Once you go through emotional abuse, your whole personality changes. You become a different woman and when you look at yourself in the mirror, you don’t recognize the person you see anymore.
Broken down, drained of every ounce of energy, you feel like there’s nothing to live for. There’s no driving force that can make you rebuild your life from scratch.
When you fall for the one you thought to be your missing piece of the puzzle but ends up being the one who emotionally destroys you, you feel like your whole life is over.
You think of all those moments you shared and you can’t figure out how that person could be your worst enemy.
He held your hand yet he used the other one to stab you in your heart. He kissed you good night yet he used those same lips to say some of the worst things you’ve ever heard.
A devil in disguise, an angel of pretense. You don’t even know what to call him when no words are enough to describe what he did to you.
He broke you into pieces, and day after day, he kept walking over those broken pieces. He ruined you in every way and you no longer feel like yourself.
You feel like you’re stuck in a tunnel with no light at its end. You feel like the damage has been done and there’s nothing that can repair you now.
But even though you think that your happiness has come to an end and that you’ll never again be the person you once were, the truth is far different from that.
It will be hard but you can heal after emotional abuse. You can rise from the ashes like a phoenix and pull yourself up into the sky.
It won’t happen overnight. It won’t be easy to achieve. But there’s a spark of power in you that your emotional abuser hasn’t been able to destroy.
There’s a flame that needs to be ignited and once you muster all your strength to do that, you’ll be able to prove to yourself that moving on after emotional abuse is possible. It might take some time, but it’s possible.
Step by step, you’ll go through different stages. And in the end, you’ll get to know a new woman – the one who has been thrown to the ground but refuses to give up.
She fought and struggled, but she finally put herself back together and showed herself in full light.
You’ll be that woman, but first you need to take some steps to get you there.
1. Accept that you were abused
Abuse is not a choice and there’s nothing you should be ashamed of. Once it happens, you can keep ignoring it and make your wound deeper and more painful. Or you can be open with yourself and admit what you went through.
This is the first step you have to take in order to move on.
Don’t think about the looks others might give you and stop seeing yourself as a victim. You’re so much more than that.
You’re a strong woman who gathered the courage to stop an abuser. You’re a survivor and there’s still so much power hiding inside of you that you probably don’t even know of.
Once you’re aware of what you went through, you also realize that you can rebuild yourself and start your life all over again.
2. Give yourself some time
Moving on is never easy. You end a perfectly fine relationship through compromise yet still need to give yourself enough time to figure out where your heart is at.
Imagine then how hard it is to heal from an emotional abusive relationship.
Forcing yourself to speed up the process doesn’t help you at all. Putting pressure on yourself to move on and adapt to a new way of life makes things worse.
But if you could just listen to your heart a bit more closely. Hear those heartbeats and remember that nothing has changed, even though it all seems so different.
Your heart still beats the same way, your soul is still pure and innocent, and your mind is still capable of amazing things.
You are still you, there’s no change in that.
All you need to do is listen to yourself and give yourself some time. Things will get better.
3. Be aware that you feel angry at yourself
At one point of moving on and trying to heal after emotional abuse, you’ll start to blame yourself. You’ll keep replaying this thought in your head, and treat yourself as if everything was your fault.
Why did I let him treat me like that? How could I be so blind while it was plain to see, right there in front of my eyes? Why did I let it happen?
These questions will keep running after you. They won’t let you sleep peacefully.
But at one point, you’ll realize that you had nothing to do with it and they’ll fade away. Just like that, you won’t have to bother about them anymore as you realize that nothing was your fault.
4. Depression and anxiety may hit you
After feeling angry at yourself, you might start to feel depressed as well. You look at yourself and feel like your whole life is falling apart and there’s nothing you can do to fix it.
That’s when you start having all those depressing thoughts that spiral out of control. Your anxiety overtakes you and then you feel numb.
But don’t be afraid. This is normal part of healing after emotional abuse.
All this time, you’ve felt like your emotions have been misleading you. You trusted a guy, put your heart in his hands, and he turned out to be the worst mistake of your life.
Because of that, you’re afraid to face your emotions once again. You’re afraid to let your feelings out as you can’t get rid of the idea that you’ll end up doing the wrong thing.
But as time goes by, you’ll realize that your feelings aren’t wrong and that you’re allowed to feel this way. You’re allowed to be sad, to feel lonely and lost.
You were in a relationship with an abuser – he knew how to get to your heart. So there’s a fair amount of emotions that need processing.
5. Forgive yourself
Finally, you’ll reach a point where you realize that nothing was ever your fault. Being in a relationship with an abuser doesn’t make you a bad person; it doesn’t make you unworthy of love.
A sudden shift will happen and you’ll realize that you’re not to blame for any of the things you went through.
You’ll find the strength and be able to forgive yourself and your abuser as well.
And no, you won’t do it because he deserves your forgiveness. You’ll do it because you deserve to stop thinking about him and heal after everything you went through.
And that can’t happen if you don’t find the strength to let go.
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