A
female
age
30-35,
*ovehel
writes:I regretfully revolved my life around his for 6 years. It was emotionally abusive, am trying to work on my self esteem after it was battered for years. I am starting to realize in many ways this is a good thing that I was dumped. It did blindside me and I never thought I would be without him, it is forcing me to deal with my social anxiety and problems which I suppressed while with him. I realize it was a very unhealthy and toxic relationship, that was doomed from the start. I was constantly trying to fix a broken relationship that was never going to heal, as he never wanted to heal or work on anything with me. I am now on my own trying to heal myself. I started going to a counselor once a week, to try and better myself, and become much stronger emotionally. Apart from that, I don't have anything going on, and was wondering where you would start? How I can feel better about myself? It terrifies me to go to a meetup group or something, I want to take baby steps? I don't know if I am even at a place to make friends yet, but want to work towards that? Really appreciate any help and suggestions, thank you!
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emotionally abusive, self esteem Reply to this Question
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (7 July 2016): Dear friend i was so touched by your letter that i must let you know that although you may feel like an empty shell, you most certainly are not an empty shell.You may have spent six years propping up an abusive self centred individual but you remain a person with gifts and qualities unique to yourself.Abuser was a passing phase and you are unravelling the damage done to you through counselling but your experiences have possibly led you to being a stronger person than you could ever imagine.Have you considered joining a womens group for women whos relationship has left them alone,often with little ones to look after and a damaged self esteem!These are not dreadfully tourturous sessions, they are full of revelations and jokes and laughter and beautiful children who need hugging and smiling and mums who need five minutes happy space.Not everyone makes friends for life at these groups but they make once weekly friendships that keep a person going and they have interesting snippets to share about their daily lives.Life is very fluid and friends come and go so dont feel too isolated because many have to redesign themselves and start again.x
A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (6 July 2016): Any one who gives up on you as a friend because you havent got any other friends is a rubbish friend to begin with!Friendship is about 'clicking'and 'getting on well' with your new found friend.This can happen with groups that morph to include others in it, to one to one friendships.Its not usually about wether you are in a current friendship group or have a bookload of socialite talking friends.I guess you are looking for 'lets go out and do something'friends.Its difficult to imagine that first moment when your life expands again and right now i am not seeing an instant opportunity, maybe i lack the ability to do so, but many others been in similar situation and life has a way of expanding when necessary.I think you arenot seeing enough of your own value and ifnecessaryy travel along spiritually alone but protected for a bit.How others see you is not the problem as much as how they treat you and you must expect to be treated well at all times andknow the future will arrive on time!Your world will expand again, you have already put much into your life and sound thoughtful and capable!
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (5 July 2016): Now that you are a new found person just keep concentrating on the positives.You wont have to go to a bar pick/up scene because that is where you are imagining that first dreadful explanation about how you got yourself free from your ex.?A bar or nightclub is no place to start revealing your soul!Its just a dance place really and a place you go to with your friends when it suits you.A music festival is a good inbetween place.Keep going to couselling as it teaches you ways to protect yourself emotionally.How about a self defence class?If you got up to black belt that would alter the lie of the land a bitIt will give you confidence and force others to see you ina light other than an abused person!It would also give you breathing space while you carry on sorting yourself out!
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A
female
reader, miss frank  +, writes (5 July 2016):
You are so welcome !
First of all, I want to say you hit rock bottom, reading your posts...and already you have started to move up from that place with your clarity of thought that is occurring. Already you have taken your first step up from rock bottom...so terrific!
Next, talking about your father- you are spot on with talking of the effect this would have on your development and feelings for yourself, and the world around you.
I wonder what your mother was like? The accumulation of both parents often factors more than you think.
So to begin...
Do you work?
Are there any social events at work?
Is there anyone you get on with at work that you could chat a bit more to?
What are you interested in? Book clubs, exercise, cooking... I think joining a group or club is an excellent idea. This allows you to meet others under a common interest, which can be the reason you attend in the other members eyes- and its likely a lot of the other members are there to meet new people and fill their time with other interests too!
Think of things to lift your mood. Walking, singing, join a choir for instance- singing is great for the mood and you get the opportunity to meet new people again.
Think about doing a journal... Maybe an online one? You ate about to go through a transformation - share your journey! Build your confidence!
Think of a couple of new things for the first month, and discuss this and your aims of it at therapy, along with the whys of how you ended up with six yrs with this guy from your past...for that os what he is now- your past. Your future is yours for the making and taking! I cant wait to here the next post from you as to how you are doing!
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A
male
reader, DarrellG +, writes (5 July 2016):
 @lovehel, Your very welcome :). You think like that because that is how you feel about you. You feel there is something wrong with you and cant accept yourself for who you are and you project this onto other people - you assume they will think there is something wrong with you because you think there is something wrong with you. This distorts your view of reality. The reality is that as a human being your unlikely to be perfect, to be human is to be flawed, your going to mess up, your going to make mistakes, your going to get moody and your going to have bad days and snap at people, etc, etc and I say that as someone who most definately is painfully flawed. Havng said that, the other side of the coin that alongside this I am entirely sure you have great inner and outer beauty, you are, im sure, loving and warm, funny and smart and capable of amazing grace and beauty. Im sure you have many traits that are worthy of love, and of being liked amd that far from being rejected will be embraced by many and lead to many warm and close friendships and when your ready, when your healed sufficently, a warm and loving and lasting partnership. Once you embrace these realities you will feel so much better for it and embracing them does mean embracing the bad with the good it means you accepting yourself for who you are, warts and all. Once you do that, you will find ohters will do the same and those negative thoughts will be proved wrong by your expeerience. They will recede and lose their power. It will take time and alot of hard work but you will get there in the end :)
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A
female
reader, Andie's Thoughts +, writes (5 July 2016):
 OP it gets lonely and miserable, but you've just got to keep going because it will eventually get better. Getting a job will help, if you don't already have one, or maybe even getting a new one if you aren't keen on your current one and your coworkers aren't friendly. Whilst I didn't make "friends", I went to night classes for two years and I'm hoping to do the third because I enjoy the subject (sign language) and it gets me out with people I have something in common with, even if it doesn't form friendships. Maybe you should start a night class too, then you can gradually build your adult experiences with that and your job, giving you practice talking to people and coming out of your shell.
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A
female
reader, lovehel +, writes (5 July 2016):
lovehel is verified as being by the original poster of the question Thank you everyone who commented for your support, it does mean a lot. @deeksha and @missfrank. I have been trapped in this fog for many years with someone who was weighing me down psychologically. I do need to go to counseling to figure out why on earth I would put up with this crap, as that does scare me! I did grow up with a very distant, alcoholic bi-polar angry father who did not treat my family with the respect we deserved, so maybe that is the root cause, I walked on eggshells most of my life.@andiesthoughts, I was just wondering how do you build more adult relationships? you are right my life from being a teenager to now 23 has just consisted of him really, I am worried I will come across as immature, with lack of any life experience that I can openly talk about ?How do I make that jump into a social scene without the terrifying feeling that I will come across really strange, and have absolutely nothing to say, other than being embarrassed of my life so far? In other words how do you build relationships and a life when you feel you have nothing to build on but an empty shell?@DarrellG. thank you for your words, they also mean a lot! I agree, I have to stop this cycle of negative thinking, and thinking I am less than everyone around me, and have nothing to contribute! I have this constant negative thought though that if I do happen to potentially make a friend that they will start to get to know me more and more and then find out I have no other friends in my life only my family, and they will reject me because they think there must be something wrong with me?
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A
female
reader, miss frank +, writes (4 July 2016):
HUGE WELL DONE!! its amazing to read this start of your new journey! I don't have time to write more than that at this point, as working but will do later- just wanted to say that desperately as its so great to read this from you, after all your posts... You can do this! I'll write more later x
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A
female
reader, Deeksha  +, writes (4 July 2016):
 First of all, Cheers! Cheers to the hidden strong girl inside you who finally found courage to come up to the surface. Good that you are ready to accept things rather than just cribbing upon them.
For a change, go for a vacation or plan up a family get to together. And as you said all this while he was controlling your life. Do whatever makes you happy. Be it anything. Visit some orphanages nearby, Go out for shopping, meet old friends, do whatever gives you a soothing effect. In fact enroll yourself for some classes. Like swimming, learning guitar or ballet lessons. And try a 15 minutes yoga for sure. :)
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A
female
reader, Andie's Thoughts +, writes (4 July 2016):
Glad to see you've decided it's best for you to move on - that's a good start.
Have you already started counselling? You didn't mention it before, that I'm aware of?
Anyway, counselling will be your best chance to heal. The rest will come in time, but try going for walks, just to get outside. Look online and in newspapers for local events to go to, as well as hobbies you'd be interested in. To make friends, you need to get out there. However, you need to focus on building your adult life, as your adolescent to adult life consisted only of him.
You have a clean slate, so work on your healing and mental health, while trying to get out more :)
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A
male
reader, DarrellG +, writes (4 July 2016):
Im glad your realising that this relationship wasnt right for you and are at the start of the process of moving on and that you a) recognise the need to heal yourself and b) are taking steps in that direction. All good, positive stuff. :)Its also great your starting to see a counsellor because it is possibly the case that your problems started before this relationship and although it might have brought them out, that this thing may have much deeper roots than that and hopefully seeing a counsellor will bring that out. You say you dont have much going on and that is a slight concern because I do think that as well as doing the talking and the therepy it is important that you keep yourself busy. If your mind is left to its own devices it might spend too long dwelling on negative thoughts. I dont know what you like to do to unwind, what hobbies you have so am a bit hamstrung in that regard but I would definately say keep yourself occupied for one thing. In regards to going out [you say you have social anxiety] I think you need to take it one step at a time. Start small with meeting just one person or a trip to the shops. Again, I dont know how bad it is so what I am saying might be completely inappropiate. As a rule of thumb take a step which just pushes you that little bit, but not too far, further on the road to getting where you want to be. You are going to have to learn to deal with your negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. Your going to have to learn to fight and control those negative thoughts but you can only do that when you understand where they come from and thats where the counselling helps. Good luck and keep us posted :)
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