When you’re in an abusive relationship, it’s hard to cope with how your partner is treating you. You might be in denial that your partner is abusive. It is painful and confusing because you love your significant other and can’t imagine them hurting you on purpose. In some cases, what they are doing could be unintentional. However, whether they are causing you harm, either intentionally or unintentionally, doesn’t matter. They are still harming you, and you still deserve to live free of abuse. The tricky thing is that your abuser probably convinced you that you’re not allowed to be happy. They may have told you that you’re not good enough to find anyone else, and if you leave them, you’ll end up alone. Remember that these are lies your abuser is telling you to control you. Abusive relationships aren’t about love; they revolve around the abuser controlling the abused. If you are a survivor, remember this: it’s not your fault. None of the abuser’s behavior is due to their deficits. Whether they mean it or not, they’re hurting you, and that’s not right.
You can leave – but, what happens next?
Many people manage to leave abusive relationships, but it’s not easy. It takes strength and the hope that there’s a better life outside of the toxic dynamic. After you leave an abusive relationship, you may not want to remember what your former partner put you through, whether that thought is conscious or subconscious. As a result of this, it is common for people to repress memories of the abuse that they endured. Repression is extremely common in people that experience severe trauma. So, if you are repressing memories, do not worry that it is abnormal. It is very typical and happens to many people who have endured traumatic situations or events. It can even be a natural response. Your brain wants to protect you from the pain, so it pushes down bad memories and shuts them out.
Forgotten pain
The mind has a way of protecting us from emotional pain. One of the things it does is hide distressing memories when it decides that you can’t handle them. What happens is you appear to forget those There are instances where repression leads to unintentionally ignoring memories. It’s a bizarre phenomenon, but when you push memories down, regardless of if you did it on purpose or not, you are disconnecting yourself from the things that happened during the time that you experienced trauma. It is a survival mechanism. For example, when someone develops Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after being in a relationship where they were abused, repression becomes a way to cope. The sufferer is traumatized because of how their partner treated them, and they don’t want to connect with those painful emotions, so they shut them out and completely forget certain things that happened.
Repression hurts
Despite how common it is to repress memories, it is not healthy. If you are coming out of an abusive relationship or if you are actively involved in one, it is essential to address what is happening to you and seek help from a therapist. Therapy will help you work through the feelings that are related to your abuse, and you will be able to heal. Whether you’re seeing a therapist in your local area or online, the point is that you get the help that you need and deserve. You can heal from what you went through. You can move on.
This is a featured post by site sponsor Better Help.
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