How Healing Happens After Abuse
Living with abuse keeps your nervous system on watch around the clock. So it makes sense that afterward — and sometimes long before you leave — you might feel anxiety, depression, trouble sleeping, flashbacks, numbness, difficulty trusting, or a voice in your head repeating the abuser's words. None of that means you are broken. It means you adapted to survive something that should never have happened.
Healing is genuinely possible.
It tends to come gradually rather than all at once. Trauma-informed therapy, survivor support groups, and time help the nervous system slowly relearn safety. Many survivors describe the quiet return of their own voice — their humor, their opinions, their sense of self.
Small things help more than they seem to.
A walk on the beach or a quiet trail. Journaling. Gentle routine. Rebuilding one friendship at a time. Free counseling is available through People's Place and several Sussex shelters. Small is not trivial — small is how the trail is walked.
If the weight ever feels like too much, or you have thoughts of harming yourself, please reach out right away. Call or text 988, any hour — LGBTQ+ callers can press 3 for affirming peer support.
If the weight ever feels like too much, call or text 988, any hour.