Feeling Broken

When I got out of my marriage, I thought I was broken. 

I was wrong. 

And this is why. 

Find out more about my work: www.melindagerdungcoaching.com

Book a session with me: https://calendly.com/gerdungmelinda/coaching-session


---
Beat Provided By https://freebeats.io
Produced By White Hot
---

Transcript

0:13

Gerdung, hey, my friends, one of the most jarring things for me after leaving my abusive marriage was not feeling better afterwards. I thought that after I was out, I would just feel better, right? And that wasn't the case. I mean, in some ways it was, for sure. I can remember being at my grandma's house after I left and just really settling into the realization that whatever was going on right then, no matter how chaotic things felt, I was finally safe. There was definitely a sense of peace in that I didn't have to worry about him and what he was going to do to me anymore. And that was a huge relief, don't get me wrong, but what was jarring to me was that I didn't just like bounce back to being a happy person. There are a lot of feels that can happen after you get out. For the duration of my marriage, I was in a constant state of nervous system activation. It was fight, flight or freeze all the time. My guard was constantly up, and the way I survived in that marriage was largely dissociation. My nervous system was just overloaded and shut down for a lot of the time. I have memory gaps. Have you had that? Like, where you try to think of what happened, and it feels like those cartoons where they try to grab the bar of soap and it just keeps slipping out of their hands. I tried to hold memory, and it's like it just slides right out of my brain like a slippery soap bar. By the end of my marriage, I was documenting all of the things he was doing when they were happening, because I wouldn't remember later unless I did that. It was like my brain wouldn't let me think of it. It would just slide past. That's how traumatized I was. I imagine that many of you have had similar experiences to mine. So after I got out and started to have that sense of peace and safety again, that numbness that I'd had for so long, started to disappear. I started to come back to life, in a sense, but in that thawing out, it was almost like all of the things, all of the feelings that I had avoided by dissociating were just saved for later, and now I got to feel it. I became more anxious than ever, and I was kind of upset about it, like, what the fuck I'm supposed to feel better not worse? But that feeling worse is really normal. Once you are out of that constant nervous system activation, you can start to actually deal with stuff and, like, process it. And processing trauma can be rough. There was a lot of anger that came up for me, like, the more I healed and the more I realized that how I was treated was wrong, the angrier I became. And while it felt inconvenient to be so angry, that anger was also a really vital part of the healing. That's the part where you truly start to feel like you deserve better, and that's a good thing, even if it doesn't feel like it is at the time. I also had to deal with how much I had internalized the abuse. I've talked on here all the time about how it was like, where he left off, I just picked up the slack and started emotionally abusing myself. It was like that was what I was so used to that I kept trying to create it for myself. It was the familiar, and our brains love the familiar, so I was constantly having to battle recreating abuse within myself. I tell you all this so you know that you're not broken, because that's what I thought I was But that's not the case. He didn't break you. You're just dealing with what needs dealing with now, and you will move through it and it will get better. Life on the outside of that relationship is still better. I might be anxious as fuck in crowds, but at least I can go places now. I might have to be dealing with and confronting my people issues or trust issues, but at least I can have relationships with people now. He didn't let me have friends or talk to people. So even if things feel hard because I'm having to deal with the aftermath, it's still better than it was in that relationship. Because in that relationship, I was basically dead. I was just a hollow shell. And all the things that I feel now, both the good and the bad, mean that I'm not that shell anymore. I actually get to focus on how I feel and how I'm doing. I get to notice how I am. I don't have to be walking on eggshells and be on high alert for how he's going to behave. In that marriage, I didn't have the time to deal with my own feelings. I was always scanning him and watching out for him. But now that I'm out, I do. And it can feel overwhelming, especially at first, when you're used to being numb and not having to deal with yourself, but it's actually such a luxury to be able to notice how I feel and to deal with my own feelings. I've learned so much about myself since getting out. I've grown so much. It's been really incredible. It's been hard at times, but really good too. So that's what I want to leave you with, my friends, that no, you're not broken if you feel worse than ever. And yes, it does get better as you keep working on it. You're doing better than you think you are. And if you'd like some extra support in getting there faster, you can use the link in the show notes to book a session with me. All right, my friends. Until next time, be well.