Self-compassion involves acting the same way towards yourself when you are having a difficult time, fail, or notice something you don’t like about yourself. Instead of just ignoring your pain with a “stiff upper lip” mentality, you stop to tell yourself “this is really difficult right now,” how can I comfort and care for myself in this moment?-Kristen Neff
Today, I have had a difficult time. I have felt paranoid, full of self-doubt, questioning my recent exposure of my husband's messages and whether this behaviour was 'abusive'. The nasty voice in my head sounded an awful lot like his drunken voice.
It usually takes me a couple of days to recover from this type of communication. This is why I stopped contact completely in March this year.
For the last two years, I have always deleted the messages. Last week, I overcame my inner fear to forward the abusive messages to my brother and one of my best friends. Their support and validation that I was not 'crazy' has been invaluable in making me feel braver.
I then asked others to bear witness by sharing the messages in this blog. A radical act which surprised me and exposed my most vulnerable self. And I was met with such love and belonging.
Today, I re-listened to voice messages from another dear friend who had read the blogs and called me a 'Warrior for the Human Spirit" (Meg Wheatley). A term I don't feel I deserve but helped me immeasurably today when I felt anything but.
And whilst in this fog, my awesome brother called to remind me of how unacceptable this behaviour was and that it was a criminal offence.
This gave the courage to fight the urge to say I was 'fine' and clumsily share how I was feeling with my parents. Both met me with love, empathy and urged me to talk about how I felt.
I have subsequently spent the day researching emotional abuse. I needed to understand through the experiences and research of others.
In March this year after receiving the message where I was called a cunt, I had asked a friend to send me some information on emotional abuse. This friend has experienced abuse herself, completed a dissertation on it and lectured on it.
This girl knows her shit. She sent me some links. At the end of the email, she urges me to 'keep growing girl and take no shit off anybody’. Amazing.
Except, I was not ready to read it then. I did however send it to another friend who had just disclosed emotional abuse from her ex-boyfriend. It had left her damaged and doubting her sanity. I just re-read what I had written in the email to her-"I found my first instinct when I told some one was to push it down and not go there again".
Today, I read one of the articles (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325792). Written by medic, Jon Johnston, who describes himself as 'believing most of life's problems are solved by stroking a dog'. I immediately trusted him. He lists a number of ways that emotional abuse happens.
I wrote down the areas where I had examples. For me these include controlling behaviour, shame (outbursts, lies, walk-outs, trivialising), blame (playing the victim), humiliation (name calling, cheating), unpredictability (self-contradiction, gaslighting).
This exercise has been transformative in making my experiences tangible, in helping me see how unacceptable this behaviour has been. It is damaging and has made me doubt my sanity.
I am heartened to see that I am already following the steps for recovery-using a support network, setting clear boundaries which keep me safe, no more contact with the abuser and seeking professional help.
However, the one area which has been missing is self-compassion. To overcome the shame, paranoia and self-doubt. Well, I can start by acknowledging this feels really difficult right now and looking at how I can comfort and care for myself in this moment #becomingreal #feelittohealit #braveasfuck.
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