I was in an abusive relationship for almost two years. When I say abusive I am referring to mainly to emotional and sexual abuse... he also lied the entire time. It's been 9 months since I last spoke to the person and it is still something I live every single day. Throughout the day I have recurring thoughts and when I go to bed at night I normally spend at least an hour lying there trying to answer questions he left me with as well as reliving particular incidents. I am seeing a therapist and he has talked about creating new pathways. This relationship is affecting so many areas of my life and I don't know how to make it stop. I now do not know how to trust men or my own feelings. I question everything and everyone. I want to be able to leave this in my past and create these new pathways but I have no idea how...

I'm far from any sort of expert..
But I couldn't read your problem and not say a word..
I have had some what similar traumas in my life and for me personally, I don't believe we should leave our past and move on.
Just as our successful moments are a part of our make-up so too are our miserable ones.
Because without them where would we find our strength, knowledge and character?

I think for me, my defining moment was asking myself if I was going to allow myself to be a victim all my life or will I choose to unload this heavy burden and look to the 'silver lining'.
Which was, I'm physically moved away from that situation, I will now be able to recognise any similar circumstances and remove myself from them, I survived, I can now choose my own destinations.

The hardest part for me was forgiving myself for misjudging and often defending my circumstances.. telling myself it was OK to make mistakes and forgive myself.
It wasn't till then I started to enjoy getting to know myself again and began building confidence in my values and feelings.

There is no easy outs.. But truly, while you lug around abuse and anger in your life, the person who put it there will forever be in charge of your life. Remove their dead weight from your shoulders and let yourself be happy again.

Congratulations on 9months and enjoy the journey of introspection, we can be amazingly resilient creatures... sometimes we surprise ourselves..
Please don't be offended by any of my opinions, I don't offer wisdom, more a single view.

I believe that creating new pathways is where you learn from your mistakes, pull knowledge from your negative experiences and practice new ways of experiencing situations in order that your experiences become more positive ones. You will learn to do this with the assistance of your therapist.

It sounds like you are overwhelmed with thoughts and questions right now. Perhaps it would help to prioritize the things that are circulating in your mind and deal with these things one at a time in an order of importance. Perhaps if you write each concern you have (i.e.: trusting another man, reliving incidents, trusting yourself, etc.) and then place them in the order of importance that you feel you need to deal with them it will give you a place to begin.

If you feel that you need more guidance from your therapist, then you should tell him that. If you have been seeing your therapist for awhile and don't feel that you are moving forward, talk to him about that. It may be that the two of you are not a good fit, or that his methods aren't what you need. If this is part of the problem, talk to your therapist! It won't hurt his feelings. He can try different methods or refer you to someone better suited for you.

It does sound like he is on the right track, though. Nine months is truly not a lot of time to recover from a deep hurt such as you have experienced. Sometimes, right when you are on the verge of some major change or insight it is easy to lose faith. Bear with the process, keep working hard, and USE your therapist!

Good luck!

Love, Didi