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How To Heal From Domestic Violence: 5 Steps To Getting Your Life Back

10 million men and women find themselves victims of domestic abuse every year in the United States.

When it comes to life after domestic violence, it can be challenging to move on and get your life back.

If you’ve been searching for ways to move on and heal, you’ve come to the right place.

Below you’re going to find some steps to help get you on the road to recovery after you’ve escaped from a domestic violence situation.

What is Domestic Violence?

In the movies, domestic violence is shown as someone being beaten all the time, but that’s not the only form of domestic violence that someone can face in a relationship.

In fact, there are 8 different forms of domestic violence.

How To Heal From Domestic Violence: 5 Steps To Getting Your Life Back

The first is control, whether by holding someone’s finances from them or maintaining control over someone’s ability to come and go as they please.

For an abuser maintaining control is the key to ensuring their victim can’t leave.

Another form of domestic violence is verbal abuse, which includes verbal threats.

This could come in the form of telling a victim that if they don’t do what they’re told, they could be putting their family in danger.

Sexual abuse is also a form of domestic violence.

It is when the abuser uses sex to exploit the victim or force them into completing sexual acts against their will.

Other common forms of sexual abuse include:

  • Manipulation
  • Excessive jealousy
  • Withholding sex
  • Isolation
  • Exerting male privilege
  • Refusing to purchase necessities with family income
  • Stalking
  • Coercion
  • Blame

These are just a few of the ways that domestic violence can occur.

You must know that each domestic violence is different, and victims can face a combination of these things all at one time.

How to Heal

Now that you know the different domestic violence situations here’s how to heal from domestic violence.

1. Take It One Day at a Time

One thing that you need to understand when it comes to how to heal from domestic violence is that it’s not going to happen in one day.

It’s going to take time, and you need to approach the journey day by day or moment by moment instead of thinking about next week.

Focusing on every day will help you to learn for each moment that life has presented you with.

And as you continue to heal, you’ll begin to find the beauty in every sunrise and bird chirp.

Take time to learn a new hobby, and eventually, you’ll stop focusing on moments from the past and instead look forward to making memories that you’ll enjoy thinking about one day.

2. Learn to Love Yourself Again

After being in an abusive relationship, it’s challenging to love yourself.

For so long, you’ve been brainwashed to believe that you have various faults and issues that make you unlovable.

This is not true; it’s crucial to learn that your former partner told you these things as a way of maintaining control over you.

One way that you can learn to love yourself again is to speak about your experiences with others that have been through the same thing.

You could search for a support group in your area and share ideas with other domestic violence survivors about how they increased their self-esteem after leaving abusive relationships.

3. Get Your Power Back

Abusers thrive on having all the power, and the last thing they want you to do is take that power away from them.

If you and your former partner share children and you’ve gotten away from the abusive situation, the next thing that you need to do is speak with a domestic violence attorney.

Your domestic violence lawyer can help you get child custody, get protection, and take the right legal steps to remove yourself from this dangerous situation. You may also be due compensation for the suffering you experienced due to sexual abuse through this relationship. You may need a personal injury attorney to help you recover some of the costs for your treatment and other costs. 

You’ll need to read more now to find out what questions you need to ask to understand the steps you need to take to care for you and your children.

Being able to care for yourself and your kids is the power that your former partner didn’t want you to have, but now you do.

Your attorney will help you take the necessary steps to control the situation while keeping you safe and away from your former partner.

4. Forgive Them

This may seem like an unnecessary step, and it’s something that your former partner doesn’t deserve.

But, forgiving will help you let go of what happened to you in the past and move forward with your life.

When you forgive someone for the things that they’ve done to you, it helps you choose happiness over anything else.

We aren’t saying that once you forgive them, all of the flashbacks will cease, but it’s a step in the right direction.

5. Stand Against Abuse

You can continue the healing process to take a stand against domestic violence and fight to get more resources for those looking to escape these situations.

When you speak up, you never know who you’re going to touch with your story and how you can inspire them to escape from their abusive relationship.

Part of domestic violence healing is helping others heal and share things with one another that helps uplift and support each other.

Domestic Violence: Healing Starts Now

When it comes to moving on after you’ve been the victim of domestic violence, you may find yourself struggling every day.

But, when you use the steps that we’ve provided above, it will make every day easier, and you’ll find that you’re slowly regaining your sense of self.

We hope our article has given you some hope after such a dark time in your life and pride ourselves on creating content full of useful information.

If you’re looking for other posts that have equally helpful information, continue scrolling through our blog section for more.

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