So, you’ve left the abuser. Or been discarded and they left you. Either way, it’s done. The biggest most important event that will define the rest of your life. No more abuse, gaslighting, devaluing. All you need to do now is heal, get strong, and rebuild your life, right? Wrong!
As much as I wish that were the case, unfortunately when you’ve been in a relationship with a high-conflict individual, that is most definitely NOT how it plays out. And here’s the kicker…the abuse almost gets worse as you start getting help and telling other people about what happened. Now you are not only continuing to be abused, but sometimes experiencing secondary abuse from a therapist, friends and family who don’t believe you or your experience, and the worse of all, even yourself.
The Abuser
Just because the abuser is no longer physically in your life, the abuse doesn’t stop unless you go completely no contact. And by complete no contact I mean contact information deleted from your phone, email addresses deleted from all email accounts, blocked on all forms of social media, and even no contact with his/her friends and family. Do it quickly and do it quietly. You need all the energy in the world right now to focus on your own survival and healing. Do not leave any window of opportunity open for the abuser or anyone from their circle to contact you to abuse you further, either directly or by proxy. Extreme? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely!! As though your life depended on it. Because it does.
It will be hard. Extremely hard. And you won’t want to do it. You will want to break no contact to see how he/she’s doing. Maybe they regret what happened. Maybe they miss you. Maybe they’re just as miserable and broken as you are. Trust me. They are not. And nothing you see, hear or find out about them will be what you were looking for, or helpful to you. It will feel like you are withdrawing from a drug. And you are. But that is a topic for another time.
Now, if you are able to accomplish this, you are one of the lucky ones. It doesn’t feel like it now, but you are. Because there are some that cannot go completely no contact as much as they would like to.
Whatever the reason for not being able to go completely no contact, implement modified no contact as soon as you possibly can. Modified no contact is trickier, because the line can be blurred very quickly and without even realizing it. Establish boundaries and stick to them. It’s a skill and it takes time to learn.
Find someone who can help you implement and stick to no contact. Find supports to help you navigate modified no contact. If you need Lawyers to get involved in your situation, tell any Lawyer you are thinking of hiring that you have had to significantly limit communication with this person in order to preserve your own mental health. If the Lawyer supports you with this, continue. If they say things like “well the courts won’t look favorably on that”, or “you may want to rethink that” MOVE ON and find someone else.
Expect to continue to be abused even though the limited lines of communication you have had to maintain. The blameshifting continues. The gaslighting continues. In time, (and with a lot of therapy!) you will start recognizing it for what it is, and not internalize it or let it trigger you.
Friends and Family
This one’s a bit more complex. You will want to tell anyone and everyone that will listen what happened to you. How you were treated, how you were manipulated and how you were discarded. You will slowly start to see who you can actually talk to about it and who you can’t. Coming out of an abusive relationship is not like any other break up. You will slowly start to realize who gets it and who doesn’t. And sadly, most won’t. Not because they don’t want to. But because it’s just not part of their reality or anything they’ve heard of or experienced. You may have thought that you had a fairly robust support network. What you will start to realize is that it is not as robust as you thought.
Your support system will start to dwindle, and people will start to fall off because they don’t get it and they won’t know how to support you through it. Or they may have already heard the other person's version of the story and are choosing to believe them. These well intentioned friends and family can unintentionally gaslight you, and that further triggers your trauma response. Hang on to the people that get it and the ones that want to learn about it. Don’t worry about the people that don’t. It’s not your job to convince them of what you are feeling or have experienced. Constantly trying to prove your story to others is traumatic, will make you question your own reality (as if you don’t do that enough already) and will not help you in moving forward or in your healing.
Start being selective about who you tell your story to, or which pieces of your story you tell. This will help you feel less disappointed and frustrated when people don’t believe you, and also minimize what parts of your story may at some point get back to the abuser. You will lose people along the way. That’s just a very sad part of this. Just know that the people who stay are there to stand by you and support you.
Therapists, Lawyers and other Professionals
These helping professionals can also be another source of secondary trauma. Again, not because it’s intentional, but because of lack of awareness of the issue. I will say the same thing about therapists as I did about lawyers above. If at any point in time you feel that your therapist also “just doesn’t get it”, or is encouraging you to break no contact or modified no contact, or asking you to make more of an effort in co-parenting, or even worse, blaming you for the issues, it’s time to find another therapist.
Try your best to find a therapist that is experienced in working with people who have been victims of emotional and psychological abuse. Specifically with victims of personality disordered individuals. Unfortunately, they are hard to find. But so worth it when you do. The advice you will receive on how to navigate the next steps when dealing with a disordered individual from someone experienced in the issue, will be very different from the advice you get from a therapist not familiar with the dynamic. You will likely be confused and be questioning everything. To get questionable advice from a therapist at this point in your journey has the potential to do more harm than good.
Therapists cannot and will not diagnose someone that is not in the room. No matter how certain they might be based on your story that you were with a disordered individual. The even more frustrating thing is that they are also very hesitant to label behaviors, even though there may be a clearly established pattern. Trust your story. If you experienced it as real, then it was real.
Yourself
This one is scary. But as it turns out, gaslighting yourself is a real thing. Hence comes the possibility of you, yourself re-traumatizing yourself. It’s a terrifying thought really, that you could do that to yourself. The reality of it is however that you are likely not thinking clearly, in shock, and so confused that you don’t know what is right or wrong. And with all the people around you questioning the legitimacy of your story, you may begin to question it yourself.
Did that really happen? Was it really that bad? Maybe I’m over exaggerating. Maybe I’m being too sensitive. Maybe he/she didn’t mean it that way. And it goes on.
Start trusting yourself again. You know what happened and you know how it made you feel. You know what you said and didn’t say. Trust your story. You shouldn’t need that validated by anyone.
What to do now
You’ve been through hell. It all seems hopeless. But I assure you it’s not. You will get better. With every day, every minute, every second. Don’t be afraid to reach out for help. Take care of yourself. Eat well. Try and sleep, if you can. Take time to focus on your own health and healing. Above all, be KIND to yourself. You will move past this. But it will take time. And a lot of hard work. But it will get better. You are not alone. Build your army of supports around you. People you can trust and who believe in you. You’re going to need them.
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