Bris - How To Recover From Emotional Abuse: Heal Your Broken Heart

I ntroduction.

My name is Tamara Bris. I am not a therapist or a medical expert of any kind. Ive been a victim of emotional and verbal abuse and have come out of it. My sole aim of this book is to help others who are going through what Ive been through. If you are going through abuse, know that you are not alone, but as hard as it is unless you take steps to end the cycle, it will continue .

Maybe youre out of that relationship already and still feel the pain. Hopefully, this book will give you information to make your life easier .

M y first husband was both verbally and emotionally abusive to me and controlled me through fear and manipulation. He went so far as to use guilt in order to get me to marrying him. I know thats hard to believe, but its true .

Even though we were severely mismatched and the marriage was miserable, I stayed for quite some years because I felt I should, because I had committed to it .

My pattern of abuse had begun a long time before my first marriage. I was brought up in a very strict and controlling cult-like religion. The religion had controlled me through fear. I suppose it was fear of not doing the right thing - fear of going to hell. The rules were strict, and not following them was not even a consideration .

When I married my husband, I saw no other option but to be married to somebody from the same religion. As in all cults, marriages stay within the cult community .

After I came to my senses and left the religion and my first husband, I dated a lot of different guys over the next three years, but no one held my interest longer than a couple of months. That changed when I met John (this is not his real name, which has been omitted for legal reasons). It was my relationship with John that was the most traumatic relationship of my life. I share the details of our relationship in Chapter .

The relationship with John lasted fifteen years. After I left him I was at the lowest point in my life. I wasnt in love with my first husband - so leaving him had felt great - but I had been very much in love with John and I was hurting severely. As I was trying to rebuild my life it occurred to me that I was in a pattern of abuse - From the cult, my parents, my first husband, and then John. Why? Why did it keep happening in my life over and over again ?

I realized I was the common denominator in all these situations, so the answer must lay within me. Somehow I was attracting these abusive people towards myself. It became clear that I had to be thinking and acting like a victim, but in what ways? How can I think differently, how can I react differently to things people say and do, other than in the way Ive been programmed ?

A s I write this Im still amazed at how I had let other people control me for so many years, since Ive always thought of myself as intelligent and independent. Obviously, I was swayed too much by what other people wanted and expected of me. I had become a people pleaser -putting what I wanted last. Not only that I didnt even know what I wanted or needed. I had lost myself .

I had to break this ingrained pattern because I never wanted to feel the way that John made me feel again. I felt like I was trapped in a web of trying to gain his approval. I wanted to break free of the dark cloud hanging over me and get rid of my negative patterns for good .

I knew I deserved better. I set out on a mission to re-program my mind, create the right mindset and undo the negative patterns of the past forty plus years .

This book is designed to help people who are going through what I went through. Hopefully, the things I learnt along the way will be able to help you gain back control of your life too .

W hy is he doing this to me? How can he do this to me if he says he loves me? Your inner world is in turmoil. You feel like you are drowning - or suffocating - and the one you love is looking the other way, cold and uncaring. Words alone cannot express how damaging emotional abuse is to a person. Neither can words describe the feeling of frustration and helplessness that the abused person feels deep down in their soul .

N ote: For convenience and because the research suggests that the majority of abusers are men, throughout this book I refer to the abuser as he and the victim as she. In many cases it is the men who are abused. I write as if relationships are heterosexual however, same-sex relationships may also be abusive .

W hat is emotional abuse?

Emotional abuse is about power and control. One partner wields the power over the other. However, emotional abuse can be more subtle than the other forms of abuse. It can include sulking, withholding approval, attention or affection. Very often one partner controls the others important decisions, most often regarding money. It can even go so far as to involve controlling what their partner wears or the way they have their hair cut or styled .

Typically, the victim reports that the person who abuses (the abuser) twists their words, controls the finances, has temper tantrums and tells lies. Their behavior alternates between charming and offensive and is often described as Jekyll and Hyde .

The abuser arranges the timing of their abuse to catch the victim off guard. The shocked and dismayed victim cant figure out what triggered their abusers ghastly behavior. Their controlling, manipulating ways leave the victim feeling degraded, hurt, scared, inferior and isolated .

The victim of such abuse finds that their life slowly erodes to the point that they are living the life that their abuser projects on to them. Some victims have changed their core beliefs and attitudes in order to comply with their abusers beliefs. Of course, as the abuser is the dominating force in this relationship, the victim would dare not make a decision without the approval of her abuser .

H ow do I get my life back after abuse ?

There's a lot of misguided, bad and generally misleading information to be found in published material, on or offline. For example, forget about it and move on, or put it behind you, its over. Anyone whos been through emotional abuse knows the deep pain felt by such abuse. You cant just forget about it and its not that easy to just put it behind you .