Make sure you are ready…

A lil quote I shared a couple of years ago.

We know when we are in a toxic relationship. We might not know when it starts out, but eventually there can be no denying.

Others often notice the dynamic or we share our situation.

Most people will tell us we must leave. Give us pep talks on how we deserve better. Amp us up, inspire us to just get out, whatever it takes.

It’s not bad advice, I mean no one should stay in an abusive relationship. But, and there is a but, once you do make a stand, you have to be ready for the follow through and consequences.

Obviously first and foremost you have to have a safe exit.

But no one tells you about how lonely you will feel, after you’ve done the right thing.

For the longest time that relationship is all you have known. It might have been a shitty existence, but at least you had someone in your life.

Often those people that hyped you up, convinced you to get out, are nowhere to be seen once the deed is done.

I’m not saying these people did anything wrong, because again, getting out of an abusive relationship is the goal. However, the advice never included anything about how you would feel when you were out. Or how lonely picking up the fragments of your life would be.

And honestly that is on us. When we make that decision to end it, we have to be ready. We have to be equipped with the tools we need to succeed. Because mentally we will be crushed. Bravado is not enough.

I’ve spoken of this before, and I'm sure I will again, when my narcissist left, I was depleted, empty. But for the first couple of days I felt strong, resilient, you got this girl type of attitude. But then it hit me. I was just numb, and so alone. It was my lowest point in life. A culmination of everything that had ever gone wrong, all my mistakes, distress consumed me. I felt like I would never recover from this, my life was over. I sat on the floor and just sobbed. And I have to be honest I felt like that for six months. I was grieving all the things I had ever lost to that point.

Often when I write a blog I don’t know where I'm going to go with it. I just see a quote I’ve written, or have a thought, and an emotion compels me to write, and today it just felt really important to talk about the other side of leaving a toxic relationship, the loss, the emptiness, the guilt, the shame. We don’t just leave and life’s peachy. We claw our way back to a semblance of who we once were. Then we start to heal and eke out a new life.

It’s doable. For me it’s 6 years on and I can say I am happy. I’m in a normal relationship, one where I don’t feel anxious all the time, crying is not a regular thing and consistency is the norm.

But you never forget what you went through, you might not talk about it anymore, but you still know that there are people out there, that will happily destroy you, and not give it a second thought.

Of course I encourage you to leave those situations, but I also encourage you to be as ready as you can be. And when you leave, fight, fight for yourself, even if it's just reading an article over and over about trauma bonding. Whatever you need to get you through each day, do it.

Then one day you will realise that you are just living again.

Footnote:

Obviously some people have a great support system, I'm not discounting that. I'm just speaking for those that don't , and to my personal experience.

And often people who have not experienced this type of toxic relationship don't understand the co-drpendancy and the trauma bonding that comes along with it, it's a different kind of break up.

Footnote:

The next day

Something I came across today from a blog I wrote a couple of years ago.

And a lil little later this came up in my memories from this time last year. Guess the topic needed revisiting...