Discussion (help) letting go of abuse

[Life_and_Death]

it feels like if i were to get over the cptsd ect that comes with abuse that im letting it go. like when youre holding a grudge against someone theres this ball in your chest fueling it, but once you make up its gone and everything is ok. but nothing is ever ok about abuse. to recover feels like accepting it and accepting that i was horribly hurt and people are mean doesnt seem right. forgive and forget, but this isnt something that should be forgiven or forgotten and the whole thing is all tangled up in my brain like a cat playing with yarn.....

how do you feel about it? and please something constructive

 

[Pluto]

Dealing with this sort of situation means facing a paradox: the after-effects of the abuse are lifelong, and yet by accepting this, we are in a position to make peace with it, work around it and be freed of it as much as possible.

First thing: turn your attention away from the abusers. Nothing can be done about the past, and nothing will change other people, so it is a total waste of energy unless you happen to be venting for constructive psychological purposes.

Then there's the internal story of the situation and the emotional responses which feed each other in a hellacious vicious circle. You can see this happening before you in real time. As you say, you cannot accept it. But can you accept that you cannot accept it? This is the glimmer of hope to bring some peace to the situation.

 

[woknows]

it feels like if i were to get over the cptsd ect that comes with abuse that im letting it go. like when youre holding a grudge against someone theres this ball in your chest fueling it, but once you make up its gone and everything is ok. but nothing is ever ok about abuse. to recover feels like accepting it and accepting that i was horribly hurt and people are mean doesnt seem right. forgive and forget, but this isnt something that should be forgiven or forgotten and the whole thing is all tangled up in my brain like a cat playing with yarn.....

how do you feel about it? and please something constructive

I have the same problem and I feel the same about it. It is easy for people who never experienced real abuse to tell you to just let it go and forgive. I guess it would be better, cause it eats you up inside.

 

[timf]

If you look at it like a car accident by a drunk driver, it may help. Feeding hatred can cause bitterness to grow and that can poison your own life. In a way, it is like continuing the abuse.

 

[chloramine]

In my experience it's not a one and done kind of thing. Whether that's forgiveness or just letting go. I have days where I can logically go through why everything happened the way it did and honestly forgive some of the people involved. Other days I wake up and it's all there again- flashbacks, anger, fear, whatever. Sometimes I can't let it go. I think it's a day by day process of wrapping your head around it over and over again.

I'm still flummoxed by people caring. For a few years I had people who did (I don't know if that's the case anymore, but I'm alone and questioning all of that regardless) and even when I got semi used to it, there were still times when it was overwhelming. That's a more positive example to say that we can't adjust once and be done.

Even if we do adjust, the previous experiences don't go away. Which sucks, but it means that the mechanisms you learned to survive will always be there as a fallback in case. In short it's something you have to learn to do repeatedly to whatever extent you can at that moment (which means on some days you can't and that's okay). Over time it hopefully becomes easier and less necessary to do at all.

Also letting go doesn't mean forgiving or forgetting. You can let go while still saying that what happened wasn't okay and that the individuals responsible won't be given the opportunity to do so again.

 

[worst.therapist]

If you look at it like a car accident by a drunk driver, it may help. Feeding hatred can cause bitterness to grow and that can poison your own life. In a way, it is like continuing the abuse.

it's a good metaphor, not so much when you are the one that got paraplegic by the crash

(sorry, it just dosn't make me feel less bad haha didn't want to be rude)

but ye, feeding it hatred won't help

op:

i've been on therapy for somehow 5 years rn, and i can say i deal alot better with it... remembering or talking about it its way easier and don't make me cry as back then..
also guilty and shame are in a minimun level

rn, its just hard realising and wondering how different would be my life if it never happened

like, would i have all those struggle to start/be in relationships? could i be closer to people, and maybe have some intimacy friends? trust issues? my problems wouldn't escalate to a severe depression?

atleast for me, that's whats been corrupting me in the past months

maybe i should stop wondering and start living... well, not so easy as writing

 

[Supersadmommy90]

The hardest part for me is simply the amount of time, energy, in essence, the amount of "me" that got consumed by abuse throughout life and the amount of time spent trying to be reasonable with bpd's and npd's that was really a waste of time trying to make something work that was ultimately only ever going to be destructive to one person, me.

I feel extremely stupid to have lost 15 solid years of my life (my youth) to 2 failed relationships with personality disordered individuals who I now really wish I'd never met, and I have children with both of them.

It's a really empty feeling to have nothing to show for all of the blood sweat and tears. No amazing love story. Just a miserable pile of crap that I have no interest in heaping any higher at age 33.

I just want to enjoy what's left of my ruined life.

 

[hamvil]

I have the same problem and I feel the same about it. It is easy for people who never experienced real abuse to tell you to just let it go and forgive. I guess it would be better, cause it eats you up inside.

I do not think you can really forget or overcome the fact that the people that were supposed to love you (your parents) abused you all your childhood. I am 43 and I still did not.

 

[woknows]

I do not think you can really forget or overcome the fact that the people that were supposed to love you (your parents) abused you all your childhood. I am 43 and I still did not.

I cannot forgive my family either. It is really hard. Parents were supposed to protect you and help you face the hostile world.

 

[ArchmagePrincess]

Forgiving and forgetting people who did horrible horrible things to you doesn't make any sense, if anything I think it's harmful to forgive and forget to the recovery process. Remember the kind of pain they put you through and don't forgive the bastards that caused you so much suffering, and take that knowledge to know what kind of people you don't want around. Hate your abusers because of course they deserve it, but don't let it consume your every thought. Hate them, never forgive them, but learn who to avoid and look towards the future.

 

[Life_and_Death]

Forgiving and forgetting people who did horrible horrible things to you doesn't make any sense, if anything I think it's harmful to forgive and forget to the recovery process. Remember the kind of pain they put you through and don't forgive the bastards that caused you so much suffering, and take that knowledge to know what kind of people you don't want around. Hate your abusers because of course they deserve it, but don't let it consume your every thought. Hate them, never forgive them, but learn who to avoid and look towards the future.

im not going to disagree but i will say that it is unhealthy for yourself. theres got to be a happy medium

 

[avoid_slow_death]

I forgave mine for all the horrible things done and said over the years, but forget? No. I can't forget a lot of things. Believe me, I tried very hard over the years and decades to forget, but I never could.

In the meantime, other traumas that weren't related to that person kept being piled on. It was getting to the point where I was convinced that this is probably all my fault in some fucked up cosmic joke kinda way. Like if I literally never existed people's lives would have been much better. Have compelling evidence for this too.

So forgiveness, sure, if you want to. That's up to you. But forgetting? No. The only thing you can do is hope to find a way to cope with it and hope like crazy that you don't lose that. Because if you do, the hopelessness that comes with that loss is undescribably painful and horrifying....

 

[ArchmagePrincess]

im not going to disagree but i will say that it is unhealthy for yourself. theres got to be a happy medium

I understand it can be unhealthy to keep hating, but in the face of actions abusers have done that are just objectively terrible I think the happy medium is just never forgiving but moving on despite that. Not exactly forgetting what happened but keeping yourself invested in enough new stuff it becomes less painful and anger inducing to remember. For me I still would say I hate my abusers and would never forgive or forget what they did, but I'm starting to surround myself with new people who aren't terrible, and that makes it feel like there's more distance from the past, like it's less relevant to me despite the past being unforgiveable.

 

[woknows]

I understand it can be unhealthy to keep hating, but in the face of actions abusers have done that are just objectively terrible I think the happy medium is just never forgiving but moving on despite that. Not exactly forgetting what happened but keeping yourself invested in enough new stuff it becomes less painful and anger inducing to remember. For me I still would say I hate my abusers and would never forgive or forget what they did, but I'm starting to surround myself with new people who aren't terrible, and that makes it feel like there's more distance from the past, like it's less relevant to me despite the past being unforgiveable.

Moving on and not wasting time thinking about them, but rather finding better people and enjoying your life sounds fine to me. But it is not easy to do. Years of abuse leave deep damage.

 

[Hollowillow]

it feels like if i were to get over the cptsd ect that comes with abuse that im letting it go. like when youre holding a grudge against someone theres this ball in your chest fueling it, but once you make up its gone and everything is ok. but nothing is ever ok about abuse. to recover feels like accepting it and accepting that i was horribly hurt and people are mean doesnt seem right. forgive and forget, but this isnt something that should be forgiven or forgotten and the whole thing is all tangled up in my brain like a cat playing with yarn.....

how do you feel about it? and please something constructive

Ptsd is the survival instinct freaking out because it failed & don't know what to do. You don't need submitive forgiveness, you need empowering hatred. I gave my SI the permission to kill as self defense, it helped me. I kicked out my entire narc family. Decided to stay single. But car accidents & being called a hypocondriac & toxins weakening me with no escape... I'm too tired to fight... My SI is tired... I have no will left. If you do... Give yourself permission to be bad.
Oh and trauma cause a physical injury to the adrenal glands. They burn out making adrenalin to give you the energy to run or fight. Vitamin c, b, magnesium helps repair. I take 4g a day... Theother day even 2g wouldn't calm me after being banned by yet another social service... Fuck it

 

[woknows]

You are taking 4g of what?

 

[hamvil]

I cannot forgive my family either. It is really hard. Parents were supposed to protect you and help you face the hostile world.

My parents were able just to pay for stuff. Besides that they did not prepare me at all for this world. THey just taught me violence and hateful behavior.