One of the things that most impressed me about the conversations which I had with Women's Aid when I was agonising about my relationship with my Ex-DP, and what to do next, was how the WA counsellors gave me the space and time to make my own mind up about what to do. They listened. They advised. They discussed options. They gave examples.
But they never directly told me what to do. Perhaps they do with people who are in relationships more physically violent and immediately dangerous / threatening than mine was. In fact, I am sure they do. I guess they could tell from the way I was talking to them that I was OK-ish, and slowing gaining a handle on what was being done to me, and slowly gaining the strength to fight it. And I particularly remember feeling that all decisions were in my hands and conclusions were there for me to reach, based on my own experiences, and, the perspectives and advice the counsellors gave to me.
And they continued to listen as I made perhaps four or five follow up calls to them over, probably, a two year period all told. Most of those calls were repeats of the first - but each time with more detail, a bit more understanding on my part, more clarity of what I was being put through.
Because I went back to my Ex-DP, time and time again. What do they say? It takes a woman, on average 7 or 8 goes to leave an abusive man for good? And I learned the hard way. And my God, was it hard. Harder than anything I have shared here - and I probably never will share everything I went through on this forum, because I don't want to. It's just too awful. It makes me sick to think of how I was manipulated into behaving.
And after leaving my Ex-DP, finally, for good, it has taken me months to even start to process all that. It is so, so hard, especially at the start when you've got away, you are starting to regain a bit of old ground, you are starting to feel that little bit better, that little bit more yourself - but you still have hope in your heart that maybe he will 'see the light' that he 'will change', that he will realise 'that you are really wonderful', the 'woman he needs to sort him out' and 'you will rediscover one another and live together happily ever after' after all.
I am sure that, truth be told, privately, some of the WA helpline workers to whom I spoke were probably ready to rip their hair out over the choices I was making then, when I, time after time, explained away / minimised / denied my Ex-DP's terrible behaviour towards me. But none of them ever let on that that was how they were feeling. Instead I knew that, come what may, they would be there for me, still listening, still offering advice, still supporting.
And I think that's what Poppy needs right now.
These forums are great - but they have at least two huge drawbacks.
a) we don't get the additional info of tone of voice as we do during a spoken conversation
and
b) we don't get body language as we do during a conversation in person. So we lose so much valuable information that enable us to accurately interpret exactly what a person is really saying.
There is a third drawback too in that we rarely, if ever, get to hear the 'other side of the story', but that's one quite separate - and giant - can of worms which we won't open here...
But the point I'm trying to make is that, to me anyway, Poppy sounds like she is gaining a bit more strength and perspective from doing things with friends and on her own. Great. She sounds like she is doing more things in her own time and in her own way than she was doing previously. Great. She sounds more mindful than she was previously of her Ex-DPs manipulative qualities. Great. She has got the resource of this thread to read and re-read. Great. She does sound like she is a little more in control again. Great.
Yes, she also does sound like she still has not fundamentally let go of her Ex-DP at all (the keeping his stuff in her house, the discussions about counselling, the relief that he's not upset by her going on holiday etc). Not so great. Poppy has not got the perspective yet to see that she's still checking back in with her Ex-DP with regards to so much in her life - because she has allowed him to keep in touch with her and so she is still responding very much so to the plotline that he is setting. But we're only truly free when we fundamentally dump the lines these awful men try to give us and start writing our own scripts from scratch.
Personally, knowing what I know now, I wish that I had run screaming to the hills from the very first moment when my Ex-DP started to leave off the 'love-bomb' mask, and instead show his true, controlling colours. But I didn't - because (knowing what I know now) I was a 'pleaser', I was a 'fixer', I was programmed by my childhood to put up with ten tonnes of crap within an intimate relationship, because I was a hard-working, diligent, dedicated, perfectionist, romantic, self-doubting woman that these sorts of monsters go for every time.
It's so easy to look back and think I wish I'd done this or that. But - and here is the joy! I am here now, typing this, in my own home, on my own, absolutely happy, doing my own thing, confident, relaxed, seeing friends and family when I want to, not dependent on any man (or woman) to validate me as a person worth of respect of love, and confident that I can have another relationship with a much better man, if I want to and probably when I want to.
And I guess I have got to this point on my own journey of plunging down very deep into that ten tonnes of childhood crap - and, acknowledging the whole reality of my relationship with my Ex-DP, not just the edited highlights. Poppy sounds like she is still yet to take that plunge.
And the point I am trying to make through all this rambling: we all have our own paths to tread in our own time and in our own way. And if we are lucky, good people will walk beside us.