Steps on becoming indifferent towards your abuser and trauma (bond)?

whiskey_and_oreos · 2022-02-23T08:03:48+00:00

I think anger is a necessary phase to power you through leaving and cutting ties. Anger is separate and distinct from abuse or violence. Good people don't magically become abusive when they're angry and toxic people know how powerful anger can be so they cut you off from it and discourage it.

After that, it was all therapy and journaling for me. I still need to read Why Does He Do That but I'm not ready for it yet. Things still come up several years later so I write them down to bring up with my therapist. And you're right, talk therapy made things worse for me so I'm doing IFS and eventually will try EMDR. Getting back into my body has been a process but massage and yoga helps.

I'm at a point where I think of him as subhuman. Most people I wish them well but at a distance. Karma/the universe/whatever you want to call it will deal with him eventually.

WhyComeToAStickyEnd · 2022-02-23T08:39:26+00:00

It can only be done when you're truly happy with how life is for you that he becomes too lame to be even thought of, lol. Leveling up and being good for yourself are key. It's not narcissistic because it should be the default. Toss whatever brainwashing/ lovebombing info that he'd placed in your mind away. The selfish him is gone for a reason. Keep it up sis.

Keepers12345 · 2022-02-23T09:23:22+00:00

Here's what helped me go from not knowing what life will be like without him (, all the while knowing that he was the most toxic person in my world and I could never see him the same way after discovering he was a liar,) to being so excited and feeling so free that it is not only like, "who?," "what?," but like truly living that motto, "never again":

Because it was applicable in my case, I was in Al-Anon virtual meetings (via the Al-Anon Family Groups mobile app) every single day for 6 months or so, often at both of the evening meetings. Daily, I cried, talked, and listened about what happened, feeling so hurt, wanting to detach but still thinking of him, etc.

Every time that something happened that made me want to talk to him, such as sharing good or bad news or seeing something related to an old inside joke, I'd cry cry cry while talking about it with strangers.

People just listened. No advice. No replies. In Al-Anon you learn about how to detach.

The more I replaced my unhealthy attachment urges with a safe space where no one expected anything of me, the easier it got to trust that I was welcome and supported on this journey.

I didn't not have have slip ups, but after three months, I was in such a better and freerer headspace. Liberated. The first two months were when I was fighting to detach physically because my stuff was still at his place. I'd pick up stuff and get so triggered stepping back into that toxic space that I'd be sobbing in my car, listening to what others went through.

You know how we share our experiences with LVM here, and it helps us see that we're not the problem? The problem is the abuser. Well, hearing the words and relating so hardcore to what other (mostly) women are dealing with and have dealt with was empowering and enlightening.

I hear women who divorced and detached, and now were dealing with helping their children. I heard from people still living with their abusers. Their trauma bonds were so apparent that it made me stronger. I saw that others have done it, others are doing it (I'm not alone here), and others are still in it. I could and will detach too.

I've literally talked about struggling to detach and that's okay.

Finally, having other women and men private message me a sentence or emoji after sharing, and sending a message to another human in this country and others, reminded me that there is love and joy and there are people out there who share the same values as I do.

Someone PMed me saying, "it happened to me too. Stay strong. You deserve better." I had talked about the biggest of the lies that I rarely could manage to speak about like that. I still remember her. Some amazing woman who was where I was not long ago.

Someone else told me, "you're doing great. Keeping coming back. Love you," and I did keep coming back because I did and do deserve better and I have a whole life to live.

It's better to do hard things today, so we can make it easier for ourselves tomorrow.

Working on leveling up, in my case, involved talkng about it. I could not do it alone. I only see my psychologist weekly. Honestly, my psychologist (even if I could see her daily) couldn't get through to me in the same way as a peer group.

Finally, hearing how much worse it could be (inevitable if I stayed in that relationship) was also what I needed to keep going. My situation was bad, but others knew what I went through. They cheered me on. It helped so much.

Having women tell me what they wish they could have told themselves before getting married, before staying longer, etc was a gift from a future self that I would never need to become.

Love you and thinking of you.

You will detach. Step by step and day by day.

Progress not perfection <3

ChristianeLuiseHegel · 2022-02-23T09:28:54+00:00

I think it helps to be aware of how pathetic these people really are at the end of the day. Unfortunately, the internet has built up abusers, especially narcissists, sociopaths etc., into larger-than-life superhuman monsters with incredible powers of perception and manipulation. It's understandable that when one just comes out of an abusive relationship, or even more so when the abusers were one's own parents, they would appear like that. But in the cold light of day, they are not superhuman or powerful at all - they are weak, childish and thoroughly dependent on other people's energy to survive.

These days, I think of narcissists as junkies: just like a heroin addict cannot function without smack and is willing to do absolutely anything, no matter how immoral or degrading, to get his fix, so an abuser is dependent on his fake sense of power and control. They see themselves as superior, but the truth is, take away their precious 'supply' and they go into withdrawal within no time at all, shaking and wobbling, whining and craving, prepared to say or do anything whatsoever to make the pain stop. They are not superior - they are addicts, and like all addicts, they are ultimately weak and pitiful. Honestly, I don't know how they reconcile being so high and mighty with having such a glaring, obvious weakness, but I guess that's where the delusion comes in - at least your average junkie knows he's pathetic, your average narcissist believes he's a god when really, he's in the gutter begging for a fix.

You have to remind yourself constantly that you are stronger than him purely by virtue of the fact that you are not dependent on other people's energy. On the contrary, you have so much of it that for some time, you could afford to help him feed his habit. You can function without parasitising somebody else's mind, he cannot. You would not miss a junkie who stole your wallet to buy drugs, so why miss a narcissist who stole your love to feed his addiction?

ConstantNurse · 2022-02-23T08:39:16+00:00

Therapy!

Nothing helped me progress through so much hatred, anguish, and grief than having someone to help navigate those feelings. It gave me the strength to heal and repair the areas of myself that were attracting shit people. It helped me establish the best form of me.

And I couldn’t have done it without having someone to help me reflect on the more scarred aspects of myself.

LeastInjury8081 · 2022-02-23T07:55:30+00:00

It helps to learn – from places like FDS or Lundy Bancroft – that patterns of abuse by abusers are so similar it’s like they’re all reading from a textbook

It helps because it makes it less personal to you

littylotr · 2022-02-23T08:12:54+00:00

I got with my abuser at my very worst - I was battling several different mental illnesses and was living with my narcissistic mother who added to the turmoil. I got into the relationship thinking I’d feel loved and maybe that would lead to my healing. It was the exact opposite, he found out about my anxiety and depression and just used all of it to hold me hostage in the relationship, gaslight me and sexually abuse me.

When the healing began, the first thing I did was block and delete all our mutual friends. Keeping in touch with them made me worry that they were updating him on my whereabouts etc and it made me feel vulnerable. I also got a new number because he’d repeatedly contact me with different numbers every month(he did this for three years). Removing myself from reminders of the experience started the healing for me.

I don’t tell anyone that I dated him. I have a right to my own story and refusing to acknowledge his existence makes me feel powerful, and diminishes his importance in my story. All of this also motivated me to move farther away from the person I was when i got into the relationship. Self esteem was the issue, so I engage in activities that keep my self esteem stable. I work out, I have career and academic goals which I focus on and I eat healthy(which is more important than you’d think). Distancing myself from the woman I was has honestly really helped the healing and becoming a better me in general. I have complete empathy for the woman I was but I would never want to be her again. It was a lesson that I learned, if nothing else it has exposed certain parts of my personality to me. I know what my tendencies are, what I need to work on and a keep a check on.

This may sound silly but I also pretend like my experience was a cautionary tale that someone told me. That way I can keep the lessons but also remove my own personal victimhood from it. It takes time to get better - patience, self-preservation and self-love are key.

katiekat0214 · 2022-02-23T15:15:12+00:00

When I was healing from being with my LV first husband, long before I got out, but well before we had that last, final, awful argument, I journaled. This was in the 90s, long before even blogs were a thing, but it helped put things in perspective. I also talked about things with my sister and one or two other close friends that I trusted. I especially talked to them even more when Peter said "don't talk about me to other people". Nah, I'm going to do as I please, and if you do things that make me question you and/or our love, I'm absolutely going to seek outside perspectives and validation.

Yes, keeping busy is essential. I was just reflecting the other day that the short-lived food bank job I had really helped me process the death of my dad, and same thing with all work, processing dealing with any loss, esp that of someone you loved romantically (to shift perspective slightly): you keep busy, focus on other people, other problems, solve problems, gain more mastery every day. It's very helpful. Hobbies also help.

As for becoming indifferent, time helps the most. What also helped to me was writing, honoring my own perspective, without any interruption, without question. Stating the truth as I saw it, in the bluntest, harshest terms possible. Really calling out what he did and its impact on me, and focusing on how I felt, plus my next steps in moving forward.

Breaking that trauma bond is essential, and for me this involved tons of analysis. What did he say, what did he do, how did I react? What can I do differently next time? And always, every single time, it was always about power and control. Reclaiming my power over myself, not being funneled into just one way of seeing and doing things. Realizing what my options are in any given situations. Thinking of contingencies. Coming up with comebacks, and thinking what I'd do physically, up to and very much including walking out, and voting with my feet.

broogaloo · 2022-02-23T17:37:33+00:00

Its been years for me and I still wish I could scrub the memory of him from my brain. I think ultimately the only thing that will help is therapy (not talk therapy necessarily, tried that). I’m not in a place to afford it right now but hope to get there sooner than later.

elainejay82 · 2022-02-23T19:38:52+00:00

It just takes time. I know that is a hard thing to hear while you are healing, but it's all that really worked for me outside of:

Exercise (daily) Journaling Treating myself well

I was fucked up from what happened to me for a while, won't lie. Not being able to sleep no matter how tired I was was the most lasting effect I had since the gremlin would start fights at 1 or 2 or even 3 am with me (intentionally, of course). That was a habit that my body just couldn't kick.

I've really worked on the sleeping and now have a much earlier bedtime like a real person.

Once I got my footing, started feeling better, went through a couple years of discovering every piece of research related to abuse that I could digest, and discovering that it, in fact, was not my fault, I was able to release the habits and pain I had accumulated while with my abuser.

Learning red flags of abusers helped me a lot. Mindfuck tip: They usually reveal themselves in their first few sentences to you.

I started lightly dating with a scrotation once I felt solid enough to do so and I do have to say that being treated worlds better in next relationships helped a lot, but don't do it until you are solid and strong.

There's a light at the end of the tunnel, I promise. I remember walking my dog at the park everyday and crying behind my sunglasses in public. Those days are so far gone for me now that it's almost hard for me to imagine I was in that spot. I sleep well, I eat well, and I do not ever think of the scrote anymore. You can get there too, just go very easy on yourself and be VERY VERY good to yourself. 💜

Also, just a weird thing that helped me. I never use his name for anything. I'll call him anything other than his name. It's helped "remove" him as a person from myself. Just an odd little trick that helped!

Also, absolutely do NOT label yourself as anything. You were abused because an abuser chose to abuse you. It's that simple. Recognizing red flags early on can help you evade this in the future.

There is a lot of trash on the internet about how something must be wrong with you if you were abused, but that's not fucking true. You can find your weaker spots, get strong in your deal breakers, and understand red flags like the back of your hand and that's all you can do, because make no mistake, abusers are manipulative af. It's not ever as clear cut as someone telling you what you can't wear right off the bat, etc. It's insidious pyschological brainwash. And if people ever wonder how we could "not know" It's important to remember the world's worst dictators came to brainwashing the masses with similar techniques.

It wasn't your fault.

FUBARfromLSA · 2022-02-23T14:51:33+00:00

We as women are all very different- yet oddly the abuse is all the same.

As someone upthread said, the abuse is all so similar that it’s like reading from a textbook.

Predictable, terrifying and also kinda boring all at the same time.

It’s not something FDS really talks about but for me personally, I rediscovered my faith and that helped me immensely.

Daily Mass, daily prayer, daily journaling put me in a different place and I’m so much happier.

Ironically it’s something my abuser always shit on too.

dr_mcstuffins · 2022-02-23T17:37:07+00:00

Seeing a somatic experiencing professional 1-2x/week - this is a long term but extremely effective method of healing. I credit 80% of my overall healing with SE. You can learn more about it by reading Peter Levine’s books (I recommend the order Waking the Tiger, In an Unspoken Voice, and then his book on sexual healing). He has videos on YouTube as well. Trauma is stored in the body, not the mind, so talking about it will never treat it. You have to learn to listen to your body’s voice and your own deep inner wisdom. It’s gentle and shouldn’t retraumatize you. I’ve done a lot of CBT and DBT and they are great and very helpful, but they aren’t effective for overcoming trauma on their own. 20 years of CBT can’t match 1-2 years of SE.

Group therapy helps a lot. Pain that is witnessed is pain that can finally be healed. Lots of ways to do this, but find a women’s only group.

If you are haunted by visual flashbacks and nightmares, 1-2 sessions of Rewind Therapy can be life changing. I experienced violent SA and did a single session of this 2 years ago. I kid you not it cured the visual flashbacks and nightmares related to this specific event. They’ve never come back. It completely changed my relationship with the memories and with what the experience meant about me as a person. It was beyond empowering. The psych who recommended it to me has seen over 90% of his patients show significant benefit and relief of suffering/distress from specific memories. It helped having my SE therapist’s help to integrate the experiences.

Consider seeing a shaman at least once. SA leaves more than physical and psych wounds - it leaves soul wounds that modern medicine can’t touch. About 5 years ago I saw one 6 times over the course of 2 years and she changed my life. There are a lot of charlatans out there - you’ll know one is the real deal by the way they look into your eyes. It will feel like they see a galaxy behind yours, like they can see your eternal self. They have huge presence about them - a very, very strong vibe that is undeniable. I did my sessions completely sober, substances aren’t required at all. A proper shaman will drum to go into a trance state.

Constant-Wanderer · 2022-02-23T23:44:48+00:00

I have a few exes who could be considered abusive. The way I got past them was to stop talking about them.

I don’t mean pretend that they don’t exist, I mean that I don’t ask about them, I ask mutuals to not bring them up if possible and don’t tell me gossip good or bad, and I don’t bring them up except to either make fun of the situation or simply refer to them in a story. I also stop naming them, they become “my ex” and nothing more.

If I’m with friends who know the story, I might say their name and pantomime turning my head and spitting. But aside from therapy, jokes, or necessary references, they don’t get my time or energy any more.

This is where “fake it til you make it” is a great rule. You don’t have to BE over them to ACT over them. The longer you fake not caring, the more it will be truth.

Title	Steps on becoming indifferent towards your abuser and trauma (bond)?
Author	Throwawaylikehay
Upvotes	222
Comments	21
Date	February 23, 2022 7:44 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/FemaleDatingStrategy
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/szbqdk/steps_on_becoming_indifferent_towards_your_abuser/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/steps-on-becoming-indifferent-towards-your-abuser.1103386 https://theredarchive.com/post/1103386

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