How can I resolve past trauma that has made it hard for me to leave a toxic relationship?

Hello and thank you for your question,

I will attempt to answer the best I can based on the information provided. I will also provide additional information on how to further address the concern.

It is quite a bit that you are going through and have been through already. You have mentioned many emotions already so it does seem that relationship is affecting your mental health more. Based on the timeline it sounds like you entered into this current relationship right after the break-up. I could imagine the first breakup was difficult to move past. I do wonder if you entered the relationship before fully processing the previous breakup. One thing to notice is that even if you attempt to avoid emotions, they will return again. Also, attempting to avoid emotions can lead to poor decision making. For example, I often see people leave one toxic relationship and enter into another quickly because of the difficulty in processing the breakup. However, they are still unhappy and maybe even just caused new issues for themselves.

Ultimately, your logic seems correct. You have likely had good moments in this relationship. I am going to assume that in an 11 year relationship there have been quite a few good moments. Moreover, I am not going to say she is all bad. However, she has caused you a tremendous amount of pain. Moreover, she continues to cause emotional pain. It is important to recognize the extent to which this relationship is causing you more emotional pain. Yes, there may be something that you are getting from the relationship. However, ask yourself if the current pros of the relationship outweigh the costs. This can be a common technique a therapist would ask you to do in session. A pro may be that you do not have to go through another breakup by staying with her. It would be interesting to see if that pro outweighs all the costs that you are going through.

In regards to PTSD, I am unable to diagnose something like that through here but there can be a healing process to what you are describing. The healing process can involve entering therapy and speaking about the events that occurred in your previous relationship. It can be helpful to begin processing the thoughts and emotions about the breakup. Therapy may be an appropriate setting to discuss these things. You may also need a therapist that can help in evaluating your thought process further. The other part to healing from this will likely be to face some of that fear. You are worried about experiencing this intense discomfort. However, you will still experience discomfort no matter what decision you make. You went through a very bad breakup before and now you have been going through this. It is very hard for you to not experience some intense emotions. The fear of having these intense emotions is likely going to make them worst. Also, avoiding intense emotions will likely make them worse. Instead, you have to normalize that going through a breakup is going to involve pain. It is also going to involve taking time to move past that pain. We can do certain things to mitigate the pain such as staying active, socializing, and caring for our physical and mental health. However, all of these things still do not remove pain completely. The really important piece here is that once you face that fear and realize you are still ok, then you begin to improve much more. Your mind begins to recognize that despite how difficult the pain may be you will eventually get better.

Now, I do not want to ignore the possibility of you working things out with your current partner. Ultimately, it is your decision on whether or not to stay in the relationship. Based on your response here, it seems like you are leaning towards leaving her.

Thank you again for your question!