This trauma response nearly cost me my relationship! So, for those of you who are new to this blog, please know that I speak from experience. I went through abuse, left the relationship, healed and still healing, and now helping others to heal from their traumas, so they can live their best life, attract healthy love and be at peace with themselves…
When I was with my abusive ex I would be ‘stonewalled’ all the time (this is a form of psychological abuse designed to punish a victim by shutting them out – physically, emotionally and psychologically). This meant I could go days, sometimes weeks without being able to speak to him. Please see previous post on this. It meant that if I tried to talk to him, I would receive either physical abuse or be completely ignored, like I didn’t exist. It would be so painful to endure because I would just want to talk it out and he would sometimes disappear for days on end and I would have no clue where he was, if he was ok, if he was coming back home or not. If this sounds familiar, then please know that it is used as a form of punishment to gain power and control over a person.
Anyways…what I am trying to get to is the trauma response! So now I am in a healthy and happy relationship and it has taken a lot of healing to get here but I wanted to share something I experience which I think can really help if you are dating healthy men. If you are not sure how to navigate dating, click here on my post about how to trust a man again.
So stonewalling creates a cycle in a victim to believe she is being punished if she doesn’t get a response from a person because of the trauma which was hard wired into her from the past… so when a healthy person friend or romantic partner doesn’t message you back right away or doesn’t call you back for hours or sometimes days, it can make your trauma think that you did something wrong…
Your trauma will completely fixate on the fact that the person hasn’t messaged you and you may start feeling like you are unloved, uncared for, not thought about or even being punished, so your mind will start racing through the things you thought you may have done…or you may start to think that you are being abused again.
What I learnt from my experiences…
>I still had unresolved trauma which I needed to work on…
>I needed to communicate my feelings with my partner, so he could help support my healing…
>I needed to understand the root cause of these feelings…
>Our partners are not at fault – they might trigger you, but the trauma response lies within yourself…
So what can YOU DO to help heal from this trauma?
>Try and go back to your childhood or your last abusive relationship and understand what behaviours from others triggered these uncertain or negative feelings?
>Write down how you feel in the moment of these periods of uncertainty and what these feelings are essentially costing you in your life right now. Is the trauma response stopping you from dating? Or finding dating hard? Or is it that you feel like you can’t commit to a person? Or you are sabotaging healthy relationships? What is it really costing you in your life?
>Write down what you need to tell yourself in the moment when these feelings pop up again. For example…I tell myself that ‘I am loved and my partner is just busy and he will message me when he gets a minute. My partner is a kind soul and would never dream of punishing me’.
>Write down an action plan of things you can do to reverse the feelings…so what can you do that makes you happy and makes you feel confident that perhaps you can do for yourself in the moment?
>Have a think and see if there are any other trauma responses which could be popping up during
this phase of your life that you might want to start looking into?
I hope this helps, and I wish you all the love and success in your relationships moving forwards.
Keep smiling at her in the mirror!
Sanita xxx
