How do you trust yourself to make big decisions after escaping a gaslighting partner? It will be a while before i am strong enough to access trauma therapy, probably a year or more, but my safe new home was only ever going to be temporary, and I am absolutely paralysed with indecision about what to do next.
I was driven to the point of illness by raging controlling outbursts that could go on for weeks, with no let up. Even though I knew I was being gaslit, the ferocity, relentless pursuit and absolute insistence that things I had heard and seen and said had never happened left me unable to argue or challenge.
I have now found out that after one incident, involving physical proof that what I experienced was real (I never doubted it) my partner has admitted to a family member that he had lied to them (they had been a witness).
I know that there is absolutely nothing to be gained from trying to understand this madness, yet the trauma of being labelled a liar and a fantasist in front of my children is still raw, as are the memories of fear and certain points over many years where I realised i was unsafe, yet rationalised I should stay.
Contact is infrequent and reasonable, and can be friendly/annoying at worst, but I realised last week that reasonable sounding comments are worming their way in, and that I haven't spotted them initially, as his previous rage is hidden.
I've also had to admit to myself that I am putting off making decisions, due to unease about the reaction and wonder whether should I delay until my youngest child leaves home.
We are separated, yet I am in a position of my own making where I have indicated a return could be possible subject to certain changes (even though my partner has ridiculed the changes and shown zero insight or intention to change).
I'm finding it painful to accept that this is what I have become and allowed to happen, even though I left, informed police etc.
I feel like a wild creature, sheltered but petrified hiding under a hedge, working out how to cross this field without being harmed.