back to who and what I was and reading that post I can see that might not be required of me.

I love the idea of a new normal. This feels like a way I can forge ahead positively, not expecting to be washed clean but accepting I am always diferrent and perhaps not always worse.

I think that post was an "ah ha" moment for me. Thank you so much.

I feel so much more positive and strong thanks to you ladies. Thank you.