8th March 2019- Good morning today is an International Women’s Day I hope all ladies who read this will manage to put their feet up at least for a short while today We are often very busy and tend to forget about ourselves, but we do matter a lot!
Today’s blog is about having a counselling if you have experienced domestic abuse. I have worked with many, many people majority of them have been women, because women are still the prevalent gender in domestic abuse crime; and every single time I get so inspired and totally wiped off my feet, because of these women’s bravery and courage to end their controlling relationship.
When you enter a new relationship you probably feel butterflies in your tummy and generally you are so happy, because you found someone special. You don’t really notice the early warning signs where they loose control very often, when they checking on your whereabouts all the time, where they start criticising most of your friends and family. You just being you the loving and caring partner and you forgive them, because they had a bad childhood as they told you, or recently lost a job or they have mental health problems
All of their disrespect towards you or criticism you forgive them, because you love them and you want to have a loving and happy relationship. Once the control in relationship progress and after a while you decide to leave him/ her you can be left feeling guilty and blame yourself for what has happened in your relationship. It’s even more difficult to move on from this, because he/ she is still trying to be in your life by using your children or friends and family.
Once your controlling relationship ends I believe that you need as much time for your self as you can take. Domestic abuse affects not only your emotional state but also physically. You need to try to find ways of relaxing, to re-connect with old/ new friends and family members. Take a deep breath and a step back and think: what do I want? what’s important to me? what are my dreams and plans?
Maybe at first your answer to these questions will be: I really don’t know. And that’s fine. You have been through a lot and you need to look after yourself. Talking to a counsellor helps to find your self again and work through your experience of domestic abuse. Your counsellor can support you on your journey free of personal blame and guilt. You have to remember that you are not responsible for someone else’s actions. You are unable to change them, they can only do that if they want to. The person who nasty, abusive, disrespectful is entirely accountable for their actions towards you.
