How a celebrity break-up left me in tears :(

My current guilty pleasure is watching Selling Sunset on Netflick's. Tonight's episode (I'm only on series 3), Crishell Strause got dumped by her husband Justin Hartley who plays Kevin from 'This Is Us.'  The found out he'd 'filed' 15 minutes before it went public, so understandably shock was huge as well as humiliation and the usual devastation.  I was in floods of tears and not sure I can watch This Is Us again for a long time, if ever. 😭😭😭

The trigger for me tonight was that Crishell was COMPLETELY blindsided. Yes they'd had an argument, but this came completely out of the blue for her.  Surely she must have known? Surely there must have been bigger issues? Who knows I haven’t got that far yet but on the show she’s taking some time out to bed down with her family and try to process the shock so that she can at least begin to come to terms with things and try to make sense of them. I do know she is happily re-coupled now and loving life, which is always something to celebrate!

Tonight though made me reflect about the fact I tried EVERYTHING, absolutely EVERYTHING to make my marriage work. I was the one who had always tried everything to fix things - forcing us to attend couples counselling twice. Twice!!! I still cannot comprehend how it couldn’t have been obvious to the most basic person how much trouble our marriage was in, yet there was nothing, NOTHING from my husband to try to address anything. Once I gave up that was it; no fight, no effort, not even any grief until I met someone else.  Sound familiar? 

What I did get over two years later when he met someone and I was suddenly single again myself was hatred and vitriol that was pretty much unbearable for both myself and my children, all whilst we were also trying to deal with the aftermath of another very long drawn out trauma which I still cannot speak about yet almost two years on from the event that kicked it all off, as sadly it is still a live case being dealt with by the police.  

He never gave me the grace of telling me why he turned on my children and I so badly.  At one point that was almost as bad as the abuse itself, not knowing used to hurt so much.  How had we gone from being relatively OK, to this?  From him saying he was grateful to me for ending the marriage as now we had a second chance at being happy to this utter hatred and abuse of me, all while he'd finally met someone who he supposedly actually liked?  AlI I ever got was that 'I took away the chance of him having a four person family.'  Maybe he was struggling with the fact his new girlfriend had three kids, something he had been so adamant when I fell pregnant for the third time that he did not want?  I could only fathom it was that now I didn't have someone else to protect me, which despite the faults of the man I met after my husband, he would never of allowed anyone else to treat me or my children the way my ex husband did. 

As I re-read the above paragraph, I'm struck by the contrast of how hard it was at the time against how now it's just a fact from which the emotion is now gone.  I don't need to endlessly go over and over it anymore because I've processed the fact I may never know and that's OK.  When the emotion goes, the power that situation had on you diminishes and now I share not to try to make sense of my own thoughts and feelings but to help heal others as I know this is a very common occurrence and one that plays havoc with our minds and our bodies.  The  Cognitive Dissonance it creates can make us feel like were going insane, on top of the gaslighting and other manipulative actions that make us believe that we must be the crazy ones. We are not. 

Sometimes I still question how we got through it.  The scars still come up from time to time but thank goodness I have worked so bloody hard to heal myself and my family that we get through the tough times now, which thankfully are also far less common.  

It's amazing what happens when you put in 'the work' to recover and build skills, knowledge and resilience.  When you take back your power or maybe even claim it for the first time, you become the person you were always meant but were never allowed to be.  When you are able to give up trying to make sense of the bits that simply can't be explained, that's when you know you're truly on your way.  

As well as our collective and individual healing, my children and I have all instilled boundaries both within our own house between each other and externally.  We know each other on a much deeper level now and I'm always open to learning more, to really understanding.  Sometimes we get triggered, sometimes our boundaries get overstepped, but as long as we are communicating, loving and forgiving each other and ultimately moving forward together we’re doing good and that feels like the most special gift.

I guess I’m sharing this as a heartfelt plea to anyone going through tough times to reach out and to keep on reaching out if at first you don’t get the help you need, especially if your situation involves abuse and/or post separation abuse. I’ve lost count of the times clients have come to me who have been re-traumatised from so called friends, family members (especially in.out-laws), health care and other professionals as well as failed legal processes.

There are no rules for your healing, no timelines. The journey is as individual as you and your experience is.

There is however one massive rule that exists for every single one of us. The rule is that without doing ‘the work’ we will never heal to the level that is not only possible but is our right and one that we truly deserve to receive.  What is 'the work'?  It's a commitment to you and your family's healing so that health and peace can be yours.  It really IS possible, but it does take time and continued effort as well as professional help too in the form of therapy or coaching. 

Healing is never self indulgent or self absorbed. It is essential, not just for us but for our children and our children’s children. It’s a chance to break often deeply ingrained although sometimes subtle family cycles and constellations. It’s a chance to break those chains.

We will never fulfill our potential in life, in happiness unless we put in the time and effort required with the assistance of professionals. That might be from doctors and other public professionals, through counsellors, schools and Camhs, or through private professionals such as counsellors, coaches, trauma specialists alternative health practitioners. Remember to be wary of the potential for re-traumatisation but don’t give up if you don’t get the right help straight away.

Obviously I’m biased but having been experienced and been trained in many different healing modalities myself and having successfully finely tuned them with hundreds of clients now, I truly believe my gifts lie in healing the deepest of trauma where other efforts have failed.  Someone tell Lewis Capaldi and Prince Harry please 🙏.

Abuse isn’t just about what’s happening in the present time so we can build up our strength and resilience to manage it as best we can.  It’s about making sense of the past, of what led to the neglect and abuse. Yes we need to take responsibility IF we did anything to contribute to it.  If our coping mechanisms were flawed or we retaliated with reactive abuse we need to forgive ourselves for that, but it is NOT about taking blame for things that were not our fault.  It’s about putting together the whole jigsaw puzzle that is your life so we can do the really deep healing not just on the present but the past too. It’s about digging deep and knowing this is a journey, then embracing it. Knowing that sometimes it’s messy and hard, but that ultimately it’s worth it. YOU are worth it. You deserve to heal.

Please give yourself the gift of making the first step. If your first step is reaching out to someone, simply book a call with me now: https://bit.ly/lizcall

All my love

Liz x