Month: May 2008

‘Clean pain’, is the pain of an actual event, and ‘dirty pain’, is the suffering we generate for ourselves inside our own mind. When you are at rock bottom, it is easy to transition from ‘clean’ pain to ‘dirty’ pain. ‘Dirty’ pain occurs when we start spinning a ‘story’ for ourselves around events. ‘Dirty’ pain is generally harder than ‘clean’ pain to deal with.

By entering into an abusive relationship you signed a contract to believe all the bad things that your partner says about you. Sure, you signed that contract unwittingly. But still, by virtue of staying in the relationship you have honoured it. And I don’t have to tell you that there are absolutely no limits to the negative things that an abusive partner will say about and to you.

Happily, that has changed for her and for you. The fact that you are reading this now shows that you now think carefully about the nature of abusive relationships and have access to the information that you need to recognise and avoid them

As all abused women are well advised to learn, feeling hopeless and worthless leaves you very vulnerable to more abuse.

Inevitable harm happened to you in the past because you couldn’t know that it would, inevitably. It was never your fault, it was simply inevitable. There’s no point in blaming yourself for what you could not have prevented. There is every point in ensuring that you never risk finding yourself in that position again.