When you’ve been in an abusive relationship, you’ve been emotionally, mentally or even physically battered by someone who you thought was once your light in shining armor. Pain and suffering become part and parcel of your day-to-day life and you may deeply feel that you’ll never have a way out. We’re all familiar with pain and suffering in our everyday lives. We’ve even been conditioned to believe that we must suffer so that we can get those things we want in life. In relation to a narcissistic relationship, you are in pain because you’re constantly degraded, cheated on, called names, belittled and blamed for everything happening in the relationship. The more you stay in that relationship, hoping and waiting for them to change, the more you sink deeper and experience more pain which leads you to the world of suffering. In this article we’re going to be focusing more on emotional and mental pain.

Difference between Pain and Suffering

Let’s first start by defining pain and suffering. Pain can be defined as a signal that something in your nervous system is wrong (or not how it’s supposed to be). Pain is communicating to you that you have to do something or something deep within needs your attention. It’s shows us that there is a misalignment between your current reality and who you are at the core of your being. It’s like an internal GPS which bleeps when you’ve veered off the path.

For example, if you’re having a stomachache, your stomach is telling you that you took something which didn’t go well with your system and you need to take some medicine to relieve the pain. In case of emotional pain after abuse, it’s showing you that there’s something in there, deep within yourself that needs to be addressed. It can be how you think or believe about yourself. You may be having false thoughts like, “You deserve to be abused”, “You’re unworthy of love”, “You’re not good enough.” You’ve probably developed these thoughts because of your past experiences in life and the narcissist just cemented them with their constant emotionally abusive ways.

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The moment you ignore or mask that pain or even take the wrong medicine is the point where suffering begins. The moment you ignore the pain or avoid facing those false thoughts about yourself by numbing, distracting or even jumping into another relationship, you’re prolonging the pain which simply implies that you’re choosing suffering instead. So, suffering is pain amplified. Suffering can be defined as the state of undergoing pain or rather prolonged pain. Suffering is more of a process and pain is just an event. So, pain is a signal that you need to go inward and fully address those false beliefs and negative thoughts about yourself. On the other hand, suffering happens when you ignore those signals or take the wrong approach that doesn’t fully transform your inner world.

So, how do you Avoid Suffering After Abuse?

Let’s first understand that pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. We choose what to do with what the pain is telling us. You can also look at pain as it having a purpose and suffering as what you choose to do with the pain.

So, the best way to transmute pain so that we can avoid suffering is acting, and not just any action but a corrective kind of action. We also need to remember this, doing nothing at all especially after leaving an abusive relationship is still action. Analogy: If you’re inside a burning house and you do nothing, you will of course be consumed by the flames.

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The best thing to do is to just be compassionate with yourself and listen to what that pain is telling you. You can ask yourself a question like, “Yes, I am in pain but what is this pain trying to tell me?” When you observe the pain, you will have the opportunity to deeply examine what’s lying within. When you change your perspective about pain, you grow out of your painful experiences instead of suffering through them. The pain becomes your friend instead of your enemy and you’re empowered to make a lasting change in your life. If you keep using pain as a compass for areas you need to grow in your life, it will a be a great tool for your own personal growth.

For example, when you have some negative beliefs (like “you’re unlovable”) about yourself, every article or what other people say about you will look like a dagger or an attack. But when you’re deeply secure and you know you’re good enough, what other people say about will have little to no effect on your current state of emotions. In conclusion, you hold the key to how you interpret and respond to the events happening in your life: if you view your pain with negativity you will suffer (or feel the pain for a longer time) but if you view it with grace and love you will transcend it and avoid suffering. So, which path do you choose?

Note from the Author

If you’re ready and you’d like my help with healing, finding peace in life and breaking free from these toxic patterns (in less than 2 months) , then you can book a FREE BREAKTHROUGH CALL with me HERE. Happy healing 💙💙. Feel free to share and comment! Use this information with caution, it comes from my own thoughts & bias, experiences and research😊.