Thanks @Menora, @NoBloodyFighting and @Whatdoidowithmylifenow I'm afraid I'm going to get a bit rambly myself in the spirit of helping maybe ? I'm not a professional and I think the best source of help is with someone trained in these things.
I think those moments of deflation when you've been back in contact with an ex- that abused you are going to make you doubt yourself with respect to relationships. Those feelings of shame; what you put up with and why you put up with it rise up. Will you do it again the same way ?
I try to have a friendly and compassionate relationship with my ex- mainly for my sons benefit but that does mean I have to suppress quite a lot of stuff. It feels unfair that she gets free reign to do or say things that are pretty terrible while I maintain neutrality. My DS said to me the other day "mum says you only took me to get toys when I was little to make me love you". When you hear that your child's memories are being undermined like that, it kills you - never mind the contempt it carries for you.
My way of dealing with it has been to recognise rather than demonise. She's someone in a lot of pain, it's very clear in the way that she lashes out at other people's happiness. And I think to myself what a horrific thing to have to live with. On the other hand I have to live with myself and understand how much absorption of this I can undertake safely.
I've been learning much about what my default mode is (being blocked, tensing and freezing mentally, shame) and how it really goes back a very long way. This has gone some way to enabling me to step back a little bit from those feelings of retreating and downgrading of myself. I get a favourite bit of music lined up to blast out and switch myself out of it or knock out a run in a nice place - to both distract and get present with myself again.
That deals with the symptoms but not the root causes. I've alluded to some of this in previous posts but never really gone there, because after all, this is a dating thread. And, some of these are things I've not told anyone. I'm starting to get them out now and it is helping, lots. It's intensely personal stuff and please don't read on if you are remotely triggered by abusive behaviours.
I emerged into adolescence in a house where my mums underwear was inspected when she came home from work by her affair partner. The repercussions of this were carried out in plain sight. I had to stop him from strangling her one time. There were several other awful nights of violence and upset. Then come the morning we carried on as normal. Everything was undisclosed, unaccounted for, internalised and hidden in the cold light of day. Make no mistake, I recognise it was disgusting abuse and even now it turns my stomach to think of it. I left home as soon as I could and feel ashamed that I did even though it came with my mum and sisters blessings. But that is, I think, where it happened, where my fallback behaviour was formed. It has impacted me at the most intimate of times in a relationship, with a tension that forms when very intense emotions are involved or something takes me back to those times.
All I ever wanted was to be better than everything I experienced when growing up; that made me the tryer, the giver in relationships and I ended up with someone that gave me endless rope to hang myself with. I understand completely @WhatdoIdowithmylifenow that feeling of not being good enough when someone repeatedly tells you over years and years, nope, try again, and once more, with contempt. The women I was with in previous relationship (post ltr) had the same feelings that she wasn't good enough and when we broke up I asked her to consider what she needed to do to feel good enough. It wasn't enough for me to say it to her; she couldn't take that compliment from me.
In some ways I wish I could just put myself out there on something like Fab and admit "I doubt that I can manage a relationship, but I'm fit, healthy, harmless, without any bad intentions and I need to soothe and be soothed" but I think this may be another way of hiding things away and denying myself (and someone else actually) a really decent loving relationship. And then on the other hand I think that it might be a way of de-sensitising myself and dissolving these tensions. I don't know. I don't have any niche needs and when I've had a look at these sites they don't seem to take into account being valued and valuing someone else. I know there are exceptions, many found on this thread, but it feels disproportionately transactional. I can well imagine that it will only enhance the feeling that people are saying things only to get what they want. In my experience the people who turn it around and ask what it is they can do for you are few and far between.
I understand too the compliments thing. It's not just doubting the sincerity. It's reconciling with your view of yourself. Just the act of making the comparison is a small moment of self-confrontation. For me I always carried an attitude of that was then, this is now, I'm only as good as the next thing I do and find it impossible to take pride in anything. Compliments fuck with that relentless forward looking.
As I said up the top of this increasingly long post, I feel that these thoughts have got to be worked through with a professional that you feel comfortable with. I've found the less I've dated recently, the more these feelings have been working their way out and that in itself gives me the big hint that dating has been a diversion from the real matters at hand.