After ending an abusive relationship, it can be particularly devastating to learn that your sense of self has changed and the person that you were prior is gone. Significant trauma can make a victim lose a sense of self-control, self-confidence, and self-love. You may feel lost and confused about how to effectively move forward. You may not remember what it’s like to do the things you once enjoyed, or you may feel as if you can no longer trust your inner guide. It takes time to heal.
The post-trauma state is all about rebuilding and finding yourself again. It’s about taking on whatever it is you find to be fulfilling or necessary to really feel again. You might opt to try something new or return to a past-time you haven’t been able to participate in for some time. It’s important to reconnect with your inner self through meditation, mindfulness, or other techniques which can bring you closer to, and better understand, the person you are now.
You will inevitably feel unsettling emotions in the post-trauma state. These are often connected with worry, fear, and anxiety or a sense of feeling otherwise overwhelmed because rebuilding is not easy. One way to manage these symptoms is to actually schedule time to yourself each day to allow anxious thoughts to flow freely.
Worry is defined as preoccupation with imagined negative future events. It can include fears associated with financial insecurity, low self-worth, not being able to accomplish everything you want to, or that you’ll embark on the wrong path and end up reliving the trauma of the past. Worry is also sometimes associated with physical symptoms such as headaches, muscle tension, fatigue, difficulty sleeping, and difficulty concentrating, so it can feel very real and destressing, and when it’s especially difficult to control, can be almost paralyzing.
You’ve probably realized from past experience that telling yourself to stop worrying or having someone else tell you this does little to help. In fact, if you continually try to suppress your fears, they will only begin to mount and eventually spiral out of control. Fears evoke your internal fight or flight response, so it is a natural self-defense mechanism to worry from time to time.
You can better manage your fears by scheduling a specific time to return to time and think them through. Tell yourself, “I have more important things to do right now, but I can write this down and come back to it tonight at 8:00pm.”
At your designated worry time, sit down in a quiet place and come back to the list of fears you wrote down. You may just find that they don’t feel as important in that moment than they did when they first crossed your mind. Only take the time the think through those that are still pressing. Remember to identify which worries you have control over and which you simply don’t. Come up with a plan for those you do.
You can use cognitive-behavioral methods during this time to work through your worries. Ask yourself: Am I exaggerating the likelihood that this will happen? What evidence do I have? If it is likely to occur, am I imagining the worst possible outcome or are there alternatives I should be considering? What are the resources I have available to me to make it through this if it does arise?
As you begin to be able to cope with everyday stressors more easily, you will regain a sense of confidence and self-worth that may have been lost amid abuse. Working through your worries will help you realize that you really can do certain things on your own which you may have previously felt were impossible.
It’s not easy to move forward after sustaining trauma for a prolonged period of time, but it is possible. You have to trust that you’ll be able to regain contentedness now that you’ve rid your life of toxicity even if it takes a while to feel complete again. Believe in yourself and everything will work itself out.
Break the silence, break the cycle.