I think it depends on your definition of healing. Healing from emotional scars is different for everyone, but I don’t think it means you forget the hurt and suddenly there are rainbows and puppies everywhere, unless you are on some serious drugs. Sometimes people think getting help means their life will be perfect. Everything will be fixed. Happiness will fill everyday. Well happiness doesn’t fill everyone’s day. The world isn’t made of only polyannas. There will still be cruel people in the world who will do their best to drag you down. But you can learn to quiet the noise and at least live in peace with yourself.

Think of it like a physical wound. An amputated limb. Plenty of people go to having full lives. They see the wound everyday but bit by bit, they learn to adapt. They can get a prosthetic but I’m sure they still wish they had the real thing. But with it or without it, they realize they are a value person who deserves self love and even the love of others. And if others don’t love them, that’s okay. They will continue to enjoy what life has to offer, with or without them.
So they aren’t 100 percent fully healed, in a technical way, but healed in a way that matters.
At least that’s my take on it. I’m not a psychiatrist.

But I realize when people are unhappy, they look for outside things to make them happy, instead of looking for their own value as a source of real happiness. But it takes work and time and then some more work. I’ve known people who have gone through emotional and physical abuse, come out the other side of it and become stronger in their struggle.

Unfortunately when something worse happens, or you find something better than the original expectations.

For me after 25 years I learned not to care anymore.
I am happily in the unofficial Meh stage of grief.

I spent many years in therapy for the awful emotional abuse inflicted on me. Many, many years, and they were worth it.

We can recover from emotional abuse.

I use tools that I’ve developed. The first tool is sobriety. I don’t drink any alcohol or use any drugs that aren’t prescribed to me.

The second to is medication prescribed by a psychiatrist.

The third is meditation. This isn’t really a big deal. I sit, relax and close my eyes, and breathe. Many thoughts come and go. I just let them pass through. There are many YouTube videos to guide you in meditation. I don’t use it, but I hear good things about the app Calm.

The fourth thing is therapy. I’ve been going for many years. These days, I only go once a month for maintenance.

The fifth thing is my diet. I try to eat healthy food, and I limit the amount of refined sugar.

The last thing is exercise. I’m bad at this. I like to walk, and it’s superb exercise.

With these tools, I maintain my recovery. I’m stable. I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been mentally. I feel good.

Truly go away.

I would say you can go through days, weeks, months, and even years, where the abuse barely creeps in, you have overcome it or barely think about it.

There is always a possibility of getting triggered from some sort of current event. The trigger might affect you momentarily or drag out, but if you had happiness and normalcy, you know the way back, you will find your way back again.

Each person is different. Also, the severity of the abuse probably matters, and experiences subsequent to the abuse. Surrounding yourself with healthy people who are good to you and have a calm and positive outlook on life will help you learn how to be like that, how to think like them, and less chance of being triggered.

Plan things to look forward to.

First of all, comparing the two (physical vs emotional abuse) isn’t really valid as both are very damaging with damage that lingers forever. These are the people that are supposed to love and protect you, you learn about human interaction from them. If the parental abuse encompasses your entire childhood, you can take many steps (as well described by @Hawaii_Jake) to lessen and ameliorate the effects, and it will improve your outlook on life immeasurably, but may not entirely eliminate it.

Therapy, therapy, therapy. Exploring your own reactions to certain stimuli is an enormous help.

Good luck with this, @MakeItSo1701, you may well be in for a long road.

Nothing like this just “goes away”. You learn to cope with it. You learn to heal it. You learn that you have survived it. You learn to not get triggered by it.
You hopefully grow stronger because you have done all these things.

Not easily or quickly. I was able to forgive once the parent died. To some extent, I think its an intentional process of letting it go/forgiveness.

^ This. Forgiveness can be very therapeutic. I can’t speak to everyone’s trauma, and I certainly have no idea what people have gone through. But in my experience, personally forgiving someone for their actions helps me.

There are also some related concepts of self and free will (or lack of) that resonate with me.

There are also approaches in therapy that work on forgiving ourselves. As humans who experience traumatic events and relationships, we tend to look back on them with a lens that treats our reactions to these as “wrong” or imperfect. Forgiving ourselves can be a great first step in forgiving others, which can take some of the power away from memories, our attachment to them as part of our “story”, and our identification with these traumas.

I feel like the whole notion of healing was a lie to sell therapy and avoid responsibilities.

Everyone now knows that people get away with bullying, especially if they have connections.

This is why you always see Republicans saying “people act like victims”.

It basically means you can bully anyone, and simply tell them to get over it.

This is why you have people convinced they aren’t allowed to defend themselves against oppression.

^ I don’t see the connection between “healing” and someone telling someone to “get over it”.

If I am not suffering from past trauma, I am stronger and able to destroy those who need to end. If you want to cut someone’s throat, it’s better to do it with a sharp knife than a wad of tear-soaked tissues.

And I don’t see the connection between forgiveness and healing. If anything, understanding your abuser may be a very minor goal in therapy. I think I’ve largely healed from my childhood traumas to use the trite word, and my goal in therapy was to understand the effects of them and to learn to love and accept myself. Are wounds sometimes triggered? Yes, but very rarely these days.

@janbb: “And I don’t see the connection between forgiveness and healing. If anything, understanding your abuser may be a very minor goal in therapy.”

It used to be more of a Buddhist thing, but it seems to be very popular in mainstream therapy today.
Note: We often think of the abuser as the only abuser. For victims of trauma – or just in normal situations where someone feels they have been done wrong, there is a second abuser. The ruminating voice that blames the victim for their actions and emotions related to their abuse. If we can forgive ourselves and come to understand and accept the past, we take power away from that second abuser/inner voice. And some people find relief from practicing a form of forgiveness to even the abuser. It is not accepting their behavior or justifying it. It’s not suggesting that you continue to engage with the abuser. The forgiveness needn’t be a public declaration. Rather, there can be tremendous freedom in taking some control in a situation in which you have none.

Holding grudges and feeling righteous can feel powerful in the moment. But it can be a cancer that ends up gnawing away at your emotional and physical health. To elaborate on a personal story (that’s obviously not seriously traumatic), my father cheated on my mother when I was 10 years old, left the house when I was 11, started another family and sent my mother, sister, and I into poverty. We had a strained relationship for many years, and I resented him (too many hurtful stories to mention). No matter what I did or said, he never understood what he had done to us. My resentment and grudge served as a placeholder for many years, until I (through therapy and an early meditation/mindfulness practice) approached it differently. I understood that he made decisions that I felt were immoral, wrong, and hurtful to the people who supposedly loved. But looking at him as a young man with his fucked-up childhood, his own trauma as a front-line soldier in Vietnam, his culture, his biology, his lack of emotional inteligence, etc – he was able to give exactly what he was able to give.

Some people would consider this giving him an out. I didn’t and I don’t. It’s an understanding that helped me. I didn’t go to him and say, “I forgive you”. Rather, I was able to let go of the ruminating resentment and “what ifs” and see him for what he is: a flawed human.

Obviously. there are people who go through serious abuse, and I’m not saying this is easy or possible for everyone. But I have read a bunch on this type of forgiveness happening with people who have had serious things happen. I have also met people at my old sangha who expressed having found serious relief and peace from a practicing a type of radical forgiveness (and metta/loving kindness meditation).

I am the healthiest mentally I’ve ever been in my life. My psychiatrist said I only need to see him twice a year.

I have this to add:

Fuck forgiveness.

We’ve kind of gone off on a tangent here @OP. The main point is that your path will be your own and with your therapist you’ll discover what you need to do to heal. And it is possible.

Thanks all. I have been abused like this since childhood, including relationships. I am just now realizing my relationship from two years ago he was manipulative and played with my emotions. I fall in love with the wrong men. I realize the pattern now- love bombing.

I am approaching dating a lot pickier. No sex, no intense emotions right away.

It is hard however. These scars are still pretty deep for me. I will obviously work with my therapist, my next appointment is in 3 weeks. I am glad there seems to be light at the end of this annoying ass dark tunnel.

I will get through this, just needed some encouragement :)

@MakeItSo1701 You might enjoy this poem which had a lot of meaning for me after my husband left me.