Zelda - Baby One More Time

[asitis]

It sounds like it really, really hurts. I'm sorry.

Again, please don't beat yourself up on top of the abuse you took for not leaving sooner. You left. That took great courage and great love for yourself. Focus on that accomplishment. The sad reality is that most abuse victims stay and stay and stay. There are many, many reasons for this, including socialization, stigmatization, loss of self-esteem as part of the abuse, lack of options, fear that they will never be wanted again, etc. These are normal. These are not the victims fault. It is part of the abuse. Read that again: it is part of the abuse. As in, not the victim's fault. Society at large doesn't understand this, but those who have been abused and get help and those who help them do understand this.

Is there a women's support group for abuse survivors in your area? I think it would be very valuable to you in addition to the IC to be involved and get the support of other women who can understand and sympathize and help you through this. It is also very valuable to be able to turn your suffering into the basis of helping others in the same position. A lot of healing can come from that mutual supporting and nurturing. You IC can help you find one or at least point you in the right direction to look.

A divorce support group can be a mixed bag and is not really a substitute, as you want women-only at this point (yes there are supportive men, but you won't be able to open up if there is a man in the group the way you can if there isn't, no matter how supportive he is - and there is the whole unhealthy attraction/relationships in that setting that you want to avoid at this point - a nurturing, caring man right now would be too tempting right now & you aren't ready). You also may find both men & women in those groups who don't understand why you didn't leave, which you don't need right now. And, it just won't have the same potential for mutual nurture and support and healing that an abuse survivor group has.

Unfortunately, you're going to have more dreams like this for a while, but they will become fewer and far between, and have less power over you. There still may be a doozy that grabs you even after long time. This is normal too. Just get in the habit after one of having a ritual or routine that gives you some extra care. It is a good sign that you reached out here to share, as that shows you have some good natural instincts to care for yourself. Just come up with something that allows you to take care of the pain when it comes up. Something that allows you to give comfort to yourself and that hurt part of yourself.

I'm also going to recommend two books for you. They aren't on abuse, I'll leave that to your IC. The first is Kristen Neff's book Self-Compassion. She is the leading researcher on how building self-compassion is a healthier thing to build compared to trying to build self-esteem. Self-esteem will grow out of self-compassion, but self-esteem can lead to us being harder on ourselves. She has solid evidence and explains it in an accessible way, but goes beyond to talk about how actually to go about building self-compassion.

The second book may be for a bit down the road, but it is titled Too Good for Her Own Good, by Bepko & Krestan. It is an excellent discussion based on years of clinical practice with women of how most women are socialized in ways that don't allow them to see how they are making themselves or allowing themselves to be miserable. I'd hold off a little bit until you've had some time to get situated in your healing process (maybe a few months), but it will both help you understand why what happened is not your fault and how to make sure that you are addressing some of the social-cultural causes that lead women into treating themselves unfairly and allowing themselves to live a life that doesn't attend to their needs and happiness.

In the meantime, I hope your pain subsides a bit today and you can find something beautiful and wonderful about life and yourself to enjoy!