BREAK THE SILENCE..BREAK THE CYCLE..moving on...

Okay so You're out of the abusive situation Now What? Be prepared to face a convoy of emotions all at once. They can be doled out a little at a time or they can be a flood gate. It's all up to you. With a good counselor you can learn to ease into dealing with them one at a time. It will be a roller coaster and unfortunately you will have a moment of insanity to where you think "it wasn't so bad,things will be different because I know what I am dealing with and can handle it." Having that split second decision will either make you or break you. You will start to rationalize that it wasn't so bad and you can handle it because still in your heart you can't "let go" of them. Thats what I call "stinking thinking." I found for myself this last time around when those thoughts come around and they will every so often that you keep yourself occupied, mentally and physically. Stay away from phones and getting in your car. I would say oh I am just going for a drive and end up driving by the old neighborhood, just to see if he was out there. We even rationalize it "Oh we ran into each other." I had a restraining order so that wasn't a smart thing to do. All the other times I left I still left the proverbial door open, just in case. This time I made sure I never went back. I filed a restraining order which I knew in my mind I would never go against. Sure I did drive through the old neighborhood to see old friends but made sure he wasn't around or home. That way it wasn't in "violation" of the order. I also got brazen enough to "allow" him to see me from a distance but would leave as soon as he did. In mu mind that was "see what you lost and never will have again" attitude. I was still so angry for so long, so going back wasn't in my mind at all. He took so much from me and all I did was give,give,give. It was an exhausting relationship. Even without the abuse at times because when things would go wrong he would pin them on me and blame me for my "issues" but in reality it was really his "issues" that caused alot of the problems. It's one thing to have issues in a marriage besides money, but add alcohol,abuse, infidelity,children etc. It is a rising volcano and eventually will be very very messy. There were never apologies from him. I would be angry at him for something, he would manipulate the whole thing and he should've been apologizing but in the end I would be saying I am sorry for something he did. He was that good at it, he had a good teacher, his mother. Its incredible how verbal and emotional abuse and even mental are so "quiet." The year I left was "surreal" I don't know how I got through it. I think in the beginning I didn't focus on it and stuffed it because my son was going through it and I had to be strong for him. SO I didn't deal with my own demons for awhile. I just trudged through and cried myself to sleep mostly. My nightmares couldn't be hidden. I just dealt with them the best I could. Some of them were flashbacks inside of nightmares. I had no one around I could trust to talk to. My "mother" didn't want to hear about it, "out of sight out of mind." My son and I weren't allowed to talk about where we had been or what we had endured, my son didn't know how to handle it. So we had our night of going out to dinner just the two of us and we would talk about everything that we weren't allowed to talk about. Which helped my son mostly because he needed that reassurance of it wasn't his fault. It also gave us time to be ourselves in front of each other without being "scolded" for it. I didn't have a choice to not go back "home" but you do what you have to for your child. I basically went from the frying pan to the fire living at home. In my heart I knew it wouldn't last but it was "safe" clean and warm. We kept ourselves busy so we wouldn't have to be there much which was hard to do because I even got yelled at for that. My son joined cub scouts and we did ALOT of outings and functions. My son loved it, but it made us come home all hours. In "normal" peoples minds it wasn't late. Between den meetings,pack meetings and hanging out with friends it was normal. We were home by 8pm at the latest and usually it wasn't a school night. Just another reason to complain about how much of an unfit mother I am...some things never change I suppose..