Do You believe that one can heal from abuse?

[moonlight52]

I was wondering how many people have felt that their life has improved after working on abuse issues ?

And how many feel that no matter what abuse can never be healed and those that say they have improvement are in denial?

I am asking because I believe I have had improvement in my life and I rely on my husband and doctor to tell me what they see.

Also I am asking because of the kindness of the hearts of the people here I know I can trust.

[Gaining Strength]

I believe.  It must take enormous amounts of true, unobligated love.

I think cyber space can be a truly great source of the healing love because there is no demands placed on each other, so we can really send each other powerful packets of love and encouragement.

I like the thought of love without obligation.  So radically different from N's concept of love which was nothing other than obligation.

Yeah - Love=>Healing.
Gaining Strength

[pennyplant]

Hi Moon,

I have to believe that one can heal from abuse, because I am one of those people doing so!

There are some important ingredients, though.  You have to want to heal.  You have to be willing to look deeply at life and at yourself.  You have to be willing to brush yourself off and start over again and again anytime failure occurs.

Has my life improved?  Well, one thing I am learning is that my life was never as bad as I thought it was.  There were many bad events.  There were many, many, many hard struggles.  But there were also good things that maybe I could have built on if only I had been able to see them or trust that they existed.

Fortunately, now I am beginning to be able to see.  So, I think that life will be more like what I want it to be, and need it to be, soon.  I think I'm beginning to open up to more possibilities.  Sometimes I do feel good.  And that was quite rare before.  Happiness is happening more often now.  That tells me that healing has occurred and that it is making my life better or will make it better soon.

It's funny that I have felt pretty happy and mellow all day today.  Funny to me because last night I was very down and went to bed not feeling happy.  But I let the feelings exist on the surface where I could feel them and examine them.  My new method that I have learned here.  Feel my feelings.  Go through them, not around, and not pushing them back down.  And sure enough, when those sad feelings had exhausted themselves, there was room for happiness.  And I felt it all day long.  Good happiness, not giddy, addictive happiness.  All day long.  Just amazing.

Good question, Moon!

PP

Hi GS!  I don't think I have welcomed you yet.  I'm enjoying your posts and getting a lot out of them, including the comments you have just made.  Love without obligation.  And for Ns it is nothing but obligation.  Makes so much sense.

[OR]

There are so many types of abuse, maybe some are more difficult to overcome.
I know of verbal abuse and have  learned those that would say hurtful things are idiots.

if you can re-frame the hurt as an adult, look at that abuse to your child now different as an adult.
When I was a child I would not have had the skills to see through the abuse. I therefore made choices in my life because I couldn't understand my pain and how I appeared flawed from the abuse I felt done to me.
I gave up that hurt, I stay away from hurtful people  as much as possible and understand their opinion of life
sucks and to just stay away.

I can more easily forgive now,I  have healed with emotional scars that don't just go away. I even get triggered when someone acts  like my mother.
Now as an adult  I react in a more mature manner and willing to fight back for my right to exist and be who I am, willing to be honest without fear of their rejection.  

To answer your question healing still leaves scars and with those scars should be a new wisdom to overcome, re-frame the old hurts into moving on in live with peace and clarity.


good question ...............OR

[Certain Hope]

Dear Moon,

  You know where I look for answers....

These are a couple of many passages that to me, attest to ultimate healing:

  Malachi 4:2 But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.

The New Living Translations says:  "But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture."

and Isaiah 53:5   But he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed!

Love,
Hope

[Hopalong]

Hi Moon,
I have had it easier than many here. Still, there have been quite painful times.

But when I think about healing and how I've felt about the things that have hurt me (my brother and playground bullies and cliques of girls were the abusers, not my parents--NMom's toxins were unconscious, would never have deliberately abused me)...after many years of such work to get my focus off the emotional pain...

I started to notice that even lucky people, who grew up like the Waltons -- can have the most horrendous things happen to them in life that have nothing to do with Nism OR abuse in childhood. Allowing myself to feel compassion for their suffering seems to put my own in perspective.

I remember a book I read many years ago. I can't remember the title, but it was a classic...a young girl who had been horrendously abused. I'll spare you the details but they were beyond comprehension. She grew up in foster care...anyway. She became a radiant person who had a huge affect on all who knew her. (Her abuse was in infancy, so it may be that it was walled away. But evidently her loving nature was unusually remarkable.)

I absolutely believe a person can heal from abuse. I think compassion for the inner self is where to start. If it feels counter-intuitive and just about impossible to get past self-loathing, I think the best solution, or next step, is distraction by altruism (service). Just doing it -- an hour a week if that's all that's possible -- and even just going through the motions if your heart's not in it at first.. I think that literally trains hearts in the habit of finding meaning.

Happiness comes after finding the transcendent value in being alive and interdependent with all life, I think.

(preaching to the choir, I know, with you Moon...just on my soapbox).

Hops

[moonlight52]

HI Everyone ,

The improvement I have experienced seems to have gone in waves like a spiral .(ever upward now)
 PennyPlant helping me find the key to my FOO has lead me to this break thu .
It seems like the right timing also to let myself feel the feelings and not hiding is good.HI PP  

I really trust hubby because he does not sugarcoat mood swings etc.
He has said he has seen improvement.I guess I know something has shaken loose
in my understanding .Now I am learning to trust myself .This is new to me .
I have cleared up a lot of self destructive patterns
and am letting myself feel the new bright path.


Life is feeling different and it is seems to be something like freedom and now I know how to protect myself.
So the big thing is I am not so afraid thats it I am much less afraid. And this will leave room for happiness to come in its place.
My mind understands I am protecting my heart from any more hurt and learning to trust self and be strong.
Yes Hops doing kindness for others is a great way to focus .It helps others and self.
Something I have always known from the beginning is LOVE is a choice we can make everyday.

Moon

p.s. From this place of diminished fear I will grow and if I slip still I know I am on right the path.

Moon

[gratitude28]

I agree with Penny, that a person can grow stronger and better in spite of/because of the abuse he or she has suffered. I tiotally agree with Penny that you HAVE TO WANT to get better. I fully believe that there are some who want to wallow in the pain and bad feelings and cannot or will not pull themselves up from the muck. My childhood was bad, but so many more have dealt with and lived through worse than me... And I just don't want to be bitter and unsatisfied my whole life. My hardest issues are with self-image right now... I am feeling validated as to my past (yes, it did happen.... no, I'm not crazy) and that is thanks to all of you. I am so glad I am away from all of that. I have had a crappy last couple of weeks, but overall, I feel like my crappiest day now could never touch the misery of what it was to be an angry, critical, lonely person... the person that I was.
Love you all.
Beth

[moonlight52]

Hi Beth ,

I think that you are so right about self pity and wanting to heal is such an important factor as you an PennyPlant say.

And so no matter what place you are at there seems to be all these same basic principles that are available when we want and choose to heal.

All of the change in the last four months seems  so fast and I am still reviewing all that has taken place within to get me where I am now.

As for forgiving n that can be done but as far as placing myself and family right back in the middle of that is not going to happen.
(Mr moon and I have agreed on that)

It is so good Beth that you have been validated as to your past.That is great.
I am sorry you have had a couple of bad weeks .But the change overall is good.
I can understand and I will never return to the prison I once was in.........I am so grateful for that peace.

LOVE to you BETH,
Moon

[WRITE]

I did lunch with a colleague this week who remarked- everyone has some hurts, some pain to heal from.

And I think it's true, most people don't get through life unscathed by some difficulty, trauma or sadness.

To me healing is a process...a movement through responses ( anger, frustration, denial, pain etc ) to exploring and being open to the lessons & learning ways to adapt....to using the new knowledge and skills in other settings and sharing them....to resolution ( acceptance, strength, empathy and love )

And I really believe
Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.

~Writer Richard Bach

He also made the following observations on life:

Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours.

We're the bridge across forever, arching above the sea, adventuring for our pleasure, living mysteries for the fun of it, choosing disasters triumphs challenges impossible odds, testing ourselves over and again, learning love and love and LOVE!

and my favourite- which is so true for my marriage and divorce:

I believe that Leslie and I were led to find each other, led through the years we lived together, and led to part. There's so much to learn! When a marriage comes to an end, we're free to call it a failure. We're also free to call it a graduation. We didn't say, 'I guess we weren't led to each other, I guess we're not soul mates after all.' Our graduation was part of the experience we chose before we were born, to learn how to let each other go.

[Sela]

Hi Moon:

Interesting question.  If one does not believe one can heal from abuse, there would be no point in trying to heal then eh?  Therefore, simply trying to heal.....implies belief in that possibility, I think.

Is the trick then in the method?  For me, it is.  It's a long and painful struggle too.  It takes time and effort.  The damage abuse causes doesn't just go away.  It has to be evicted, imo.

The damage is another tricky thing to determine, isn't it?   I mean, how do I know what the real damage is?
I can examine my behaviour with a critical eye or ask for assistance from another, whom I trust.  I can reflect on my life and how it has gone so far and on my thoughts and feelings.

Bottom line for me is how I feel.  Do I feel healed?  Do I feel damaged?  Am I happy with my life?  Do my thoughts focus on now and the future?

When I can answer: "Yes"  ....."Not any more"......and ....."Generally Yep and yep again!" , then I might decide the effect of abuse are no longer effective and that the damage has been reduced to it's minimum or irradicated.

Does that make any sense at all?    Maybe I need another coffee?

  Sela

[Gaining Strength]

Hello everyone,

I want to comment on "wallowing" and "self-pity," and then on "suffering as gift."

"Wallowing" is not as straight forward as it appears.  There are times when what seems to be wallowing is really being stuck.  There have definitely been periods when I was stuck - to such a degree I got tired of talking to my therapist because, "There is nothing new to talk about.  I have said it all before."  And boy did I get tired of repeating the same descriptions of my injuries.  But I was "stuck" as opposed to "wallowing." And I was stuck because there was more to get at in my woundedness.  As it turned out I was stuck because the deepest wound was around shame and I had already explored that for several years.  I simply couldn't see that I have only touched the tip of the iceburg on shame.  The name of the issues were the same - childhood wounds, shame; but the depth had not been plumbed.  

The difference between "wallowing" and "being stuck" is subtle and difficult to discern but boy is it important.  If my therapist had even hinted that I was wallowing thenI would never have been able to get to the fullness of my shame.

The other thing about "wallowing" for me is that I felt for YEARS that I was trapped in self pity and I tried over and over, through relationships, through friendships, through therapy to get someone to hold my self pity for me, to agree with me in self pity.  But if I recognized my state as self-pity then I felt shamed about it and produced yet another shell to be cracked later.  Finally, I am able to look back and see that holding that self-pity and trying to find someone to hold it with me was part of an elaborate scheme to get some validation.  So I think the issue of "self-pity" looks clear from the outside but it can be very tricky.  Ultimately, the difference is whether someone enjoys the self-pity and therefore enjoys rolling around in it, i.e. "wallowing" or they hate it and are frustrated by it and are actually "stuck" in it and if stuck they need to stick with it and keep chipping away because they are actually stuck in the place where they need to be working.

Somebody give me some feed back about "wallowing" v. "stuck."  I'm wondering what you think about it?

Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.
Everytime I am able to adopt this attitude I can work my way through it.  But heaven knows, I have to come to this realization on my own.  If I share a real struggle with someone and their response is Every problem has a gift for you in its hands, I think I might just cry.

Thanks for letting me share.  It helps me Gain[ing] Strength.

[WRITE]

If my therapist had even hinted that I was wallowing thenI would never have been able to get to the fullness of my shame.

absolutely- there is a lot of judging in the phrases 'self-pity' and 'wallowing'.

Sometimes we're just at where we're at and it's going to take time.

A good therapist will pick up on the cues of 'personally ready to move on' not push us around! But therapy can cure stuck.

My very good psychologist once said to me as a comment 'I don't think it's as bad as you think once you face it' -did I tell her off, I was so indignant ( maybe that's why she did it come to think of it...we were talking about me never getting angry the week before! )

If I share a real struggle with someone and their response is Every problem has a gift for you in its hands, I think I might just cry.

this came up last week in a religious discussion here- people saying insensitive things, or religious things without knowing how the person would receive that, well-meant phrases turned into platitudes I guess.

Since sometimes it takes years for someone to see the gift in a situation, yes, it's inappropriate to make the comment whilst they are suffering. It can be a useful comment to make if someone is stuck though! pointing out the strengths and skills the person has now etc.

[moonlight52]

Hi WRITE, I was looking at the website you provided on another thread.

And got this :

"The most freeing thing is to immerse oneself in life not memories .

In trauma there is no way out except to leave the past behind fully acknowledging that it has become an integral part of one's history but no longer rules one's life.

This is the redemptive lesson of trauma .It wants pure and simple healing and after the fact it owes nothing to no one such is it's ultimate beauty and power." INVICTA

THIS IS MY ULTIMATE TRUTH ON THE SUBJECT OF MY INTERACTIONS WITH SAID N THAT HAS BEEN APART OF MY LIFE
TO PUT THE MEMORIES WHERE THEY  BELONG IN THE PAST.MY HEART WILL HAVE NOTHING LESS THAN A PURE AND SIMPLE HEALING.

p.s.  SELA  The suggestions for how I am doing thu the process of healing are great I will use them and thanks. I feel stronger today 
MoonLight

[Hopalong]

Hi GS:
You're right. If someone says "Get over it" ... well if you were totally over it you might not be here, eh? No worries. You wallow all you want. Pigs wallow. It's a very legitimate verb. I'm good at it! Who the heck says we were not provide these mudpuddles for a very good and healing reason? NO SHAME.

Moon:
I think you are one of the most grateful human beings I know.

Write:
So may it be. Thank you.

love to all,
Hops