After spending years trying to recover from the abuse of my blood family as well as the cult family, I have come to a conclusion.
I can spend my whole life nursing the wounds and 1000 different healing modalities.
Focusing too much on what the abuse has done, I give too much power to the abusers. I also disempower myself by thinking about abuse way too often.
We all have some scars on our bodies from falling when we were kids. We do not often focus on the scars and how we got them.
Even though emotional and spiritual abuse leaves scars on the heart and soul, it is still a scar.
The abusers are merely a mirror that shows us what is lacking from within.
The childhood abuse may have resulted in the lack that allows a person to accept abuse when they grow up.
No matter how bad the damage, it is never too late to gain our power back.
If not for the experiences of abuse, I would still be a doormat and peoples pleaser. Now my boundaries are becoming stronger and stronger like a wall.
We also learn to have more self-respect and compassion for self.
No therapist can know us better than we know ourselves, we all have that inner guidance in order to find what works for us personally. We are all different and there are no one formula fits all when it comes to healing.
Imagine how amazing it is that we are on this forum aware of what has happened to us instead of still being stuck in the situation.
This is a huge victory and we should never take it for granted.
We can either choose to look at the abusers as tough teachers or as excecutioners.
when we change the present we can also change the past. By letting the hurt transform into strength and power, we can forgive those who have hurt us as well as the past. If we become a better version of ourselves, the past can also be transformed into a more pleasant experience.
We should never give up on ourselves and the hope that we can be whole one day after letting situations and people destroy many sides of ourselves.
It should be an opportunity to put the pieces back together and build a new and better version.
It took me many years to finally come to the point where I can no longer sit with The victim mentality as the survivor side of me is taking charge of the situation.
For those who feel stuck, do not lose hope as the future can be brighter.
Forgiveness will eventually come when we love all that has happened to us. Be it good or bad. It is all a gradual process. I am not there yet.
Recovery has way too many layers and we can often hit a plateau. Think we are back to sqaure one. But we are still progressing.
I just wanted to share this before I take a break as there is not much more I have to say.
Give yourselves credit for embarking on the journey of transformation, which takes so much courage.
May you all have the Universal divine forces help you on the path to wholeness.

I think that one of the greatest mistakes that most of us make after leaving abusive situations is taking on this idea that we are either "victim," "survivor" or "thriver," as if these are three distinct stages that we must all go through on the way to recovery. I don't think surviving abuse is that linear. Some days I am extremely happy, feeling calm and confident and making good progress with my life. Then I slip out of that state and into one where I feel overwhelmed by disadvantage, alone and crushed. I work on those feelings, and regain that sense of joy and control. Sometimes it takes time, and there are days, weeks or months of unproductiveness as I do so.

If recovery really is as linear as we typically believe, then each of these dark patches would be a "failure" on my part, a regression where I find that I'm not where I am on my journey after all. That view would negate all the happy times, and would make all that progress moot. It would mean that any time I felt bad, I'd be back at the beginning of that journey.

Clearly, that isn't true. I see it more like a path through a forest: sometimes the trees above you block the light and everything seems dark, sometimes there are clouds and the path seems gloomy. Sometimes the path opens up again and there's a lot more light, and you can appreciate the beauty all around you. But even if it rains twice on your journey, it's not the same rain, you aren't in the same patch of forest. You might need the same or slightly different tools to get through the rough patch, but you aren't suddenly at the start of the journey again just because things are briefly difficult and dark. Frustration, rain, exhaustion: these are all normal and cyclical parts of the journey.

This reply is getting a little long, but I often think that insights come in layers. You might think that you resolved something five years ago, but then the flashbacks start again. It just means that there are deeper truths that we need to uncover. As an SGA, everything I learned about the world came from the biases of a few difficult people who sought refuge in a cult as a way to avoid change, and those lessons were reinforced by several difficult relationships. That's my entire blueprint of life right there. Every time I change or grow I need to learn a new way of coping, need some extra insight that was missing from my childhood. The fact that I still struggle with PTSD is proof to me that I am still learning and outgrowing those difficult and unhealthy lessons; they show that I am moving out of my comfort zones and into challenging emotional situations where I need new skills and modes of thinking. PTSD is like the conflict between the current reality and past lessons. If I was totally free of it at all times, I also wouldn't be learning anything new about the world. I'd have reached the peak of where I want to be. Hey, I hope I get there one day, but it means I'll have learned everything there is to learn. C.P. Cavafy's poem "Ithaka" springs to mind.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2021 09:16PM by Jupiter.

No worries. I make long post and give long answers.
Yes, recovery is not an easy process. Abuse leaves scars.
The most important thing is to take our inner power back. The power we gave our abusers.
And we must be very kind and compassionate toward ourselves. This is what helps me the most.
Being raised with emotional abusers, I started also using a hateful inner language all my life. I would always see myself through the eyes of the abusers.
Then I was exposed to the cult abuse. And now I have to deal with 2 types of abuses.
But showering myself with kindness, talking to myself like a friend and not foe... is truly what has helped me the most.
I am reconstruct a new me out of the ashes of abuse.
We must let go of the old us that is still linked to the past abuse. Try to build a new better version.
Of course there are varying degrees of abuse obviously. Mine was quite mild compared to kids who are battered, locked in cages, sexually molested...
Those people must be much more damaged.
Healing is like Russion Dolls. We will eventually get to the last doll.