Abusive relationships can be very painful because they can do a lot of damage to your emotional and mental health. Learn more about relationship trauma and dealing with an abusive partner.
Falling in love is not a voluntary act. Even though you have a list of qualities in mind for what you want your partner to be when the time comes, no checklist is ever checked. You fall in love anyway and while some people fall in love others fall prey! Yes, the prey of a narcissist.
Being in a relationship with someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), you are exposed to various emotional, physical and mental abuse.
Relationship Trauma from a previous relationship
Living in terror and walking on eggshells for fear of being released, you are trapped in the seventh circle of hell. Now you may be wondering why anyone would choose to live in such pain and fear. This is the trick of the narcissist, they don’t let you realize you are being abused, and by the time you realize you are so broken and emotionally drained.
Related: Things I Wish I Had Known Before Falling For A Narcissist
You won’t even know you’re being abused because the abuse is subtle, and it slowly numbs you to the point where you lose self-confidence and the ability to judge what’s best for you. You will not be able to make important life decisions and you will be unable to seek help or escape.
It takes a lot of effort and a lot of time to get yourself out of this abyss, and by the time you think you’ve finally reached the shore, far from the depths of hell, the real nightmare begins.
Related: Narcissistic Supply: How You Provide Necessary Ignition for the Narcissist’s Fuel
Shivering even from touching the wind, I became terrified and weak. Flashback of torture and agony forces you to faint.
When you live with trauma and stress, it leads to depression, more precisely C-PTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder). C-PTSD is the result of persistent psychological trauma in an environment in which the victim believes he is helpless and inevitable.
Even after leaving the relationship, flashbacks of events still haunt you for months. You struggle to sleep at night which adds to your depression and even during the times when you can fall asleep, you wake up shivering from experiencing some painful recurring dreams.
Every time you wake up feeling tired, you don’t want to sleep but you don’t wake up either. You’re tired of lying in bed but don’t want to get out of bed.
When you live with trauma, you are so terrified that even the slightest change in the surrounding environment will frighten you. When any event or thing that reminds you of trauma and torture occurs, you feel dizzy and tired, fist and your heart begins to race.
Your concentration abilities and memory power are severely affected when you live with trauma. You have difficulty trying to remember long phrases and focus on certain tasks.
When you live with trauma, you are in constant anxiety and even the little things start to bother you. You lose your appetite and have no motivation, this is the time when suicidal thoughts start pouring in.
You lose faith in friendship, romance, and relationships. When you live with trauma, it becomes very difficult to trust people and you are always insecure about the ulterior motives behind their actions.
You get to a point where you are only afraid of the man in the mirror – YOU! You shut yourself down. Gone are the confidence and will to face the world, you do not want to go out of the house, and you are too afraid to open up and communicate with people. You are afraid that they will see the pain in your eyes.
Even though you muster enough courage and strength to walk away from the relationship for the sake of your sound mental and physical health, the pain remains. You are far from being well, you are emaciated and numb trying to suppress all the emotions and feelings inside you.
Even after the end of a tragic chapter of your life (relationship), the new leaf is not green, and the new chapter is the same if not more frightening. You have lost the sense of being and trying to ignore and numb feelings do more harm than good.
The magic of narcissists makes you believe that everything you go through is normal and slowly you adapt and endure for so long that when you finally get back to normal, the world feels left out and so do your feelings, it feels like a whole new world and you have no idea how to live in it.
Healing from an abusive relationship
It’s time for you to realize that you can either lie their shattered pity on your condition or focus on healing the injuries you have in your heart that may soon become fatal.
It’s time to not let the past hold you back anymore. It’s up to you to get up and running and get your cool before the damage gets worse and you end up falling into a much deeper hell.
The first step towards your recovery is acceptance, you have to accept what you have been through and what you feel is real. You have to accept that you are emotionally and mentally broken.
I have been cheated, lied to, exploited, abused, and manipulated for far too long. The past relationship was an illusion and you were just prey. The agony was real and now you have lost your faith and your conscience, you are having a hard time trusting people and often even yourself
You need to allow yourself to heal. The damage is deep and you should let him have the time to recover, the pieces will be put back together over time and there is no need to rush. Slowly everything will fall back into place if you jump in faith and let it go.
Even though the relationship was abusive and you hate to love that person or you love to hate that person, the hardest part is that there are some aspects that you still miss, and that prevents you from talking to anyone about the relationship. You have no answer for how you can miss someone who has abused and tormented you for so long.
The main reason for the difficulty in overcoming this type of relationship is the charm of the narcissist. One moment they take you to cloud 9 and the next moment they drag you to hell. You fall so deeply in love with one side of the person that you completely miss seeing the other dark side but when you lose yourself in a whirlpool of feelings.
You miss the person all the qualities you loved and at the same time you fear and hate the dark side. You hate him so much that the mere mention of his name bothers you. This crazy dilemma of loving and hating someone at the same time seems very normal but it is your reality now.
To heal, you must focus on building yourself up. The process is not easy and cannot be achieved quickly. Once you accept it, you have taken the first step to recovery. You need to build new friendships, open your mind and eyes to different points of view, and forgive the past.
There is no point in holding on to something that hurts you to the core.
Another important step when you’re living with trauma is finding someone you can open up to without judging. It could be a friend or counselor who understands the abusive C-PTSD relationship.
Slowly the light inside you will shine again. If you are determined that nothing can stop you, you will rise again. Remember, let it take time there is no hurry. Healing comes slowly, trust yourself.
Related: 7 Signs Someone Is Trying To Manipulate You
And how strange is it to be haunted by someone who is still alive?
You wake up feeling different this morning, feeling something missing. You walk out through this busy page of your life and find that nothing has changed, the songbirds are still singing, the old man is again there on the park bench with his newspaper, the child who is always late for school still rushes to catch him on the school bus.
Your milk bottle and newspaper are on your doorstep as you walk barefoot on the roads and think about what has changed, a gust of wind kisses you, and you are standing frozen! Now you realize what’s missing, something inside of you! You’ve been transported away into a different world again, a world where you hold hands, look into your eyes and smile on your face, moments of heavenly bliss!
peep peep“
Go and die somewhere else, stupid! ‘ shouted the black Honda driver honking behind you.
Another wind of realization hits you and you realize that dreams have been shattered – you will never dream of them again. You lean aside, and your fists and eyes are wet, you know you’re strong, I’ve always been. That cute little girl from the waves of the neighborhood and she smiles at you, a sweeter smile than ever but you see a ghost behind her, he’s gone.
You turn blue but you don’t lose your composer because you’re strong, and you always have been. You feel the vibration in your pocket, it’s your phone. The usual time for receiving morning greetings, today it is not, the screen reads some offers from the service provider. A little hope and a few of you die inside.
The black-headed, light-brown-haired girl crosses the road, it’s her, you know. She screams her name.. she doesn’t respond or maybe she doesn’t hear. You scream louder-
“Hey!! Wait!”
she turns
“Yes” with a confused look.
You feel numb, your throat dries up and you want to apologize but the words don’t escape your mouth, you turn and run, you run as fast as you can but your legs don’t seem to belong to you today and your mind and heart beat faster than your leg and gravity seems to be playing the hardest game on you.
Every day you pray to be back to normal again but deep down you know that this was a one-way journey and there is no going back, this is the new normal. You learn to hide your fears and pain inside. It sticks a lasting smile on your face.
Now you are the happiest person in this world they say, if only they could see the shadow behind them as they talk to you, the face you see in every face that appears before you, everywhere you go. The whisper of the walls and their voice in the wind. You can’t even grieve for the living dead and how strange it is to be haunted by someone who is still alive?
This is what it feels like to live with trauma after an abusive relationship. If you can relate to the article, leave a comment below.
Can PTSD from a previous abusive relationship prevent me from getting married in a new relationship?
Dating or marrying someone after an abusive relationship can be difficult as the person may find it difficult to trust people in the future.
What does PTSD caused by an abusive relationship look like?
PTSD resulting from abusive relationships can be experienced in terms of flashbacks, nightmares, or intrusive thoughts about the person and recollection of the abuse.
Could you be shocked by a relationship?
Abusive relationships can be very painful because they can do a lot of damage to your emotional and mental health.
