Encouragement For The New Survivor
You’ve got this!
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#1- I am proud of you.
It takes a lot to get out and stay out. Leaving an abuser is so much more than getting to safety. You have to work hard to heal your heart and mind so you won’t leave yourself open to being pulled back into the relationship. Your hormones are expecting the cycle of abuse, you have had to go through withdrawal and are now learning a new way to live. Everything is different. There is so much loss and pain but you endured it and are coming out on the other side.
#2- You will be okay, eventually.
You will make it through this. You just have to keep moving forward every day. Just get up and do the work. You will see changes each month and as the years go by you won’t recognize yourself compared to who you were in the abusive relationship. You will become who you were meant to be.
#3- It’s not your fault!
You didn’t choose to fall in love with someone who would hurt you. You tried your hardest to make the relationship work.
What Do You Do Now?
You turn your energy to yourself and focus on healing from what you have been through. Learning to live free is not easy. It is full of ups and downs. Somedays you will feel like you took a sucker punch to the gut. Somedays you will cry your eyes out. Feel all of it. Accept the pain. Slowly but surely it will become less intense. One day you will realize you haven't been doubled over in pain or cried in days, then weeks, then months, then even a year or years.
Allowing yourself to be present in the painful moments heals you. You have to go through the fire to come out on the other side as a new creature. The fire burns up the old pain, abuse, trauma, and lets you live free when you come out of it.
Try to get to the point where you can be grateful for the pain because of the healing it brings. Try it next time and see. Take the time to cry or acknowledge how much you have been through. We have to honor that part of ourselves. The pain brings the strength we will need to live in our new life and stay free.
