Is history doomed to repeat itself?

It’s a question that I think many people who have lived through an abusive relationship can relate to on some level.

If you’ve been through one abusive situation, are you doomed to keep repeating the pattern?

I don’t think there is any straight forward answer and it may depend a lot on how much you process the situation you have been through. And what you can learn from it.

Support services are a great way of trying to work through and understand the effects domestic abuse has on an individual.

There are so many services out there. Check out my Resources Page for useful links to support.

We can all bury our heads in the sand, hope that things will get better and leave emotions and past hurts to go unresolved.

But the problem is, when we do that, we are imprisoning and condemning ourselves to keep reliving and rehearsing the pain that has been caused by the abuse.

There is almost an element of justification that we tell ourselves, we’re entitled to feel the hurt and pain over and over again.

But by doing this, nothing changes for you and you’re stuck, trapped now as prisoners of your own hurt, sadness, resentment and frustration.

In my blog Forgiveness – Is It Possible?  I talk about how I tell my children when they think they have been wronged by someone or something, that it is perfectly acceptable to feel hurt and resentful. Just DON’T STAY THERE!

Easy to say and so much harder to do!

The only way I believe you can ever move forward from your past trauma is if you have the courage to LET IT GO.

Try to stop allowing the past to control your present and your future.

If you can do this, you may just find that you can have a life that you are more than entitled to live.

You’re not moving forward for the abuser’s sake, you’re moving forward for your own. It won’t work for everybody and even if it does, you have to keep at it.

It won’t just happen overnight.

Maybe work on it alongside any support you’re receiving. If you’re not receiving support, check out my Resources Page where you can find links to various support services.

Or get in touch via my Contact Page.

It will take as long as it takes and you may think you’ve cracked it until something happens, and you realise you haven’t.

Don’t give up on letting go.

Keep letting go.

Don’t spend all of your energy and time trying to hold on to the past. It can feel as though you’re drowning in the sadness, anger, pain, hurt and injustice of it all.

Nobody is saying that you do not have the right to feel all of those emotions and more.

Just please don’t let it drag you under. The abuse has held you under for so long.

It shouldn’t be allowed to keep you there.

Rise to the surface, breathe and let go.

Until you can learn to do this, the chances of history being doomed to repeat itself are pretty high.

And you may indeed find ourselves in more than one abusive relationship because you didn’t process what happened to you before.

You might as well be stumbling around in the dark.

But if learning to let go gives you even a glimmer of hope for a life without abuse, isn’t it worth trying?

“It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness” – Eleanor Roosevelt.

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