When you’ve suffered abuse will you ever be able to forget it, will I always have negative feelings forever?

[Makeitstop9]

I wish I could turn off my feelings now. I’ve done a lot of research and understand why and how and what etc but I can’t stop living despite it. Im fed up of comparing my life or getting jealous of people who haven’t had to experience it. I know I can’t change it, I know I’d really rather have not had to have experienced it but I also know it’s over now. But my thoughts won’t leave it alone. I know it wasn’t my fault. I know I grew up to think my feelings weren’t important and I know they are now. But I wish they’d (my feelings) would just shut up now so I can enjoy my life.

I have this negative view of myself that I can’t seem to shift.

How can you stop yourself from thinking about it and having negative feelings about it. Will I think like this forever?

To be fair, there's nothing to say you wouldn't have developed this disorder if he hadn't been in your life. I suspect there's element of predisposition involved. Who is to say that you couldn't have gone through another period of extreme stress somewhere down the line that could have triggered it anyway for example.

@Pinkbonbon I can only go by the experience I actually had. It was almost 20 years of extreme stress and then court battles. The consultant has told me it’s a stress related condition.

I undrestand how you feel. You know why you are as you are, but how to you heal, move forward? It is like living with an open wound. It gets knocked and the pain comes back.

I have found EFT tapping helps me shift some very deep seated negative beliefs. I have had therapy too, and keep asking my therapist but HOW do I heal.... I am hoping we get to that bit.

Setraline helpd me too, it doesn't make issues go away but I feel much more able to cope with them and the mental spiralling.

In the meantime, I've found a few books I might read. One is called The Tools by Phil Shutz,

The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk (one of the reviews says Fundamental in understanding how our physical self is connected to all the things we go through and beyond - so this might be particularly useful for you?

How to Do the Work: Recognise Your Patterns, Heal From Your Past and Create Your Self by Nicole Lepera.

The toxic people who hurt us have had too much time living rent free in our heads!

Your thoughts don't matter its your actions that do. Fake it until you make it.

Here is a tapping routine on negative thoughts:

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I have found that the more time since the abuse the fewer the negative feelings.

I'm 4 years on.

They still come. I'll still have an afternoon where I'm pissed off and sad and anxious and remember what happened.

But it's few and far between these days. After I got out it was continuous.

I'd recommend therapy.

I feel I could leave the past behind. I thought that once I’d healed from the ptsd and the intrusive thoughts and the rumination over was it abuse wasn’t it abuse then I’d feel better. But as that books called the body keeps the score. My illness is progressing still. It’s like he has affected my present and my future. He is stopping me enjoying my life, going on holidays, playing with my children. I work one 5 hr shift and it’s takes me a week to recover. I hate that I am now like this. I’m a burden, I’m all the things he used to say I was back then.

When I say he I mean he isn’t physically but that experience, that trauma, my past. I want more out of my life now. Why would my partner stay with me. This illness affects my personality because I’m fatigued, it gets me down. I get scared he will leave and on my own I wont cope with my children and my house and it will all get taken away.

On top of that the guilt for my parter having to put up with this illness effecting his life too because I was abused. He doesn’t owe me a life.

Two things occur to me, as a fibromyalgia sufferer from prolonged stress.

1. fibromyalgia can improve if you can make your days healthier- treat yourself like a baby, don’t get overtired, shut everything down and reintroduce very slowly until you find your limits. They will increase over time.
2. The brain runs on patterns and pathways. Your pathways are all about negative painful things- at the moment. You can make new paths by constant practice. Interupt the old negative paths where you can and do something positive instead- light a candle, do some breathing, apply perfume- something that moves you off the bad path and helps establish a new path.
3. Find a way to express and vent the anger. It’s justified. You don’t need to swallow and absorb it. But vent it where it won’t matter- scream in an empty field, cry in the bath, run, do boxing, smash plates, don’t batter your nearest and dearest or yourself.

I understand.

gogand magog suggests EMDR tapping, and I do too. Or hypnosis. A good one, that is. You may have to pay a bit more but it will be worth it. They can lead you through various visualizations while you are very relaxed, which help desensitize memories. Both of these therapies are used for soldiers after battle.

@AGlinnerOfHope I just don’t know how to rest. I’ve got 2 kids, one is 1.5, no support. I don’t think my in-laws approve of me because of this so don’t offer any help. They need days out and holidays. I go to bed absolutely fatigued I cry most nights, my partner wants to be intimate and I’ve nothing left and I’m sure he’s always disappointed.

Ah, ok, small children is a difficult phase.

For me it’s been about cultivating calm- moments of and also a general attitude of. So while you are engaged and present, you’re also mentally generating a kind of boredom inside.

I agree with the PPs, EMDR etc is excellent.
But what you do in your head and body helps as well.

I understand what you are saying. When I feel physically unwell and feel like I can’t do anymore I tend to go down the route of no one would want me, no body has treated me kindly, my life is crap, it’s going to always be like this, I’ll never get better, I’m a burden, I’m not worth people being nice to me, I don’t want this, everyone was right to not treat me well, every day is just a drag of fatigue, etc etc and I feel so shit.

My illness is like a manifestation of my ex husband. It makes me feel like a burden and he used to tell me I was one. They both take my joy from life away.

@Makeitstop9

I'm an adoptive mum to an absolutely amazing, marvelous young man of 20 who is at university. He is the best thing in my life.
To people who don't know, he looks quite average. He hasn't done anything 'special' just got his GCSEs, gone yo uni. Millions of kids do that.
But I know he could very easily have been another Baby P.

But he's not, he survived and is here living his life. That's what makes him bloody amazing in my eyes and those of us who know what he cames from.
And that's what makes you bloody amazing too. You survived, you are here, you have a loving partner and have created two beautiful human beings. How amazing is that?
My feeling is that you have come here to unburden yourself because it's easier to do in an anonymous forum. I wonder have you ever told your husband how you truly feel? Does he know that you feel like a burden? Does he know about your fears for the future ?
Maybe start with a truly honest conversation with him. And then look for some support in coming to terms with your past- there must be abuse survivors groups.
You will never forget what has happened to you, but there needs to be a way for you not to give your abuser the satisfaction of thinking he has destroyed you and he has won.
He did not win. You did. You survived, you are here, you have people who love you.
I don't know what the answer is for you but I feel there is one.
It feels like your abuser still has power over you. Although he has left you with lifelong consequences, you need to free yourself of him.
I am going to make one suggestion to you though. If you could meet your abuser now what would you say to them? Write it down, then burn it. Include your partner in it.

I wish you all the best and hope you can find peace.

I'm nearly 60 and I'm still processing it.

I only really twigged (or at least admitted it to myself) that I'd had an abusive and strange upbringing around 12 years ago. My mother (who was the main abuser assisted by my brother)died nearly 4 years ago. We're talking golden child and scapegoat type stuff. Frankly I'm still processing it and random memories bubble up to the surface and surprise me.

I think you need to make your peace with it somehow and then it's possible to move on. The memories don't upset me as such, they're just more validation really that it wasn't my fault.

So, I had extensive therapy which helped me to understand that the negative inner critic was an internalised version of my mother. Nothing was good enough. I was lazy etc.

Somewhat Bizarrely, I learned to talk to it, recognise what it was trying to say, and do my own thing anyway.

It’s exhausting fighting that inner critic all the time. And it takes energy and focus from other stuff. It will get better though, as you practise.

Are you in touch with GP? It can really help you get to a place of being able to do the work.

I reparented my inner child, praised her for all the things she does well, gave her tlc on the down days, and encouraged her to try a different way when everything seemed too hard or was going wrong. She slowly grew up and learned to do those things herself so it’s less of an effort for me all the time. A bit of self care is now my normal.

You can do it. There will always be a few cracks around the edges, but you don’t need to be properly in pieces. ❤️‍🩹

@Ted27 I do see him all the time as we share a child. I’ve nothing to say with him, I’m not angry with him. I’m angry with being unwell. It isn’t fair. I’ve so many things I want to do. I don’t want to need help and be a burden. I’m constantly fighting with myself over something I’ve no say over. I hate the fact my in laws think I’m not good enough to be with their son. People think I’m lazy and I hate knowing that.

I’m sick to death of feeling not good enough. And now I’m literally unable to do things that make me feel good enough.

You need to see a therapist, probably a psychotherapist. You won't be able to overcome this trauma on your own.

Probably @RollnRock. I understand intellectually a lot but it doesn’t make anything better. I know I’m worth it, I know I’ve overcome a lot, I know it wasn’t my fault and that my parents raised me to be a people pleaser. I forgive them for knowing no better, it seems to run in the family. I just find the world cold and unfriendly in RL. On the surface people might say they care but it’s not unconditional, underneath they thinking this person is hard work I can’t be doing with that. I think I would be in a better place with some loving support or understanding. I mask in all places of my life and it builds until I feel rubbish.

You can totally get over horrific things but it depends on your mindset. I worked so hard, offered every bit of help available on the nhs and sought out private help too.
I actually ended up totally changing my career and how and where I work to enable me to be outdoors and active as it has proven benefits for ptsd sufferers.

Do I randomly still shake sometimes when something triggers me out of the blue? Yes

But I don't feel broken and I have a happy good life. Many things were taken from me and occasionally I'll have little moment of sadness or resentment but I've built a life i love and I've worked hard to not need medication or feel shit all the time.

We all have our wobbles but if I didn't feel largely great now I'd not stop until I did. You only get one life.

Mentally I’m so much better but my physical body is letting me down. Every morning I wake up with terrible fatigue and pain and I go to bed dreading getting up and doing it all over again. It’s crushing my self esteem and triggering my trauma.

I had some therapy and they said it’s likely c-ptsd.