It’s ok to feel what you’re feeling. It’s normal. The fact that you are berating yourself for still being in the relationship actually means that you are growing your wings and preparing for flight.
The reality of being an abused woman is that all too often doors close in your face and you have to make the hardest decisions of your life more or less unsupported. Or even if you have some support behind you, you may still be in danger of your life. That’s a far cry from Blair’s experience.
The pace of recovery is way too slow at the start. Besides, you feel too weary to work through the process; you just want to hurtle through the recovery tunnel, like some kind of emotional time traveller, and arrive instantly at the other end. Healed. Whole. Of course it doesn’t happen.
Emotional abuse leaves you feeling like a bottomless pit. You attempt to fill that pit with whatever wisdom, support and information you can garner. And the pit still seems bottomless. Everything seems to disappear into it. Until one day you reach critical mass
There is a cosy belief that lingers that once a woman is no longer subjected to domestic violence the problem is over. Finished. History. Abused women suffer from our very own brand of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) without knowing what it is or if they will ever recover from it. How could they, when they don’t even recognize that that is what has happened to them?
In an abusive relationship your time and your state cease to be your own. Whether or not your abusive partner is with you all the time he casts a long shadow. This is exactly the way he wants it. If he is to have the power over you that he desires, then you must feel anxious on his account at all times.
A lot of women who have found themselves in abusive relationships believe the are not part of the major group. It may be because we are bright, or middle class, or feisty, or financially independent or, you choose…
Healing your heart and getting over an abusive man is really very much easier than it seems.
f I had a dollar for every woman who has ever written to me saying: “I didn’t know you’d been living with my husband/partner”, it would be a nice little earner – sadly. Sure, everyone is different. But abusive relationships are all much of a muchness. There comes a time, usually fairly early on in the relationship, when you get that sinking feeling in your stomach and you think: “This is really wrong. I should walk.” But then you don’t. Many women wait to leave until they know they are at rock bottom. But rock bottom is a moving target. Just when you think you must have reached it in an abusive relationship things get even worse.
In an abusive relationship your heart is systematically trashed and vilified. You walk, or limp away feeling that your heart is worthless because that is the way it has been treated.
And so you put your trust in your head. Because your head must be clear and rational, must it not? That is what heads are meant to be, after all.
Yet your head will not lead you out of the impasse. Such wisdom as you hold in your head stops at the jaw bone or the neck.
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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