When Hope Feels Hard

This blog series focusses on the feelings and worries we face after leaving an abusive situation.  If you are in a situation that is unsafe or dangerous you deserve safety.  Please contact the National Domestic Abuse Helpline: 0808 2000 247.

Leaving abuse is a huge challenge. It takes courage, strength, perseverance, asking for help, standing up for yourself – and for a lot of us, we have learnt over many years that these things are dangerous.

If I had a pound for every time I have said ‘I thought leaving would be the hardest part’, I’d be a very rich lady!

Sometimes it can just feel like one fight after another. You’ve left, but somehow you still don’t feel free. There are new things to navigate, new battles to face, and sometimes the whole thing just feels too big.

One of the things I found particularly difficult after leaving was my friends and family telling me how strong I was. I found it so frustrating! Why couldn’t they see I was falling apart?

On the inside, I didn’t feel strong. I was tired. Exhausted. I was sad, I was angry, I was overwhelmed and, some days, I was barely holding it together.

I couldn’t understand how everyone else could see this strength in me when I felt I had nothing left to give.

Looking back, I can see it differently.

Because even though I was hanging on by a thread, that was strength. It just didn’t feel like that at the time.

And I think that we sometimes have the idea that being strong means being okay. That strength means getting up, carrying on, smiling, coping, rebuilding your life and somehow knowing what you are doing.

But maybe strength isn’t always about feeling strong.

Maybe it’s getting out of bed when you really don’t want to. Maybe it’s staying in bed and letting yourself rest. Maybe it’s asking someone for help. Maybe it’s saying no. Maybe it’s crying on the sofa because life feels like too much.

None of this undoes how far you have come.

You don’t have to try to live up to this version of you that everyone else can see, but that you can’t see yourself.

You are already her.

Real strength is in learning to love yourself. It’s slow, and it’s painful, and sometimes you will want to give up – and that’s okay.

Because underneath the exhaustion, underneath the fear, underneath the days when you just don’t feel enough, you are still the woman who stood up.

The woman who asked for help.

The woman who survived.

The woman who is slowly, in her own time, finding herself again.

Where is your hope anchored?

We chose the name Anchored in Hope because we believe that hope matters.  That even after everything you have bene through, you are still capable of hope. 

And perhaps, if we’re honest, you’ve already done a lot of hoping.  You hoped the person you loved would change.  You hoped things would get better. You hoped that this time, things would be different. 

That wasn’t foolish.  It came from love.

Perhaps part of healing is learning to anchor that hope somewhere else.  Not in someone else’s behaviour.  Not in whether someone finally understands what they have done.  Not in whether the next day will be easy.

But in ourselves. Our ability to make choices, our ability to ask for help, our ability to rebuild, our ability to learn who we are again and in the possibility that our lives can become something more than what has happened to us.

And maybe that’s what hope looks like sometimes.  Not feeling positive, not knowing everything will work out fine, not waking up every morning feeling like you can take on the world.  

Sometimes hope is smaller than that.  Sometimes it’s simply believing that this moment won’t last forever. 

So for today, if it all feels like too much, that’s okay.  You are still her.  The woman who left.  The woman who has lived through some terrible experiences and is still standing – or staying in bed for the day!  The woman who is still finding her way, still learning, still healing and slowly, in her own time, finding herself again.

Whatever today looks like, hold on.  You have come further than you think.  And remember: 

You don’t have to feel strong for your strength to be real.