Unfortunately, the effects of abuse don’t immediately stop the moment you leave the relationship.
Honestly, the effects can follow you years and even decades after. I have talked to women in their 60s and 70s who were in abusive relationships in their 20s. They are still haunted by what happened to them.
While this is definitely not a comfortable thing to talk about, if we do not address these things the abuse is going to show up in our lives in so many different ways.
But because we don’t have the awareness around it, we won’t know that it’s the abuse bleeding out. We’ll think its life, stress or even us. We’ll believe we’re inherently broken and undeserving.
We’re going to have the uncomfortable conversations around what it means to be a survivor and how what you’ve gone through follows you throughout your life.
The question now is ‘how?’ How does abuse show up in our life? How does it bleed through?
In this post we’re going to address a handful of them. It’s important that we open our eyes and see that so much of what’s happening with us isn’t our fault. I want you to know that you’re not broken, unwanted or worthless.
So where do we start?
The abuse shows up in your thoughts.
If you’ve ever said to yourself, “you’re a terrible mom. Things will never get better. They’d be better off without you. God you can’t do anything right,” the abuse is bleeding through.
When you’re in an abusive relationship, the first thing the abuser does is take away your sense of self worth and confidence. The reason why is because they know that if they can get you to believe that you’re stupid, worthless and below them, they can get away with just about anything. They make you believe that you deserve it.
These voices can take over our mind at any moment: when you’re talking with your kids or your kids are pushing your buttons.
They especially show up when you’re finally making progress. Your brain wants to shoot you down because it’s scared of what’s going to happen if you actually achieve the success you’re looking for. They show up when you’re talking with family or trolls come after you on the internet.
All of this shows up in so many different ways and we don’t even realize it. And because we don’t realize it, the thoughts continue to play on repeat because we believe them to be true.Then we wonder why we should even stop them because they are most definitely true.
Prefer to watch? Here’s the video!
But the longer you let them run your mind, the stronger that belief is going to get.
This means that it’ll be even harder to break that belief and see the truth.
Here are the facts: you’re a great mom. You CAN do better and you CAN heal. Sweet mama, you are more than deserving of love and a strong, solid relationship with your kids. You’re deserving of the career you want, the life you want.
But right now, you’re beating yourself up so much that that feels lightyears away.
These thoughts hold us back when it comes to being the mom you want to be.
Because if we believe we’re inherently worthless, why on earth would be take the time to try to do better? If we believe that we are unworthy, that we’re inherently the problem, there’s no chance of getting better. So these thoughts aren’t only annoying and hold you back, but they can be dangerous. These are the thoughts that leave kids without moms.
It’s high time to start taking control of these thoughts.
What do these thoughts cause us to do or not do?
These thoughts hold us back from from learning how to find and manage our triggers.
Maybe you’re in a conversation with your kid and you told your them no. Your child starts arguing with you.
While you’re trying your best to keep your cool, all of the sudden you just snap, overreact and scream at them. You lash out and do something you regret.Then you’re hit with guilt. You tell yourself, “Oh my God. I really am a horrible mom.” If you tell yourself that you’re a bad mom, you’re going to act out whatever that truth is to us.
If we believe that we’re worthless, we’re going to fall back into another abusive relationship.
Either the same one you left or a new one.
These thoughts lead us to believe that we’re not deserving of real love, or even that love is pain. We believe that love is stressful and hard. Getting beaten and yelled at is just par for the course. And this is our normal, because we believe that we’re worthless and don’t deserve the love we really want.
These thoughts can cause us to hold our kids back. We’re so scared of our kids getting hurt that we shoot them down and keep them small so they never put themselves out there or risk themselve. We want to keep them safe but it pushes them to the opposite.
This leads our kids to believe that they’re inherently bad and worthless. They begin to think they’re not deserving of love which continues the unhealthy cycle.
I’m not saying this to make you feel guilty – not at all. But it’s important that we have this awareness so we can stop it.
The longer we avoid it, the longer we believe if we’re ignoring it it’s not affecting us, the worse it’s going to get.
It’s so important that we take the time to acknowledge and address what we’ve gone through so we can figure out what caused the thoughts and rip them out at the root.
This is how you’ll change not only your life, but your children’s lives and their children’s lives.
I want you to be the cycle breaker in your family.
I want you to call it out, right now, and say “No. This stops with me. I’m willing to do what needs to be done so my kids won’t have to go through what I went through.”
It’s so much easier said than done, but it is possible.
This is why I created Cycle Breaker, a mini course that teaches you exactly how to do this.
I had to do this work. Fighting through the thoughts, recognizing generational patterns of abuse, going 30 steps forward and 100 steps back.
I felt so lost and alone because I didn’t know what I was doing, all I knew was that something had to change.
After trying and failing for far too long, I began to make progress, inch by inch. Then I found my flow and began noticing patterns so clearly.
That’s when it hit me that other mamas needed this. Other moms need to know that it’s possible to be the Cycle Breaker for your family. To be the person that says “the abuse won’t follow me anymore, nor will it follow my children. This ends here. It ends with me.”
Cycle Breaker teaches you exactly how to do this. It’s not just a workbook or a course to listen to in the background.
No. This is a life changing program that needs your commitment.
But since it was created by a busy mom for busy moms, each lesson is less than 15 minutes. If you really sat down to do the work, you could bust it out in a day.
For all the details on Cycle Breaker, click here!
If we don’t address this, it’s only going to get worse.
We can no longer pretend like it’s not impacting our lives. It doesn’t get easier the longer you ignore it. It only gets worse.
The more we ignore it, the more it’s going to bleed out. As it bleeds out, you end up bleeding on those who didn’t hurt you.
You bleed on your kids, on your partner, on your family and friends.
I’m the first to say that it’s not fair. It’s not fair that we have to do the work to heal from abuse we didn’t ask for. You shouldn’t have to take the time to heal from this.
But if you don’t, you and your kids will pay the price.
It’s not going to be easy, but mama it’s going to be worth it.
Take the time. Do the work. Call yourself out. Notice these thoughts and as you do, pay attention to them. Pause to journal.
Write the thought at the top of the page and then ask yourself, “Where did this thought come from?” Then think it through.
Maybe it’s something you heard from your mom or a teacher. Then when your abusive boyfriend said it, it just solidified within your brain.
Maybe no one outright said anything, but no one made you feel loved. So you believed that you inherently weren’t deserving because you were never shown it was possible.
Once you find the root, it doesn’t fix it. But it gives you the ability to tell your brain that this thought doesn’t belong to you and therefor you don’t have to believe it.
Once you’re able to do that, you can begin to process and move forward. It seems so simple, but I know how hard it is.
This is what really helped me begin to take my healing seriously. Just paying attention to my brain and finding the root of these thoughts was enough to make me realize that I didn’t have to claim them – they weren’t mine.
Once I realized that, I realized I could create my own thoughts about myself.
I understand how hard all of this is, but I also know that it’s 100% possible. As cliché as it sounds, if I can do it, you can certainly do it, mama.
You’ve got this.
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