How Therapy Can Help After An Abusive Relationship

Posted on

If you have recently gotten out of an abusive relationship, you may feel lost and alone. While leaving that relationship was the best thing you could do for yourself, it is still hard and a loss in your life. One of the things that may be able to help you with your struggles following an abusive relationship is adult therapy. There are many ways that therapy can benefit you in your recovery and growth after you leave an abusive situation. Get to know some of these ways you can get help from therapy. Then, you can be sure to get your first adult therapy session scheduled right away. 

Therapy Gives You a Place to Talk

Talking about abuse and what you went through with friends or family can be tough. On the one hand, you want to open up and talk about what happened to you. On the other, you do not want to hurt your loved ones or upset them with stories of your abusive relationship. 

In therapy, you do not have to worry that you are upsetting anyone with your experiences. The therapist is there to listen without judgment or emotional attachment to the situation. They may say things like, "I'm sorry you went through that," and act in an empathetic way, but they will not get upset or riled up about what you have to say. 

You can be open and honest in therapy in a way that you just can't with family and friends. Your therapist provides a safe space for you to just say whatever you are feeling and to tell your story, no matter how brutal it may be. 

Therapy Allows You to Feel Grief Over Your Relationship

Even though leaving the relationship was the best thing for you and you know that logically, there is often still a feeling of grief after leaving an abusive relationship. This grief is over the loss of someone that you (more than likely) loved very deeply and completely. 

Family and friends may not want to allow you to grieve over your relationship's ending. They want you to be angry and indignant about what you went through. And while you likely feel that as well, the grief is a normal part of the process too. 

In therapy, you can express and feel grief over losing a person you loved from your life without being judged or ridiculed. You are allowed to go through the grieving process at your own pace. The therapist will work to help guide you through your grief and give you strategies to cope with it. 

Therapy Helps You Rebuild Yourself

One of the most important steps in the aftermath of an abusive relationship is to rebuild yourself. Your self-image and self-esteem have been crushed by the abuse you endured. You will need to work to bring those back up and to find yourself again. 

Therapy can help with that. Your therapist will work with you on exercises and strategies to become more self-assured and confident again. They will help you realize who you are and who you want to be. 

Now that you know some of the ways adult therapy can help after an abusive relationship, you can be sure that you get your first appointment scheduled as soon as possible. 

For more information on adult therapy, reach out to a local medical health professional.


Share