How can I know when I "should" put others first and when is it OK to put myself "first"? How do I know if I’m being selfish? My ex-husband constantly told me I was selfish. And I feel guilty a lot. So what is selfish and what isn't?
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Here are many examples of the stupid, unhelpful, and even dangerous advice that the Christian church and culture gives to abused women.
If you hear this kind of advice, run the other direction, read my blog, and find help from someone who understands abuse!
All of us have very complicated grief. We are grieving so much more than, for instance, the death of a loving spouse.
In addition to loss, we are also facing betrayal, confusion, trauma, fear about our future, the death of our dream, the shock of realizing who our husband is, self-doubt, wondering if we could have done things differently, and often not being believed or supported by others.
Another complication is that we are grieving two different people – the one we thought he was and the one he turned out to be, and the shattering betrayal that we’ve experienced from this.
How do we navigate these complexities and get through our grief? Or better yet, why won’t it just go away???
Being married to an abuser destroys our inner world in ways that we don’t even recognize while we are in it. Our perceptions of reality are changed. Even our perception of our ability to heal is warped. How? Read on.
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I talk with so many women who are wondering how to heal from their abusive marriage. They feel lost, discouraged, exhausted, and sometimes even hopeless. Here are the most common barriers I see to true, deep healing.
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Our stories as abused women are hero’s stories. They are stories that most people don’t want to hear or acknowledge, but that doesn’t change the reality of their truth, or of who we are.
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As Christian survivors of emotional and psychological abuse, when we realize that we must divorce our abusers because of their unwillingness to treat us with love like a decent human being should, we face the shattering of our lives as we know them and hoped they would be.
But when we go through a merciful, life-saving divorce, God supports our divorce and is there with us as we rebuild our lives.
I asked the abuse survivors in my Confusion to Clarity Facebook Community to share the benefits they’ve experienced because of their necessary divorce. Here are the ways they feel their life is better.
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“I’m out so why aren’t I happy? I thought I would feel better by now.” “I feel like something must be wrong with me.” “I have such anxiety about making a decision, being alone, not trusting myself, missing out on life, parenting.”
These are the pain-filled things I hear survivors say so often. And the worst part is that underneath the pain is the fear that they’re doing something wrong that’s keeping them from healing. We do everything we know to heal; we pray, we try to change our false beliefs and thoughts, we even go to counseling. And we find some relief. But down deep we’re still struggling.
After many years of being blamed for my suffering, I came to understand that I could hardly expect the church to know how to heal abuse when they barely even acknowledge it. We need a path to healing and the level of help that’s equal to to the level of injury.
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When times of high stress hit us, and this Corona virus crisis definitely qualifies, it’s challenging for those of us who’ve had abuse in our lives, whether we’re still living with it or not, because of how the abuse has affected our bodies, our brains, and our stress response.
If your anxiety is overwhelming you, you aren’t crazy, weak, stupid, lazy, or failing at trusting God. Here’s a list of 8 things you can do to reduce your stress.
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The trauma you’ve experienced from abuse has caused long lasting effects on your body and brain. In order to heal from abuse, it’s important to understand how this has affected your thoughts, feelings, healing, and everyday responses to life.
As you read this I hope you’ll get a glimpse of why the abuse you’ve gone through has changed you from a peaceful, compassionate person into a nervous, anxious, panicked, confused, self-doubting mess. It’s not your fault!
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Your world has been spinning around in confusion- this roadmap of the stages of healing you’ll go through coming out of emotional and psychological abuse can give you some solid ground to walk on. What stage are you in?
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