Life. Relationships.

An Open Letter To My Younger Self

Life after leaving an abusive relationship.

Dear Twenty-Six Year Old Georgie,

I know that right now, you feel like the weakest woman on earth.

You feel 3 inches tall and like you should throw yourself underneath the sole of the nearest passer-by’s foot because you deserve the pain, and it’s an accurate representation of your worth — the shit on someone’s shoe.

You’ve always suffered from low self-esteem, but you didn’t know it could fall so low that you have to drag it along behind you on the floor.

“I’m a bad person,” you repeat over and over again in your mind. Your friends will try to convince you that “No, you’re not a bad person. You did a bad thing. You can be a good person who did a bad thing.” but you will refuse to believe it.

I’m here to tell you to listen to them because they speak the truth. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone. I’m here to tell you that you are fundamentally a good person. And most of all, I’m here to tell you that you are strong. To tell you that every day from now on, you will build that strength little by little to become a woman who can do things that you never thought that you could.

You will be confident again and most of all, you will be happy. All it will take is time and the openness to learn.

Let’s get this straight, breakups suck. Everyone knows that. But this doesn’t feel like any old breakup, and it isn’t.

You know that it isn’t, but you can’t explain why yet. It won’t be till a lot of aha moments later that you will be able to articulate what is just so painful and traumatic about this one.

The first moment was a one-line sentence in a book you were reading. It spoke about a term called “gaslighting,” and that term punched you in the stomach. How could one sentence resonate with you so much?

You will google the word, and it will open up the internet’s version of Pandora’s box. A barrage of memories of perfect textbook examples will flood into your mind. You will understand this was what had been happening to you over and over again for eight years — knocking you down peg by peg.

This discovery will lead onto to other articles about “Narcissists” and ultimately “Narcissistic abuse.” Your hand will tremble over the keyboard. You will break down into tears.

Timelines about the different stages of abusive relationships will feel like they were written about you like there was a fly on away with a notepad writing down everything about you and him. The red flags all happened. They were all waved right in front of your face, and you did nothing about it.

Those brief good moments between the cruelty weren’t real. They were all part of the act. You need a little bit of sweetness to be able to cope with the sour. He never loved you. None of it was real.

I’m sorry, I know it is a bitter pill to swallow. It’s a horrible realization, but it will make so much sense to you. It explains everything. You will take in all this information, but it will overwhelm you, and you won’t know what to do with it. Don’t worry. One day it will all fit into place in your mind.

You will have a recurring nightmare most nights that you had briefly left the relationship, but for whatever reason, you were back in it. You were trapped, and you couldn’t get out.

After a year and a half of this recurring nightmare, you will read that these are a symptom of unresolved trauma and the only way to get rid of it is therapy.

You’re backpacking, and you might panic. There’s no way you can afford therapy right now, but don’t fret. You will find a wonderful online therapy course called “Healing after narcissistic abuse,” which will help you immensely. It will make you relive all your shit and come out on the other side.

You will face your fears that there’s something wrong with you, that there’s some blood wound in you, the prey that they the predator can sniff out. You will be terrified of getting into another relationship in case you end up in the same situation again.

You will read about something called an “exit affair” when you feel so trapped in a relationship and don’t have the strength to leave by yourself (which you had tried to do but were talked out of it and manipulated into staying).

Hence, you create a reason for the relationship to end. A horrible reason. Something that you will always be ashamed of and sorry for, but you will eventually forgive yourself. You will understand why you did it, that’s not who you are, and it is out of character.

You will go to India and learn to become a yoga teacher even though your ex determined you as not good enough to do so. You will backpack India by yourself, even though he had always told you that you NEED him and that you can’t do anything without him.

That you’d be nowhere and nothing without him.

You will prove him wrong. You will do it by yourself. It will be challenging and scary at times but worth it. You will most of all prove to yourself that you are strong and independent and that the only person you need is yourself.

You will backpack Australia solo for two years. Something you’ve always wanted to do, but he said it was a stupid idea.

He said that it was Britain in the sun with no culture, and you would just work in a shitty bar for a year and come home with no experience, and no one would hire you. You will work tons of different jobs and get all sorts of experience. You will get a job a few weeks after returning home.

But never mind the jobs, you will experience some of the most incredible wildlife and scenery. You will dive the great barrier reef, sleep under the stars in the outback, road trip the West Coast, just to name a few things. There’s nothing stupid about it; it’s one of the best ideas you’ve ever had.

But most of all, through all your travels you meet the most incredible people and make friends upon friends.

He said that nobody likes you and that people take pity on you and don’t really want to be your friend. But it’s not true; you are likable, you are worthy of friendship. You will make more friends in one year than he has in his entire lifetime.

You will enter into a few short-term relationships and learn more about yourself and what you want and need than you knew possible.

You will learn what a relationship can be like and should be like. Then you will come home after all that, and you will meet someone who is incredibly kind, supportive, and warm.

You’ll be happier than you’ve ever felt because you took the time to heal before finding real love. But most importantly, finding real love and peace with yourself.

Lots of love from,

Thirty One Year Old Georgie

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Georgina Nelson. Traveller. Writer. Photographer. Yoga teacher.

Sh*t Happens — because the things that go wrong make the funniest stories.