Question Time! – How did you heal from your abuse and what helped you?

Hello there poppets,

How are you all?

Just before the passing of my main abuser i headed to social media to ask what questions you would like answering. Unfortunately due to the circumstances my questions got put back a little as i felt it a good time to share what was going on in my life.

Now I’m here to start going through the questions that i have been asked one blog post at a time! All questions asked will remain anonymous and i will pick the questions i feel most people will relate too or that are most asked.

Lets get started!

How did you begin to heal from your abuse? When did you start too and what helped you along the way?

I think people think the day after i left my abuse i had it all figured out.This wasn’t the case at all. Though i knew what i had grown up with wasn’t right i never really thought of it as ‘abuse’ so to speak. Infact i was told it was abuse and still remember feeling most confused at even the thought of it.

When i came out of my abusers home i spent many years confused and lost with the whole thing. Abuse? but why? who would do that too anyone? Slowly but surely i had to learn how wrong the situation i was brought up with was.

When i was assaulted the first time and saw the same behavior of my main abuser in this person i started to question things and wonder why they were repeating the actions of my main abuse. When the second assault happened and i saw the same behaviors again it only made me question things more. Had my main abuser called them up and told them what to do, or was this learned else where? Where on earth else can you learn that stuff? Is it at school? or even earlier than that? All these questions i had to have answering as i couldn’t get my tiny brain round the lot of it.

Once i had started to learn about the childhood of my abusers and even further back than that i was deeply saddened at it all. I learnt that every action towards me was due to hurt and deep sadness that had spand decades. With this i started to forgive the people that had hurt me and heal from the situation. It all showed me how important recovery and healing was and how it was so lacking in my abusers life leading them to repeat the behaviour they had seen.

Would i recommend searching into why abuse or a certain event has happened? hmm that’s a tricky one.
It was definitely a big part of my healing process but i think you have to be sensible and cautious. It can almost be more unhealthy than just not knowing if you become obsessed with knowing answers. If you’re in therapies like CBT you will probably be taught to not look at the past and focus on the future and be cautious of looking at the past just like i was. I was almost let off with that and was allowed to look into things a bit. My therapist saw how much it was helping me and i think part of her was also interested in the things i was finding out. She did make me aware that i shouldn’t get too far into it as it may cause me more hurt. Luckily i felt i knew when a good time to stop was and id almost got to a point where i thought ‘okay, this is enough i don’t want to know anymore’

Abuse can happen for all sorts of reasons. It could because its has happened previously to those abusing and they weren’t taught any different.Stress,unrealistic expectations or drug and alcohol problems. It can all lead to abuse and sometimes just knowing one of those brief headlines is enough. “Okay, maybe they weren’t taught the right way but i want to be different” Knowing that my abuser hadnt healed from what happened to them was definitely a push to start healing from what i had been through an face my mental health difficulties that came as a side effect to my abuse.

My life could of been completely different if i diddnt have those assaults and diddnt notice those behaviors. Maybe i still wouldnt of taken those steps to recovery?

The things that helped me along the way was definitely good people. I think its really hard for people that have gone through trauma especially child abuse to trust or even see good people. I am extremely lucky and grateful to not see people how my main abuser saw them and definitely get my love of people from my Papa Bear’s side. I don’t honestly know what i would of done if i didn’t have the people around me that i did. It would of definitely been a bigger battle that’s for sure!