I want to be clear about what this article is and what it isn’t. It is not inspiration. It is an honest account of the specific things that helped — and the things that didn’t — in the process of recovering from one of the most destabilising experiences of my adult life.
Therapy — but the right kind
What I needed after betrayal was something specific: a therapist who understood betrayal trauma as its own category of experience. The first therapist who said the phrase “betrayal trauma” changed something in my chest. I had not had language for it before that.
If you are considering therapy and you can access it, I would encourage you to specifically look for someone with experience in relationship trauma or betrayal trauma. It is a meaningful distinction.
Understanding my attachment style
The second thing that genuinely shifted something was reading seriously about attachment theory. Understanding that I had an anxious attachment style — that my nervous system had been calibrated to stay hyperalert to signs of abandonment — did not fix me. But it gave me something to work with. It meant my responses had a logic. They weren’t random or shameful. They were a patterned response to a specific kind of threat.
Community — but carefully chosen
What helped was finding women who were willing to tell the truth about recovery. Not the polished version. The version where it was still messy and ongoing and they still didn’t entirely trust themselves yet.
Writing — without structure
What actually helped was writing when the thoughts were loudest. Not for any purpose. Just to get the thoughts outside my head, onto a page, where I could look at them instead of being inside them. The research on expressive writing for trauma is quite robust — even brief, unstructured writing reduces the frequency of intrusive thoughts.
Walking
Walking — specifically outside, for longer than you feel you need to — is one of the most consistently evidence-supported interventions for trauma responses. Bilateral movement. The body in rhythm with itself. I walked a lot. There were days when walking was the only thing I did that was genuinely helpful.
What did not help
For completeness: trying to forgive before I was ready. Being encouraged to consider his perspective before I had stabilised my own. Dating apps opened too early. Alcohol used as a way to get through the evenings. Friends whose version of helping was minimising — telling me I was too good for him, that it was his loss. All of this was offered with love. None of it moved me forward.
There is no shortcut through grief. There is just the going through.
— Ava