Athens, Photos, Freedom, and Insight.

Once you have insight, you can’t take it back, everything that happens after the insight is different in some way.

So here is how it was; I was living my life only half paying attention. And then suddenly I am with Paul, and the world becomes animated, intense, feelings are stronger, colors are vivid, words are glowing, and where life suddenly comes into focus. That image was a pipe dream, never absolute. Writing my book is giving me the clarity to understand why this relationship from which I emerged feeling very abused shook my life so dramatically.

I recently returned to Athens, Greece my first visit since my time there with Paul Allen. Athens was a pivotal moment in our relationship; I had a subliminal insight of our relationship that unsettled me. Like a beautiful house from the outside but now weather beaten the roof was starting to leak, the walls starting to rot, the foundations starting to shift. I did not sense the knot in my gut or my aching mind. I was running on adrenalin living high on our illusion, destructively breaking boundaries. I was in the middle of a pipe dream. So returning to Athens on a recky for the book project accompanied by my editor was not an easy task. My memory of  the visit to Athens with Paul remained a significant hurdle in my efforts to erase the residue of the relationship. So like a ghost I relived my time with Paul in Athens shadowed by my book editor.

This visit to Athens was extraordinarily cathartic. It snapped the last piece of the chord that kept me from fully freeing myself from my feelings of abuse.

Sunset at Temple of Poseidon.

Paul and I took hundreds of photographs and many videos. Particularly while we were in Athens. We asked strangers to take shots of us kissing, holding hands, laughing, posing in front of stunning backdrops. Except for the few photos that I had saved on my iPad including the iconic one of us on the rooftop of the Grand Bretagne Hotel with the magnificent Acropolis as our backdrop, Paul kept all the other images. Of all the stuff that happened to lose my photos impacted the deepest on my recovery. I imagine Paul destroyed them all to erase our story. 

The thought that the photos of our relationship could be deleted without my knowledge or agreement psyched me out. That is until now.  By simply having the photos taken at the same spots in Athens, and with only me in them was like a switch going off and my mind set changed.

Are you  struggling to recover from emotional abuse?  Don’t be afraid to face up to your nemesis and try and shake it off. You owe it to yourself to liberate your mind from the carnage of abuse. This time three years ago I felt I was dying, I was truly knocked off centre. By opening up and talking about how I felt, writing the blog, research, professional help and ridding myself of the illusion I made it through the hell. If I did it, then YOU can do it.

Are you feeling desperate right now and feel you will never come out the other end?  Trust me you will feel better as time and memories change. It’s does take time, but you can make it. Here is link as to why it takes such a long time to get over this type of abuse. Emotional Abuse and The Brain. Emotional abuse doesn’t stop the day you walk away from an emotionally abusive partner. Why? Let me get a little technical here. The hippocampus a major part of the brain is part of the limbic system–also known as the ‘emotional brain.’ read more 

 

Meet the Author 

End of the relationship It’s A Rap

 

 

 

Lead Quote: The Emotion Machine 

• Whether it’s a ground-breaking scientific discovery or a glimpse into our own personal habits and behaviors, what leads people to moments of insight?
• This is one of the key questions psychologist Gary Klein asks himself in his new book  Seeing What Others Don’t: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insight.

“I went crazy in my fear, running around the place screaming and he eventually somehow subdued my deep terror just as I was about to fall over the edge.”