Childhood Abuser moving back to my town

[Carlycat]

Hi there
I found out yesterday that my main abuser is moving back to town and it has thrown me completely. I feel sick at the thought.
For years he has lived further away and because of his mental health problems he struggles with public transport so I felt safer that he would never turn up. Now he will be close enough to walk to my house and he will want to be more involved with the family once he is here.
I am very scared of him and I don’t know how I’m going to deal with this. I am trying to tell myself that we are both older and I have more ability to protect myself now but it’s not helping. I had nightmares all night when I did get some sleep and he’s not even here yet.
Any advice on this would be helpful. I woke up thinking that I need a plan to leave town and just get away but I have a house and a job here.
Thanks for listening.

 

[shimmerz]

I have been dealing with this type of thing for quite some time. It was helpful to me to visualize my seeing my abusers (there are more than 1 for me and they all live close by relatively speaking). While pretending I was seeing them (say walking down the street) I would try to imagine how that would feel. What expression I would have on my face. How I would react if they approached me.

That was actually the problem I was having. I hadn't actually thought about what I felt about them. How I would portray myself if I were to run into them.

Any thoughts on how you feel about what this person did? Disgust? Contempt? Indifference? Like you want to punch him betwen the eyes?

That, for me, was a good start.

 

[Carlycat]

Hi shimmerz
Thanyou so much for getting back to me. I have been so up and down with this last few days and have been trying to think about what you said.
The person is a family member. I am torn between understanding that he needs support and just wanting him to be far away. I am worried that he will start to harass me and this could turn to violence.
I am very uncomfortable with him and when I have seen him briefly over the years he has often started up the same paranoid stuff he used to do and I have had to leave because it was getting dangerous.
I did talk to my counsellor about this. That I still feel a lot of fear about him. It is going to be difficult to balance spending time with family members without seeing him or making him get paranoid that I am avoiding him.
Other people in my family seem to have been able to move past what he did but I am still quite stuck. This is because I was the main target of his abuse and have not, until recently, acknowledged how badly it affected me. I am just getting to the point of being able to discuss the effect this had and now I feel unsafe again. I don’t want this to put me back in terms of recovery. It’s really bad timing.
I am trying to tell myself to wait and see what happens. Worry if and when I need to but as my counsellor said, it is hard to ignore fear.
Thanks for listening and have a good day
Kaz