Why Moving on can Feel like Abandonment

Don't Lose Hope

Sep 30

"Sometimes when you think about letting go of a traumatic past, it can feel like abandonment.

It is not."

When you think about moving on with life, and leaving a traumatic experience behind, it can feel threatening – and even wrong. Here are some of the reasons why:

1. What happened was huge. It blew your world apart. Life as you knew it changed on that day.

2. What happened came completely out of left field. It was absolutely shocking, and entirely unexpected.

3. The impact has reverberated through the whole of life. It has impacted your life in a million ways – and often in ways you could never have imagined.

4. The fallout, and the pain and the disorientation are something you had never experienced before, and especially not to that degree. The words you would use to describe it are extreme … excruciating, anguished, tormented, crazy-making, horrifying, shocking, and unbearable.

5. Also, you didn't have the skills to cope with the trauma, and it turned you into someone you didn't recognize. It turned you into a person you didn't want to be, and it sometimes left you feeling that you'd lost your mind.

6. The trauma left you feeling isolated and alone. And you felt that there was no-one who really understood.

7. And that is why you need to be there for yourself … because you feel that no-one else was (or even could be) there for you. And there's no way you can risk this ever happening again. You can't let yourself suffer that intensity of pain. You have to stay in high alert, or you might put yourself at risk

9. Also, it feels like moving on minimizes all the pain, all the shock – everything that you have been through. It's as it just erases it, and says it doesn't count. And it doesn't really matter than you suffered like you did.

10. But this isn't true … And you can still be there for you … You can heal from the pain, and can rebuild your life again. You will not forget what happened. You will not forget the cost. But you will find you're freer, and you've more self-confidence.

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