If you suffer from PTSD as a result of abuse, it is important as you venture into your healing journey to do a couple of things. These are necessary for growth, and they are essential to be able to heal effectively. Hang on to these tools and revisit them as often as is needed. Don’t forget the importance of each of these as you begin a new draft of life.
Disengage entirely from your abuser. Yes, this is an essential first step. If you have to co-parent with this individual or it is otherwise impossible to remove them entirely from your life – maybe they are too significantly intertwined in your social networks – disengage as much as humanly possible.
Why must we learn to disconnect?
The answer here is two-fold. Going no contact with an abuser not only helps you to remove yourself from the potential for continued PTSD provoking abuse, but it also disables your abuser from continuing to refuel his or her tank with the energy they suck from you when you give them attention. So, you’re not only allowing yourself some much-needed space for self-reflection but you’re essentially telling this person it’s not okay to continue to hurt you. This is a strong statement that disallows them to use your energy for their own sadistic games.
Don’t stay stagnate. Let me repeat this – don’t just stay stagnate. Refuse to. In order to truly heal, you need to take action steps to do so. This means, you need to educate yourself. Learn the various techniques that can jumpstart the healing process. Really study these, then implement them. This means learning mindfulness and heartfulness techniques, learning to self-reflect and become more self-aware, and learning to go inward and connect with your internal self, so you have a better understanding of who you are and what makes you tick.
When you do this, understand why you’re so empathetic. Because chances are you are. You are a highly empathetic person who is sensitive and cares deeply about others. This is why an abuser chose you to begin with. Abusers love to prey on co-dependents and individuals who care for others by their very nature. This is because the abuser can then easily play the role of the helpless victim, so you’ll jump in and cater to their every whim. This is the game they play. And, they love to play it with people they don’t have to break down – those already broken or those more than willing to break for another person. Empaths will put the needs of the abuser above their own every time, in every situation. It’s easy for them to do this, and it’s easy for an abuser to use this trait to dominate the empath and manipulate them into total submission.
View your abuser as a toxic shark. Always. Never forget who they truly are. This person is nothing more than a shark on the prowl and he or she will strike the first chance they get. So, avoid them like the plague. Never let your guard down if you have to be in their presence. Always expect their intentions to be negative towards you. Abusers are highly adept at twisting how others view reality. This is a common manipulative tactic. They will try to convince you that you are crazy, and they are totally normal, or that they’ve changed. They will use your empathetic powers against you, so they can continue to deplete your energy. Block these gaslighting attempts with everything you’ve got and never second-guess your intuition. This individual caused you to experience PTSD. That’s more than enough.
Find some time alone. It is vital that you spend time alone to recover from the mind-numbing physically, mentally, and emotionally draining turmoil you were lucky enough to successfully remove yourself from. You have to learn to be alone – particularly if you are co-dependent and you’ve never considered your own well-being. Consider it now. Shift your perspective to the best of your ability and make a commitment to yourself to put your needs first – maybe for the first time ever. It is critical to spend time alone in self-reflection in order to understand who you are, why you went through, and what you did to escape, so you never repeat it again and can mitigate symptoms of PTSD. If you do not, you will engage in the same toxic behavioral patterns over and over again, and you will never escape the cyclical clutches of abuse. Refuse to relive what you’ve escaped.
And keep moving forward.
Break the silence, break the cycle.