smiley_3

Welcome @Zoe F.! I'm glad you found your way out of that relationship. You didn't deserve what happened to you. I'm sorry your "friends" weren't supportive. I'm relatively new to this community, but have already found it to be very supportive and validating. I hope you have the same experience. 🙂

Thank you to each and every one of you for such a warm welcome. Your words of kindness, encouragement, and understanding are so helpful. I'm looking forward to sharing and learning more from this community. Thank you! ❤️

Hi Finchy, Thanks for your compassionate welcome. "You didn't deserve to be abused" and "It was not your fault" really hit me hard... in a good way. I think I'm still working on truly believing those statements myself.

It's been over a decade since I left the abusive relationship I was in. Besides telling my husband a few stories, I never really talked about what happened to me. I just swept it under the rug thinking; it's done and it will go away. Years of anxiety and intimacy issues with my husband has revealed that it doesn't just go away. When I think back to what happened to me it feels like I'm watching a movie or someone else's life. I realized I have to face this and work through it in order to really know myself and be a healthier person. I recently started working with a counselor who asked me some