Who Is The New Me

[Kat54]

My life has much improved after a bad divorce, and one that I  precipitated. If I stayed I may not have made it out alive with my mental faculties intact. It was a grueling 3 years and before that 2 years of therapy together, well after 6 months my husband stopped going and I continued. What I mostly talked about with my therapist was my marriage and the abuse and she certainly helped me to leave him; if I had not gone to therapy I would for sure still be in my marriage.

I find myself now struggling and worrying about meeting people and thinking more, over thinking how to act. I second guess myself and have no confidence in any ability to even have a "normal" conversation.  I keep thinking now maybe I was the problem in our marriage and maybe he was more a victim than I thought, everyone else thinks he is.
From all of this I keep circling back to my childhood and not to blame my parents but there was a lot of trauma. My mother was an alcoholic suicidal person, who did eventually did commit suicide when I was in my 20's, she had multiple attempts throughout my childhood. and before that my father had left us and moved in with another woman he had been having an affair with, that I later found out most of my childhood he was with this woman, who is now my step mother.  When my dad left we were living in the mid west part of the U.S., because of my fathers job, but my mother was from the NE U.S. and in the middle of the night she woke us up, she had most of our clothes packed and put us in the car and we drove back to her home town never to return, leaving all my friends and school.  My father found out my mom took us a day later and he was going to have the courts involved to get us back, but then he decided not to as he realized it would maybe more traumatizing for me and my sister.

I have been thinking of going back to therapy to address these issues because I think its partly why my marriage was bad, being with someone who I only set out to please and accommodate in any way to keep him happy. But I just became his doormat to bark and yell at all the time, and someone who didn't think much of me, but also maybe its because I didn't think much about myself to be with someone like that.   I don't want to be the person I was when I was with him. While leaving and going to another state and buying a house on my own was huge and it took everything in me, that alone gave me confidence to be stronger but when it comes to relationships and just dealing with people I'm afraid I'll end up in another bad relationship. 

My new life while going good mostly I'm not sure yet how much is the new me, or the old me is still there just covering up behind a smile.

[JustKeepTrying]

First, congratulations.  Congratulations on finding that inner strength to take those necessary steps.  Hard, brutal and could be crushing steps. 

I am a year and half out from when I left.  I also was in therapy.  Decades of abuse and also a traumatic childhood.  Writing about your childhood trauma here is also a brave step.  Acknowledge that in yourself. 

I have had to cobble a new me since then - pulling the best of me from my college years before I married.  It felt like I was emptied of all that I despised I did - I looked at it, recognized it and decided I did not want to be that person.  That is not me.

You are doing the same.  Give yourself time.  Love your courage.  Own it. 

And get more therapy.  I chose a therapist who specialised in EMDR and it was incredibly helpful with dealing with my childhood issues.  PTSD type issues.  I wish I had addressed it decades ago. 

I am sending you thoughts of peace, healing and love.  Hugs.

[Hepatica]

Hi Kat,

I think you're now in the stage where you are safe from unsafe people and are really getting the chance to find out who you are and unravel what happened in your life. Take this time to sort through it and spend time with it and give yourself the gift of finding out all the things you love.

It's common, i bet for many of us to emerge from our childhoods and have no idea the impact of the trauma and then get involved with another abuser. We are unconscious and we gravitate to something familiar. From what you explained there is a lot to unpack from what you went thru with your mom and dad, and most likely getting out of your marriage is giving you the chance to figure out how the experience shaped the way you cope.

One amazing thing is you got yourself out of an unhealthy marriage and you rescued yourself. That's heroic. Many people do not do this, sadly.  And I think you're right about finding a therapist to support you as you go over everything, right back to the beginning. And in that also explore what your passions are and what you really want out of life.

I am a big believer in moving out of our comfort zones and joining groups, doing things that we like. For instance, I met my husband (a very sweet and kind man) at a music festival. But before I met him I had spent two years in therapy coming to terms with a lot of childhood pain. Because I met him at a festival it was never hard to talk to him... and I can be really, really self-conscious and awkward. I hate dinners for instance. I just clam up even just thinking about going on a date and sitting at a dinner table. But talking to my Dh was so easy I never once worried how to act or what I looked like. I guess I needed to be moving to relax and it was nice that my Dh and share a similar interest in outdoor music and we built from there.