CCChat April 2025.pdf - Flipbook - Page 32
You want to be back where you were, you
want that feeling back again. And he
says it too, remember what it was like,
it’s a promise of something wonderful
and good and there’s a hopefulness.
A lot of what people who have been
traumatised in childhood and
adulthood miss out on is feelings of
hope and I see that very much missing
in the lives of people who have been
abused.
They don’t even want to feel
too much hope because it never works
out for them and when they get hope
something always happens. So even
when things are ok, things will fall
down again and there will be
disappointment so it’s like you almost
don’t want to get to feel ok because it’s
inevitably going to be followed by a
loss.
Especially, I imagine, if your abuser
is the kind of person who tells you that
you ruin everything you touch,
everything you’re involved in turns to
shit and it just reinforces that
message.
And when you’ve got that beginning bit,
where it’s all lovely and nice, and they are
promising you the universe, there’s hope
there, that things are going to be better,
it’s not going to be awful anymore. You’ve
been rescued, you’ve been saved and it’s
going to be ok and wanting to feel that
protected feeling which you didn’t get as
a child, well of course you want it, why
shouldn’t you want it? There’s no
reason to hate yourself for longing for
that feeling of security and love
because it is a normal human emotion.
It’s like resenting yourself for wanting
to feel happy.
What I find really strange is
that I’ve been in relationships where I
have loved deeper and the relationship
was healthier, but it’s only with this
relationship that I get all the dreams
and that literally still messes with my
head.
I think you feel ashamed of it.
Definitely. Why can’t I have a
dream about the guy that treated me
better, who I was more in love with,
why this total pilchard? And so I’m
angry at myself and yet the dreams
have absolutely no bearing on how I
feel when I’m awake and going about
my day to day activities.
And you know that people will look
at you and judge you and think why
would you feel that way? What they are
doing is speaking from a very strong
position of privilege and of judgement
when they decide that you’re doing it
because you’re some weak willed
individual.
And that you like being degraded,
you like being treated like shit.
Yes, and the police will treat you
like that - well you go back to them
anyway, you love it, you love this sort
of abuse, they will even say that. You
like getting knocked around, that’s
why you keep going back, but it
completely undermines what happens
in those situations where it is much
safer to stay and connect with the
abuser than to try and run away from
them. Because we know instinctively
that if you leave an abusive man, the
chances of being hurt are a lot higher.
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