Hi all,
After being single for a couple of years I've recently got into a new relationship. The man I'm dating is lovely - kind, caring, sensitive. He knows about my c-ptsd stuff and isn't put off by it.
The problem is that I am finding being in a new relationship triggering. I've been having EF's to my relationship with my ex partner who was emotionally abusive. I was with him for 5 years, but the first year was the worst in terms of the amount of abuse he inflicted on me. Now that I'm in that new phase with someone else, I'm being reminded of that new phase with my ex and all the traumatic stuff that happened. I don't think I realised how much it had traumatised me until now. I did talk to my counsellor about it and she said that it's a matter of slowly learning to trust and replacing the bad memories with good ones. She also told me to ground myself by remembering how good I feel around my new partner. This advice was good and grounding myself has been helping, but lately I've been having anxiety about the past which I think is an EF.
My current man has admitted to me recently that he's struggling with some issues from his past (not FOO but some bad experiences) and he is looking into counselling for it. As a result he gets a little down sometimes. That's not a problem for me as I'm happy to be there for him, and about 90% of the time he is fine. We still have lots of fun together and really enjoy each others' company, so it's not having a huge effect, and he certainly doesn't take it out on me. This weekend we're going away on a well deserved break and I'm looking forward to it, but triggers galore....
My ex partner, in the first year of our relationship, became badly depressed and did take it all out on me - rages, silent treatments, basically just terrible behaviour that left me walking on eggshells. We went on a holiday together and he spent the entire time emotionally abusing me and being absolutely horrendous to me. I was his captive audience, basically, and there was 'no escape'.
I know logically that my new man wouldn't treat me like this, but I'm scared all the same. I know it's an EF in the sense that I'm being reminded of all the emotions I felt when I was with my ex. I just don't know how to conquer this. I don't want to screw this relationship up because of the past, and I'm a little fearful of telling my new guy about all this stuff too because I basically have this idea that if I share too much, he'll be like 'oh god, she's a headcase' and run. ugh.
Thoughts? Similar experiences?
After being single for a couple of years I've recently got into a new relationship. The man I'm dating is lovely - kind, caring, sensitive. He knows about my c-ptsd stuff and isn't put off by it.
The problem is that I am finding being in a new relationship triggering. I've been having EF's to my relationship with my ex partner who was emotionally abusive. I was with him for 5 years, but the first year was the worst in terms of the amount of abuse he inflicted on me. Now that I'm in that new phase with someone else, I'm being reminded of that new phase with my ex and all the traumatic stuff that happened. I don't think I realised how much it had traumatised me until now. I did talk to my counsellor about it and she said that it's a matter of slowly learning to trust and replacing the bad memories with good ones. She also told me to ground myself by remembering how good I feel around my new partner. This advice was good and grounding myself has been helping, but lately I've been having anxiety about the past which I think is an EF.
My current man has admitted to me recently that he's struggling with some issues from his past (not FOO but some bad experiences) and he is looking into counselling for it. As a result he gets a little down sometimes. That's not a problem for me as I'm happy to be there for him, and about 90% of the time he is fine. We still have lots of fun together and really enjoy each others' company, so it's not having a huge effect, and he certainly doesn't take it out on me. This weekend we're going away on a well deserved break and I'm looking forward to it, but triggers galore....
My ex partner, in the first year of our relationship, became badly depressed and did take it all out on me - rages, silent treatments, basically just terrible behaviour that left me walking on eggshells. We went on a holiday together and he spent the entire time emotionally abusing me and being absolutely horrendous to me. I was his captive audience, basically, and there was 'no escape'.
I know logically that my new man wouldn't treat me like this, but I'm scared all the same. I know it's an EF in the sense that I'm being reminded of all the emotions I felt when I was with my ex. I just don't know how to conquer this. I don't want to screw this relationship up because of the past, and I'm a little fearful of telling my new guy about all this stuff too because I basically have this idea that if I share too much, he'll be like 'oh god, she's a headcase' and run. ugh.
Thoughts? Similar experiences?