Dealing with emotional abuse is draining. You lose a little bit of who you are every day you are with your abuser. They gaslight, name call, and belittle. This wears away at your self-esteem and self-worth and you don’t know who you are anymore. You also may experience physical symptoms such as muscle tension, change in sleep habits, weight changes, and nausea, making each day a battle to just get through. As the abuse continues, you feel like you are in a fog. You are just going through the motions and trying to make it through the day, while knowing nothing will change tomorrow. However, one day you hit rock bottom and realize what you have been experiencing is abuse and you don’t have to take it anymore. You feel empowered and excited for the future, but also scared, confused, and overwhelmed. As you process this variety of emotions, you are still in this fog of abuse, and you don’t know what to do. You also lost your self-confidence, so you start to question whether leaving your abusive partner is the right choice. How do you get out of the fog of abuse so that you can continue to move forward in your own recovery?
The longer you stay in an abusive relationship, the more of yourself you lose. You become a shell of who you were. It is harder to make decisions and to feel any emotions. You feel numb and as if you are just existing, versus interacting, in the world. But the moment you realize what is happening, it feels like a fog has lifted. Reality hits you and you start to understand what you have been going through. You can feel emotions again. You start to consider maybe everything isn’t your fault and you aren’t to blame for all the issues in the relationship.
To consider you really aren’t to blame for everything that was wrong in the relationship sounds like it would be easy to do because how can one person really be to blame for everything that goes wrong? But after you have spent years, or longer, being told that things went wrong because you did X, Y, and Z, part of you starts to believe it. Your reality becomes blurred and this is why you no longer know what is right and what is wrong.
You have also developed learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is when you feel like no matter what choice you make, it will be wrong. So, you just stop trying. The abuser constantly places you in a losing situation and no matter what choice you make, you will always be wrong. This is how the abuser has designed your reality so that they can remain in control.
As the fog of the abuse lifts, things become clearer, and you may become angry. Angry someone would treat you that way and angry that you allowed yourself to be treated so poorly. The lifting of the fog opens you up to feeling emotions again, but this isn’t always a good thing. You must face the reality of who you have become and how someone you loved could be so cruel to you.
As you work through the clearing of the fog, it is important you stay in the moment. Your mind will want to take you to the past and force you to remember things that were hurtful and damaging. This will keep you stuck and unable to move forward because it will be reminders of the abuse and how you felt in the past. You want to develop new emotions and feelings based on life without the abuser. This can only happen if you don’t look backwards. You are leaving the past so there is no reason to think about what has happened and ask “what ifs” about choices you, or your abuser, made. Those are questions that can’t be answered, and don’t necessarily need answers as you step away from the fog. Focus on the here and now and growing your strength back. Bring the old you back, while growing from your experiences and becoming a better version of yourself. The abuse can’t be forgotten, but incorporate it into who you want to become, versus letting it hold you back.