Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Relationships

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

Flip

1 2

Original poster

I don't actually remember a lot of his abusive behaviour

34 replies

JustRemembering · 04/01/2021 09:54

It's strange - 20 years of barbs, but the specific incidents just meld into one feeling of being constantly on edge or unsafe.

But the other day I was chopping vegetables and suddenly remembered that he used to 'jokingly' brandish a knife at me sometimes.

He used to 'jokingly' push me into things. He used to 'jokingly' call me names and belittle my efforts at everything.

I woke up this morning and felt anxiety, the fleeting tendrils of a dream still pulling at my memories. I had to say to myself, "you're safe now, you're safe." And I felt better.

It's strange that I don't remember specifics, isn't it? It's been nearly 2 years since he lived here.

OP posts:

StrictlyAFemaleFemale · 04/01/2021 09:58

I dont think so. Its probably your brain protecting you. Also worth remembering that we dont remember normal mundane stuff and if that was your normal, it wont stick out in your memory.

Original poster

JustRemembering · 04/01/2021 10:15

Yes, that makes sense. It was just normal, I couldn't really tell what was wrong for years, just that I was unhappy.

OP posts:

LaBellina · 04/01/2021 10:22

Probably what @StrictlyAFemaleFemale says about it being your normal.
And in order to mentally survive these kind of toxic relationships, we can't keep thinking about what happened for too long or else we 1) can't keep ourselves safe for any upcoming threats and 2) if we do admit to ourselves that what was happening is horrific and we're in danger, we have to leave the relationship and very often women are too scared to do this.
So we brush it under the carpet in our minds. It's simply put a survival strategy.

Original poster

JustRemembering · 04/01/2021 10:33

Yes, I definitely had an awareness but I kept pushing it down and waving it away, until he got so violent I couldn't ignore it. He forced me to act, which in a weird way was a good thing. Terrible of course, but at least I finally left him.

OP posts:

StrictlyAFemaleFemale · 04/01/2021 10:43

Hell yeah you did! < Victory dance >

Original poster

JustRemembering · 04/01/2021 11:01

OP posts:

Designateddiver · 04/01/2021 11:05

Perfectly normal, things remind me sometimes, for example something on a soap opera, and I think he did that and it's often huge and I had forgotten it! Definitely think it's self preservation

Danu2021 · 04/01/2021 11:14

This is normal. The very same defenses that protected you from losing your mind while you were there are the barriers to working out exactly how you were impacted.

Before I read that in some dusty book, I knew it instinctively. To me it felt like an anaesthetic that got me through the days but prevented me from action and growth and recovery.

Danu2021 · 04/01/2021 11:15

@JustRemembering

I know what you mean. I remember feeling that it was a good thing he was so so so so so awful because if he'd just been averagely awful I would have stayed.

Sally2791 · 04/01/2021 11:18

It is self preservation. I “normalised” all sorts of crap. He could get me to apologise to him, when he had for example, chatted up another woman. Be so very glad you have escaped and are safe. Being safe is probably why your mind is allowing you to go over things now.

Original poster

JustRemembering · 04/01/2021 11:19

@Danu2021

This is normal. The very same defenses that protected you from losing your mind while you were there are the barriers to working out exactly how you were impacted.

Before I read that in some dusty book, I knew it instinctively. To me it felt like an anaesthetic that got me through the days but prevented me from action and growth and recovery.

Yes, I actually feel like another layer has been peeled away recently, and I'm getting down into further recovery that I didn't know needed to happen.

It's a bit overwhelming, I try not to dwell on it too much, because I think a lot of healing can happen without pushing too hard. I'm seeing a therapist too, though.

OP posts:

HmmSureJan · 04/01/2021 11:20

Sometimes I scroll back through emails he sent me or posts I made about him on a small FB group I am in with good friends and I am shocked because I had forgotten some of the most dreadful things he said and did. I think my brain has suppressed a lot of what happened because it was my "normal" at the time so not worth embedding as a "memory".

Original poster

JustRemembering · 04/01/2021 11:20

@Sally2791

Yes, I think so, too.

The amount of shit I apologised for!

OP posts:

LaBellina · 04/01/2021 11:23

@Danu2021

This is normal. The very same defenses that protected you from losing your mind while you were there are the barriers to working out exactly how you were impacted.

Before I read that in some dusty book, I knew it instinctively. To me it felt like an anaesthetic that got me through the days but prevented me from action and growth and recovery.

This really hit home. I was in an abusive relationship for nearly a decade and I grew mentally more in the year after I left then in the nearly a decade before....

Original poster

JustRemembering · 04/01/2021 11:26

Yes, it's like I suddenly woke up, and could think and live again.

OP posts:

Mrsjayy · 04/01/2021 11:30

Trauma memory loss is your brains way of protection so you are. Not remembering incidents but experiencing feelings. Children who.are neglected/abused have these experiences too. I hope you manage to work through this

HmmSureJan · 04/01/2021 11:36

Trauma memory loss is your brains way of protection so you are. Not remembering incidents but experiencing feelings.

Years of reading and therapy and that's the most straightforward explanation I have seen. I suffer severe panic disorder but cannot pin point triggers. From that explanation it seems I am being triggered to have them by things I cannot actually remember.

HereIAmOnceAgain · 04/01/2021 11:40

Self preservation. DH fairly low level emotional abuse, walking on eggshells. Sometimes I'll read something on a post and it'll trigger a memory of something he did or said that I'd forgotten. Unfortunately the brains self preservation mode makes it very hard to hang onto just how bad things are. Makes it harder to leave.

Original poster

JustRemembering · 04/01/2021 11:43

Unfortunately the brains self preservation mode makes it very hard to hang onto just how bad things are. Makes it harder to leave.

Yes. The signs were there from the very beginning, really, but toxic family life normalised his behaviour all the way through, so I ignored and ignored until it became impossible.

OP posts:

Santaisironingwrappingpaper · 04/01/2021 11:44

Every year I make it a goal to buy a cutlery tray.. Left abusive dh in 2007 and still can't have one.
Our house would be chaos - my fault obviously - he would be ordering me and the dc around while he stood tidying the cutlery tray. Defiant me keeps it messy these days. Strange things stick while seemingly worse ones are forgotten. The brain is a strange thing op..

Chesneyhawkes1 · 04/01/2021 11:46

I think it's normal. I only really remember the shocking things he did. Things you couldn't ever forget. But even those things my mind has locked away really.

All the "little" things that went on day to day I've forgotten. But sometimes something will make me remember.

If I actually sit there and think about it all, it's like it happened to someone else and not me.

frazzledasarock · 04/01/2021 11:47

It's your body's way of shielding you from trauma I think.

I can't remember most of my first marriage, it is really a massive mental block, and the immediate years after the marriage broke down and the epic divorce process. I have about fifteen years of patchy memory at best of my life.

Sometimes I will come across an old email to my best friend where I describe an incident that I had completely forgotten. My friend provided me with a statement during my divorce and I'd forgotten most of the incidences she described.

I think it is better for me not to remember, it only upsets me/makes me regret having stayed married and I wish I had left sooner.

AdventureCode · 04/01/2021 11:48

Theres a saying that goes, you may not always remember all the nasty things someone has said to you, but you always remember the way they made you feel.

Mrsjayy · 04/01/2021 12:03

Trauma memory loss is your brains way of protection so you are. Not remembering incidents but experiencing feelings.

I'm pleased it helped you im not an expert but I've been on a few courses that are about trauma usually involving children but it relates to all trauma if that makes sense,

Danu2021 · 04/01/2021 12:12

yes, i get triggered now by my parents not allowing me to have my own experience. I only remember the incidents (some of them) from when I was about 16 and pushed back occasionally so it's not like I remember the trauma of being gas lit but now when I tell them how I feel about them calling me paranoid and they say ''we disagree'' I get so triggered.

Flip

1 2