Reset :: Relinquish :: Restore

What three words can better sum up the process of starting to recover from a relationship with a personality-disordered partner, or family member, or colleague? It is these relationships the pathological abuse theorist and researcher Sandra L Brown, MA refers to as “relationships of inevitable harm.” It may take months, even years, to reach the point at which you know you are ready to move on, somehow, possibly, to put one damn foot in front of the other. This moment is as much a reset in mindset, in attitude, in understanding, as it is a reset logistically and practically.

Restore is, in my mind, the final phase, the one in which we ask ourselves some version of the question, “Okay, Daphne. What’s next? Where can I get a cheap toaster, but one that can also sense the difference between a delicate English scone and San Francisco Sourdough?” This restore phase, to me, comes after the indeterminate-in-length post-abuse recovery phase: this process will take just as long as it takes, it’s not a competition, it’s not a race, and you will be the final judge on when and if you are ready. See the bottom of this post for information on a therapy service I fully believe will help in recovering from this trauma.

But I question in what order the other processes happen? Do you have to get to a place where you can relinquish the past, before you can reset? Or is there a definitive reset that launches the next phases, the relinquishing of what was, and then the rebuilding phase?

These arguments are neither here nor there, of course; what matters is you do your damnedest to get there. Get there on your own. Get there with help, Get there with therapy and an entire village cheering you on! Whatever bloody well works! Whatever gets you from trauma, through the recovery phase, then to the scanning of online marketplaces for an an intelligent toaster that, guess what? It has Hello Kitty on the front, but who the hell cares, because you’re building a home for you, for your dearests, and you build it just as you damn well please, Trevor!

I intend for this project to be a repository of the signs of hope reborn. Here I want to give voice to survivors of pathological relationships as they move on. This is a future-focused space. It’s a place to offer up a brief poem, description, haiku, descriptive paragraph, a whatever* on what made you realise you were moving on.

*Interpretive dance videos will require me to upgrade to a more expensive web package, so… Maybe!

And I’ll go first here. For me the first moment of Restore was having my own bed. Yep, it was that simple. my own bed after nine months of not having a stick of furniture to my name. And it didn’t need to be a bed with a mattress or drawers in which to hold my socks and plentiful camo shorts. Nope, it had only to be a bed that ticked several very basic boxes, and first and foremost it had to be cheap. I had to change jobs and lose jobs - twice - so money was tight. Second, it had to be multifunctional. This was and is critically important for me, because, as we all know, often the first place we settle may not be our final landing place, so, for me at least, every item I bought had to be multifunctional so that I could continue to travel light and easily. For instance, my coffee table converts to a desk. I need only one piece of furniture for both tasks. And lastly, anything I purchased had to be deliverable almost immediately, given my urgent need. So, if it wasn’t available locally (I go to local artisans first), I search all the online forums for the best deal.

And pictured below is the bed I bought: a sofa / futon configuration, it was deliverable in a matter of days from an online retailer, and it is multifunctional. It arrived, I put it together with such delight, and, for the first time in nine bloody months, I slept in my own bed.

That’s it. That bed marked for me my moving on. And that’s what this section of this website will be about, moving on, and rebuilding a new life and a polished identity. It will be about hope. It will be about the leaving behind of what we no longer need.

This is not a forum where I will post the stories of narcissistic and pathological abuse; there are many websites and services out there that offer this opportunity, but I would urge caution when accessing unmoderated or lightly-moderated sites - or sites operated by those with little expertise in trauma informed care - especially if you’re not yet stable in your recovery.

This is a place for showing the world - or, all of the tens of folks who might stumble this direction - that you are moving on in hope, and that this bed, this mixer, this Hello Kitty toaster, this bedside lamp… This is how you knew it was happening.

PS: You have people out there, folks, people who will help with recovering from abuse, and I always recommend the services offered by the Institute for Relational Harm Reduction, particularly their Living Recovery Program, which you can find here.