Looking for Value After Abuse

If you have suffered from abuse in any way, it might be hard to find your value. Your important place in the world. 

Abuse is a very broad understanding. It can be sexually (not even necessarily rape, but intimidation or blackmail too!) But also, physical abuse or mental abuse. 

Often abuse leaves you with questions like; “Why did this happen to me? What did I do wrong? Did I provoke it? Is this how people see me? Is this the only value I have? Am I this disposable? Am I a burden for others? Do I radiate ‘abuse me’?”

All these questions are negative and you’ll probably be answering them with a negative answer, too. And deep down inside we know that’s not true! We know we shouldn’t think like that. So okay, saying positive things like, “it wasn’t me”, “I didn’t do anything wrong”, “this was only one bad person”," “I do have value”, - will help us to things in to perspective but truly it doesn’t change anything about how we FEEL.

That’s a struggle I have all the time. I have the brains to put things in perspective, but it never helped me change my feelings.

So I tried to find my value in the world. Even though I still struggle with this, I’m getting better at creating reasons that support my self-esteem. 

At first I made a list of thing I want. I’m not talking about ‘a big car’, I’m talking about happiness or sometimes even little goals like showering. It might sound stupid, but for me all those things are hard when I don’t feel like an addition to the world. 

I wrote for myself what I wanted to be. Who I look up to; “perfect” people.

My list looked a bit like this:

I want to be happy

I want to be perfect

I want to have meaning

I want to be smart

I want to be confident

When you know what you want, you automatically know what you don’t want. I looked for things in life I liked. For example, my pets, cooking, writing, and learning. It’s super important to do things you like; to do things you’re good at. And doing those things can make you feel more confident. Sharing your struggles and talents with people you trust is important, too! 

Everyone needs some positive feedback every once in a while. Feeling appreciated is such an important feeling. Share your talents. For instance, if you like cooking, share your meal with someone. If you like writing, go to a writing forum and share your piece. If you like walking with your dog, go to a park where you’ll meet other people who like walking their dogs.

We all know our self-esteem shouldn’t be dependent on other people but when you question your place in the world it’s nice to get positive feedback.

For me one thing was important to do, and still is. I need to be more playful. I feel like my entire existence is an exam. Everything needs to be perfect, every mistake I make is terrible. And my therapist told me I should be more like a child.

As a kid I already was mature because we had a lot of abuse in our environment. I guess I never learned it’s okay to make mistakes. 

Most kids do things wrong ALL THE TIME, they get to hear criticism the entire day. But they don’t mind. Because that’s how they learn, that’s how they go through life. And sometimes, we as adults, need to do that, too. We need to let go of out perfectionism, because we can go through life with much more fun when we accept the fact that we learn by making mistakes.

We find ourselves being critical about ourselves, but for others we find compassion. If you forgot the birthday of your friend you’d possibly think “I’m a horrible person” but if it was the other way around you’d think “I understand because he/she is super busy and it’s not all about me”. We tend to put ourselves in a negative perspective. 

And it’s totally normal after abuse, because that what they told us many times. Sometimes with words and sometimes with actions. 

Now is time to be strong, to be compassionate, to be protective – TOWARD YOURSELF!

They’ve beaten you down, broken your soul, your confidence. But they will not determine how we spend the rest of our lives. Because we do have value. We only need to shut down the voices in our heads, the abusers created.

Please do me a favour. Go sit down in a quiet room.

Close your eyes and imagine yourself in an empty space. Go back to a moment you realized they’ve beaten you, they broke you. Or a moment you realized later that it took a lot away from you. 

Imagine seeing yourself in that situation. Defeated, broken, lost. You’re basically a pile of dust. 

Now imagine yourself as the person you are now, defeated yet still alive, walking towards yourself in the middle of all the misery. Sit down next to yourself, just be there. You are not alone, because you are right there, you always were and always will be. 

You can be your own support, put an arm around yourself. Give all the warmth you got. Be the best thing that could possible be at that moment. Be your own protector. Tell yourself it all will be okay in the future. Tell yourself to “just hang on”. Be that big sister/big brother for yourself, you needed at that point. Because now you can be.

Please remember you will always be valuable for yourself. You are the only one who went through everything you’ve went through. You can heal yourself; you can heal the lonely feeling you had when you were still in that abusive situation by reliving the moment as a savior on your own side. You can stay there and keep telling yourself different. You can keep telling yourself they lied, they did wrong, but you’ll make it to the future.

Because that’s where you are right now. And even though you don’t know the value you have at the moment in the world. You do have value for your past self, because you always been there when things got tough. You were the badass survivor all along the ride, and it’s still in there.

Never forget what you survived, what you had to do and did. Never forget you have value; it’s only buried under the crap you got from life. But it’s still there, believe me!

Together we’ll fight and fight even harder to kick the butts of the abusers. They won’t win, because you still being here, makes you already a winner.

Namasté allday