Dom Violence I'm really struggling - lonely & sad without abusive ex. how long is the grieving going to take?

[Deleted member 34561]

Oh Slushie I've only just read this hun I'm so sorry :( I had no idea you were struggling with the same thing I am too:( I am in exactly the same boat as you love recovering from a 23 year long abusive relationship with the father of one of my kids. I too know the loneliness you feel and the sorrow and grief and tears. I had a bad Easter weekend too even though I got some great news about the kid I had with my very own bastard and it looks like I'm moving soon. I was still wiped out with the emotions of loss trauma and fear of a lonely pain filled future and old age :( and unlike you I don't even have a counsellor yet to work through these horrible feelings with so you're more fortunate than me in that regard. So please do make the most of her my lovely I'm sure she wouldn't judge you negatively for telling her just how rotten you feel. Or thinking you're weak. She needs to know how you really truly feel so she can help you darling. How can she support you if you're no honest with her? I know like me you've probably been bottling all the hurt your ex caused you inside for years. It can be so hard to reach out and trust someone especially in real life when for so long you've had nobody to talk to who would understand. I know I never trusted any myself I too was worried what people would think of me if I told the truth of my life. Would they reject or abandon me or look down on me because I put up with my ex for so long hoping against hope things would improve whilst being disbelieving at the same time that he'd hurt my kids one of whom was his own, as well as me? Those were my very real fears but in the end I realised that getting free of my bastard staying free and rebuilding my life was far important than what other people might think of me. Your counsellor absolutely will not think bad of you Slushie I promise you :) if anything she will admire your strength and courage and self esteem for getting shot of your bastard. She's probably just waiting for you to open up to her you know? And what makes you think she's trying to hurry you along with sharing your true emotions with her? Is that really an accurate assessment of the situation or your fear that she won't be patient with you or give you the time you need to feel ready for that next and very important step? Perhaps like mine your bastard was very impatient and pushy and perhaps you may be projecting how he was towards you onto your counsellor? I don't know Slushie I'm just trying to help you think about things in a different way so you can move forward with this and not think your counsellor is the 'enemy' when really the 'enemy' was your bastard ex and now the 'enemy' could be your distorted perception of your counsellor due to the left over fear inside you from your ex' abuse of you. I'm only making suggestions that I hope will help you Slushie please disregard them if they don't make sense to you love. And please don't take it the wrong way. I know I was frightened and suspicious of everyone when my ex went. Even so called 'helpers'. But your counsellor has your best interests at heart darling. Not everyone is nasty like our exes. I think the facts are friendly regarding your counsellor Slushie and it would be safe for you to trust her. Not only that but it will most definitely benefit you. Sometimes we have to take a leap of faith if we want to change grow and heal. Please try Slushie you may well find you're pleasantly surprised if you do :) bless ya ((((hugs))))) love Boudicca xx

 

[Deleted member 34561]

Oh I meant to say that projection or transference of your past fears onto your counsellor is absolutely what should be happening in your sessions with her Slushie. Then when you identify them you can work through them with your counsellor discover the roots of them yank those roots out and grow something more hopeful realistic and positive there instead. So please don't beat yourself up or criticise yourself for doing what exactly is a normal part of your therapy with her. I wasn't criticising you either sweets. Remember the opposite of love is hate. Under the hate is fear. Please try to replace the fear with love. Love of yourself because when you love yourself you can then give love and also receive it from other people. I know what you're talking about when you say you were very codependent with your ex. I was with mine too and he infantilised me too as did yours to you. The core of codependency (and also addiction) is the wounded inner child. This is the part of us we must both work on if we want to recover from the abuse. I'm no expert obviously but one book which has really helped me in this regard is 'Homecoming' by the late great John Bradshaw. I highly recommend it. Basically you grow yourself back up and learn to reparent all your inner wounded kids. Your counselor is in a sense also reparenting you. Please let her in Slushie and help her to help you :) bless ya darling B xx

 

[Deleted member 46349]

Hi Slushie,

I left my ex 3 years ago after a very life threatening an abusive decade. The reason I believe we all leave is because life became too unbearable living with someone who either could not or did not grow like we did.

Its like they chose to stay in Kindergarten and we chose to move onto grade 1 then 2 then 3 etc. By continuing to live with that person we made them feel bad by them choosing to stay in Kindergarten while we chose to continually educate so to speak.

Truthfully I loved my ex and still miss the good times we had especially at the beginning of our relationship (24 years married pre divorce) but Ive grown considerably while in my view she has not.

I mention this because you will always love the great times you had if you're truly honest with yourself. Its normal to therefore miss those good times, but you have grown incredibly apart and cannot un-grow yourself.

Loneliness is really a stage of graduating Kindergarten or whatever grade and having a difficult time finding the next grade and class to attend.

I personally believe we are not meant to live alone but we are all meant to have certain times alone as we grow out of each group searching for the next.

Sitting by yourself is a perfect space to decompress (time alone), but feeling lonely means its time to actively look for the next group or people or individuals to start associating with.

Remember that striking up a friendship with someone or going on a date etc doesn't mean you're walking yourself into lifelong relationships.

The best place to be alone is in your home away from others but the worse place to feel lonely.

Coffee shops are good places to say hello to others on a moments notice, churvhes (even if you're not religious) and other group chatty type spots.

Great relationships can come more quickly or slowly but first up is meeting others, enjoying each others company and doing so in ways that makes you feel good about yourself.

You can do it. I know you can.

One last thing. I noticed you saying something about not wanting yo tell your therapist something because you felt she wouldn't want to hear what you had to say.

One of the most important things you can do is follow your feelings. And by that I mean change who you associate with... in every aspect of your life.

If the relationship you have with anyone for any reason doesn't feel right to you leave that relationship and go find one that does.

Its so important for you to realize that you are the most important person in your world and the only way to know that is to keep yourself surrounded with people that support you, applaud you, encourage you and make you ferl great about yourself 1000% of the time.

Try not to get into your old habits of contorting and guarding what you say to uphold a relationship woth another including therapists.

That's what got me into trouble with my ex. Aka doing whatever it took to keep the relationship together thereby losing myself.

Best wishes. You can do it. Sending lots of love and light.

Blessings.

 

[Slushie]

Thank you Boudicca and Rob for your replies, I have been overwhelmed again lately but your messages are so helpful and I'm so grateful to you both for taking the time to help me here.

I'm just trying to do a lot of self care and it's hard.

With regard to my therapist, I feel like there is transference but I am struggling with it, I am not sure what I'm meant to be doing, I mean, I understand the idea of her reparenting me and everything but I feel weird about it.

I think a relatively new person being so kind to me is, makes me feel weird, like, she's basically a stranger and in general I'm not used to people being kind to me, genuinely kind, and I know that I have trust problems.

OK, I'm struggling with my words and thoughts again.

But thank you both, I really appreciate your messages.

 

[Deleted member 34561]

Oh Slushie I'm so sorry you're still struggling. Don't worry about the transference thing with your therapist hun or what you're meant to be doing because it's a process of learning and your therapist is specifically trained to be able to deal with that plus any counter transference she may be experiencing where she projects her own stuff onto you. She will have supervision from a more experienced therapist to help her deal with that (or she should have, it might be worthwhile you asking her if she does have it or not, any good therapist worth their salt has). Please try not to worry about whether you're getting it 'right' or not and please try to trust the process and let your therapist guide the way.

I know it's hard to trust anyone after what we've both been through hun but we have to start somewhere and believe that the people trying to help us have our best interests at heart not like our former abusers who were selfish. I also know how hard it is to trust people who show us kindness and whether it's genuine or not. Or whether it's just manipulation or coercion like what our former abusers used it for against us. I would say it's a fairly safe bet (lol) that your therapist is a truly caring person or she wouldn't even be doing the job she does darling. OK she's getting paid for caring for you (that might be a sticking point for you) (it was for me when I had a private counselor 4 years ago) but it usually is a calling or vocation thing for therapists and they do the job because they want to genuinely help people like you and me. Obviously there are some unscrupulous therapists who are either only in it for the money or they are on some kind of ego or power trip but in my own experience those are few and far between.

All I can advise is to try to trust your feelings about people (therapists or not) and to not let past experiences muddle the waters so to speak. I know we both had bastards in our lives before who told us repeatedly that our feelings were not real. They were just lying Slushie. My own feelings were screaming at me the whole time that I was in danger and the situation I was in with my ex was all wrong and he was telling me I was crazy and imagining that things were worse than they really were. But it was a con. So he could keep me confused and scared so he could keep control over me.
I wish I'd trusted my intuition and acted on it back then but I'm learning to do it now. Alright I don't get it right every time but for the most part my feelings are not steering me wrong anymore. I try to stay present and in the here and now as much as I can possibly manage and I keep telling myself over and over that the danger has passed because I'm not being abused by my ex anymore and I'm safe now. Seems to be working for me love so why don't you give it a go too? You've got nothing to lose but everything to gain just by the very act of trying :)

Not everyone is cruel and nasty like our exes Slushie. I know it's so hard to believe that especially if you are anything like me and I experienced a lot of abuse from other people before I got involved with my ex especially people in my birth family. Again I would urge you to take a leap of faith but if your feelings are still telling you someone is dodgy or negative even after you've established its not your past clouding the issue then pay attention and be discerning and above all keep yourself safe love. I hope this advice helps you :)

Keep up with the self care stuff too Slushie it's so important to be nice to ourselves and to look after ourselves when we're going through this stuff in therapy. And don't feel ashamed about being reparented by your therapist please. It's not your fault or mine we had shit childhoods and shit partners as adults because of how we were brainwashed and programmed growing up is it darling? We're not weak or babies or childish for needing someone to nurture and love us back to health and maturity just because we got stuck or our psychological development was arrested as kids. We're just human Slushie.

And through recovery we eventually internalise that nurture that care that love shown to us and demonstrated by the therapist and then learn to parent ourselves :) just please be patient with yourself and the process hun and one day before you even know it you will be thinking feeling and responding to life's problems big and small in a much healthier way :) hang in there love it will get better I promise you :) ((((hugs)))) if you want them love B xx

 

[Slushie]

Thank you (((Boudicca))) your right, she's got a supervisor and she is a caring therapist, she just needs to let me go at my own pace, I am ill this week and I won't see her now for 2 weeks. My ex wasn't All bad and this is a problem, I have found myself missing him several times this week and crying about him not being here. Little things like having him hold my hand.. I don't want to miss him at all. It's so hard and confusing.

 

[Slushie]

My therapist acknowledged how difficult it will be to recover from this. Only thing is, I realize I have an extremely tough and lonely road ahead of me. I'm so darn lonely especially. I hate this.

 

[littleoc]

Think of it as a transition into becoming healthily independent?

But everyone does need to socialize and feel needed. I can't remember -- do you have pets?

 

[Whirlwind]

Only thing is, I realize I have an extremely tough and lonely road ahead of me. I'm so darn lonely especially. I hate this.

I'm sorry and I understand. Truly. I am 100% alone so I don't say this lightly.

But there are things you can do to help. I am just now reading your post so I don't want to repeat what others may say but start a plan of sorts.

Coffee shops are good places

I do this often. Its great. I go to the park, I do small talk with folks in the grocery. I offer a hand to help some one here or there. Small things but the contact makes me feel better and I've had some surprisingly sweet exchanges with strangers.

It hurts I know this intimately but you can do it. And it gets better, slowly but surely. Just don't stay "stuck" in a routine where you aren't around people. I remind myself often to not do this and stay vigilant. Self care of sorts.

Best, Whirlwind

 

[Slushie]

Think of it as a transition into becoming healthily independent?

But everyone does need to socialize...

Thanks I'll try to look at it this way. I can't really afford to have a pet currently unfortunately. I know it's human contact I desperately need though.

I'm sorry and I understand. Truly. I am 100% alone so I don't say this lightly.

But there are thing...

Thanks whirlwind, love your name by the way I will try, I have become so reclusive, I will keep on pushing myself to get out there.

 

[Whirlwind]

I can't really afford to have a pet currently unfortunately

One idea if you like having an animal around....I foster animals from the local humane society...they give me all of the supplies, toys, food.

It is a perfect balance for me as I can't commit permanently.

As for getting out...MAKE yourself, just something small. I didn't have a great week and I forced myself yesterday and had some idle chitchat....and I felt better. Always do.

All the best, you can do it, we all can :-)

Whirwind

 

[Slushie]

Thanks @Whirlwind, sorry for the late reply, I am grateful for your advice and support.

I have been impossible lately and feeling utterly useless and hopeless, I told my therapist, including told her I've been having suicidal thoughts and she was supportive. Sadly though, I still have the thoughts (no intent to act on them though), I absolutely hate feeling this way, and end up just sobbing silently on and off with very little rest in between. My entire soul, being, heart and mind.. All.. just feel completely broken from everything that's happened. I am so angry too, I am completely raging with my ex now but hate wasting my energy and time hating and grieving. I feel like no one really understands what this is like for me. It's horrendous

I feel so lost.

I probably already said this but I knew it would be difficult, just not sure I imagined it would be this difficult?

But I wanted out, wanted to not let my ex break me any further, I wanted to survive.

So I survived.. So far.. But still worry of coming across my ex outdoors, still have all that fear. And.. Feel my soul is not the same, it feels like it's being ripped out of me.

I'm full of hate, fear, sadness, I don't want to feel this way any more.

I thought maybe I was stronger than this. I'm so annoyed with myself.