Yes CSHF,
it is a "painful walk." but better to feel your honest pain than to be in the blank nothingness of denial. This pain is a temporary thing that will get you to health. The denial will keep you in pain forever.
Thich Naht Han said something once about how he learned to accept his pain openly so that when he would wake up in the morning he would greet it saying "Hello pain, how are you today?" That made me realize that I could treat my pain as a companion for a while, someone traveling with me on the road to healing.
Also the following quote from (I think) Diane Wilson,
"Healing is a brutal act. It is being mercilessly honest with ourselves, cutting through the terror of our pain to find our own truth. Sometimes we cannot cut all the way through, and there is nothing wrong with that. At the same time, we must remember where we stopped, and why, and be ready to start again from that point, when we are ready to endure more of our own pain. And, of course, we must also be ready to begin at the beginning again, so that we may find a new and truer path."
It takes time Countess. As many have said before me.... baby steps. Just take baby steps. And give yourself credit for every little thing that you do. You have already done the biggest and hardest thing, you have removed yourself from the abuse. You will heal.
And since the Countess is Shedding Her Fears, allow yourself to shed the fear of facing your fears. Maybe I'm getting too fourth dimensional with that one..... It's late and past my bedtime and I think the brain is getting a little wacky. I did just want to respond and tell you to hang in there. It really will get better, even though it may not seem so right now.
I left in March of '03 and it took a whole year before I truly began to feel like I was myself in my own body. Baby steps, count the molecules of improvement. Really Countess, you ARE in a better place.
Nighty night, Sleep tight,
Gingerpeach