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.
The first major glitch occurred a few months into our relationship. Before then he had put me on a pedestal, (although he was less charitable about other people). Then one day, out of a clear blue sky, he became very angry and accusatory.
An abusive relationship leaves you feeling utterly powerless. (It’s funny, isn’t it how an abusive partner does his level best to exclude all laughter from your life?) The tools for starting to reclaim your power are so small, so seemingly insignificant that you may have overlooked them for years. But they still work.
I was having a conversation with an old friend. The conversation was lacklustre and so were
we. For different reasons both of us
were struggling with a profound sense of loss.
Any sense of loss, as we all know, feeds into every sense
of loss we have ever known.
So there we were, two talented coaches struggling with our
own baggage. […]
At the start of a relationship you try – haven’t we all tried? – to make another person whole.
Underpinning our effort is the belief that by making another person whole we too will become whole.
Increasingly, I believe that the start of a relationship is a kind of sales negotiation. Of course that is not the way that most women see it. Normally we do not need too much persuading as regards the item of clothing or the man. It, or he, only needs to strike a chord or two with us, for whatever reason and we are gone, all critical faculties thrown to the wind.
Between having a victim identity or no identity, the victim identity has to be preferable.
Over the next 5 days, I'll send you some lessons and tips that I've found have really helped women to heal from narcissistic abuse. Starting with the basics.
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