My heart goes out to all the people who are in abusive relationships. We’ve all heard about the recommendations. Seek help, get out of there, what are you still doing there? Personally, I’ve never been in one but have met a lot of people who have, both men and women. For people in toxic relationships is not as easy as it looks.
I had a colleague that used to be in one. She’d had a couple of incidents where it did get a little physical. Not to the point of punching or anything like that, but there was some shouting involved and a shove. She talked to me and another colleague to ask for our point of views. I always told her I didn’t feel qualified to tell her what to do because I hadn’t been in that type of relationship before.
I did tell her though that as a person, if I found myself in a situation like that, I would probably seek professional help. I believe that being in a toxic relationship sort of clouds your vision. You’re not able to see the entire picture and there are details that you often don’t give a lot of importance, but that they do have it. A third person who is also qualified can help give you a better idea of what to do.
I also told her to talk to the police about it. I’ve been in relationships that for some reason have not turned out to be what I expected but have not gone that route. She listened to that advice and to other people’s and got out of there. She and her son received professional help and are now doing very well on their own. She had to go to therapy for a while and had to deal with guilt issues.
Her therapists also suggested that she start doing something that she was interested but that she hadn’t done before. She chose painting. Painting helped her a lot as she was able to deal with her guilt and fear issues that way. Her pictures were very nice and some of her friends, including me, bought some of them from her. It was also a way for us to help her through those tough times.
These issues were also experienced by the woman in the next video. She was in an abusive relationship for a while. One day she decided she had had enough and left that relationship along with her children. She soon found herself trying to solve the problem of where she was going to live, and she didn’t have that much budget either. She was watching some YouTube videos when she had an idea. Why not build a house? And she did. You won’t believe the result!
