Many people can identify what it feels like to be traumatized after an event. Whether the event is life-threatening, such as a car accident or crime, or more of a shock that has a high emotional impact, like a divorce or breakup, many people report experiencing stress and anxiety long after the original event. Feeling this way for too long can lead to depression and other mental illnesses, but what happens when the trauma isn’t over? What if it’s in the relationship that you feel traumatized?
The truth is that it can actually be worse to be traumatized by a person than an event. It’s difficult to look back at an accident or crime scene and think about how things could have been different. It’s not easy to stare at the divorce papers you’ve been served with and feel like something is missing in your life, but when trauma happens in a relationship, it feels unresolved. It feels wrong. And most importantly, it feels like you can’t move on if there are feelings involved.
In this article, I will tell you How to begin healing from relationship trauma.
Signs and Symptoms of Relationship Trauma
Before we get into the progression of healing, here are just a few signs that your trauma is related to a relationship:
- You feel like you can’t go on with your life because you keep thinking about the relationship.
- You find yourself having nightmares or intrusive thoughts about the relationship.
- You’ve had problems functioning normally in society ever since the breakup.
- You feel like you’re never truly loved or cared for; that there was always some other motive behind their actions.
- You find yourself thinking about what you could have done to make the relationship better, but nothing feels like it would fix it.
- You haven’t been able to get over the fact that your partner cheated on you.
These are just a few of the signs and symptoms, but they should give you an idea as to whether or not you have post-traumatic stress disorder from a relationship.
How Feeling of Anger Affects the Person After a Breakup?
When you feel anger after a breakup, it’s normal to feel that way. There are usually several different emotions swirling around out of control in your head. You might even have so many conflicting feelings that you don’t know which one is the main feeling anymore. Anger is just one of those feelings, and it can also be an important step in your healing process.
Also Read: What is the Root Cause of my Anger?
Being angry is a natural response to feeling like you’ve been wronged. Even if the relationship ended on good terms and you feel fine about it, anger can still arise because of all those negative feelings that were buried under the surface for so long. The anger can be the sole reason for a person not to move on, especially in the case of women who get angry when their partner leaves them. In that case, you must need therapy for anger management from a qualified therapist so that you can get control over your anger and thus move on.
Moving Forward: Healing from Relationship Trauma
Now that we’ve got the basics down, it’s time to tell you how you’re going to get over this relationship.
1. Understand That Your Partner Is Not Going to Change
To begin with, you have to come to terms with the fact that your partner is not likely going to change anytime soon. Unless they were manipulated by outside forces and had no control over their cheating actions, there’s a good chance they did it because of who they are as a person. And while it may seem like they can change, it’s more likely that you’re going to spend a long time waiting for them too
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2. Change How You Think About the Relationship
This is probably one of the hardest and most important things you will have to do if you want to heal from this relationship: re-evaluate how you think about what happened. It might be hard to do this, but try outsmarting yourself by thinking of how it wasn’t your fault. Try to focus on the positive things you had before the relationship ended instead of letting negative thoughts take over.
3. Dedicate Yourself to Healing
Once you’ve come to terms with what happened in the relationship and have changed how you think about it, it’s time to start dedicating yourself to healing. This is where you have to figure out what your true motivation and desire for getting over this relationship is. Do you want to find a new love interest quickly? Or do you need more time alone in order to heal? You can’t heal fully if you give yourself conflicting messages about what you want.
4. Allow Yourself to Move On
Don’t be afraid of moving on with your life. Even if it feels like there’s nothing left for you without the relationship, there’s always something waiting ahead that can be even better than before. Don’t ever think that everything is over because of this relationship. It’s only just the beginning. A good girlfriend that you will always remember, but it won’t be nearly as strong or painful of a reminder as if you hadn’t moved on yet.
5. Encourage Yourself to Move Forward
When you’re feeling down about the way things went in the relationship, try not to lose heart. Remind yourself why it’s important to keep looking forward and keep trying for something even better than what you had before. You’ll get there one day, just not right now if you don’t work towards that goal every day.
6. Get help from an Expert
Speaking to an expert about your PTSD and the way you feel will help you look at things from a different perspective. The chances are that an outsider’s opinion on the matter will be able to shed new light on what happened and how it affected you mentally. There may not be an easy answer for this, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a solution.
7. EMDR Therapy
EMDR therapy is a tried-and-true method of dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. It stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, and it’s been used effectively to help people move past their triggers or traumatic experiences. I provide such services not only face to face but for the people who cannot talk in person and like to have a consultation online. She will surely help you out in healing from your past traumatic relationship. All you need to do is contact me on my website.
8. Allow Yourself to Grieve and Not Bottle it Up
When someone close to you passes away, we all know how we’re taught that we should avoid talking about them or thinking too much about the good times. The same goes for relationship trauma: don’t bottle up your feelings. Talk about what happened to someone you trust. Write in a journal if that helps you get all the bad thoughts out of your head. Find a method that works for you and use it as often as possible.
Conclusion
Remember that you’re not alone in your healing process and also that the relationship didn’t initially start out bad. You can get past this traumatic experience and move on with your life if you work towards fixing what went wrong.