🦚"I have nothing to show for my life"

Maybe you’ve thought this exact sentence. Or something close to it:

I’m [insert your age] years old and I have nothing to show for my life.

You’re exhausted from another round of legal threats. Or court dates. Or emails from your ex’s lawyer. Or fighting just to get him to follow the court order he keeps violating. The kids need new shoes and he hasn’t paid support in months. You’re juggling work and a chaotic custody schedule and you can barely remember the last time you felt like you were doing anything well.

You look around and think: What do I have? What have I built? Where did all those years go?

If you have this thought, you’re not alone. And you’re not being dramatic.

Post-separation abuse does this. It makes you feel like you’re treading water, like you’re losing ground every day, like there’s nothing solid underneath you. The exhaustion is real. The fear is real. And the feeling that you’re failing at everything is all too real.

Yes, you feel this way… and there’s more to your story than that feeling lets you see.

How abuse and anxiety warp your perception

Here’s what happens when you’ve been living under the shadow of an abusive ex, especially one who keeps the abuse going after separation:

He’s been telling you you’re worthless for years. Maybe not in those exact words. But through his actions: ignoring court orders, withholding support, dragging you back to court over nothing, acting like your needs and the kids’ needs don't matter. The message is clear: You don’t count. You’re not important. You have no power.

After months or years of this, it starts seeping in.

Anxiety makes everything worse. If you’re dealing with anxiety disorder, or even just the situational anxiety that comes from ongoing legal abuse, your brain is constantly scanning for threats. Every email from him feels like a crisis. Every court date feels like you’re going to lose everything. The anxiety doesn’t let you see the whole picture; it zooms in on danger and blocks out everything else.

The exhaustion is cognitive. To say you’re tired would be an understatement. You’re running on survival mode, and survival mode doesn’t give you the bandwidth for perspective. When you’re using all your energy just to get through the day, you genuinely can’t see what’s working or what you have. You only see what’s hard.

Why this matters: The tactical argument

What I’m about to tell you isn’t toxic positivity or pretending everything is fine when it's clearly not. It’s tactical.

When you can’t see what you have, you can’t use it. If you’re convinced you have nothing, no resources, no stability, no ground to stand on, you’re fighting with one hand tied behind your back. You’re coming from a place of total helplessness, and helplessness doesn’t win court cases. It isn’t able to be there for your kids.

Your abusive ex wants you to believe you have nothing. Every threat, every legal motion, every nasty message, every withheld support payment is designed to make you feel small and powerless. When you believe his narrative about you, he’s already won. He doesn’t have to beat you in court or in the hearts and minds of your kids if you’ve beaten yourself first.

Anxiety feeds on perceived helplessness. When your brain believes you’re in free-fall with nothing to catch you, the anxiety gets worse. But when you can see clearly and factually that you have resources, that you’re not actually drowning? The anxiety loosens its grip. Not completely, but enough.

You need to know what weapons you have. You’re in a fight. And in a fight, you need to know what’s in your arsenal.

What do you actually have?

Let’s do something that might feel uncomfortable: let’s look at what's actually true about your situation right now.

I’m not asking you to feel grateful. I’m just asking you to take inventory. Like you’re doing reconnaissance before a battle. What’s actually in your supply kit?

Everyone’s inventory looks different. Some of you reading this have stable jobs and houses. Some of you are rebuilding from absolute zero. You’re working minimum wage, crashing with family, still trying to get on your feet. Some of you are somewhere in between.

I don’t want you to compare yourself to anyone else or feel bad about what you don’t have. What matters is that you see clearly what you DO have, whatever that is.

So let’s look:

Income and survival

• Do you have any income coming in, even if it’s not enough? (Job, benefits, support from family, government assistance)

• Do you have the ability to work, even if you’re not working yet?

• Do you have skills or experience, even if they’re not being used right now?

If you have stable employment and benefits, that’s significant. If you don’t, but you have something coming in, or the ability to earn, that's something. If you’re still looking, you’re still trying, and that counts.

Shelter and safety

• Do you have a safe place to sleep tonight?

• Are you physically separated from your ex?

• Even if it’s not ideal, even if it’s temporary, do you have a roof over your head?

Owning a home is different from renting. Renting is different from staying with family. But if you’re not literally on the street, if your kids have beds somewhere, that’s a baseline to work from.

Support system

• Is there anyone who believes you? Even one person? (Spoiler alert: 🙋‍♀️ I believe you).

• Do you have access to any help - a support group (even online), a helpline, legal aid, a therapist, a friend who gets it?

• Is there anyone who could help in an emergency, even if they can’t help regularly?

Some people have solid support networks. Some have one trusted friend. Some only have strangers on the internet who understand. Whatever you have, it’s more than being completely alone.

Your kids

• Are your kids safer than they were before?

• Even on your worst day, do they know you love them?

• Are you doing your best to keep them fed, clothed, and cared for, even if it’s hard?

You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be trying. And you are.

Financial independence and knowledge

• Do you have any control over your own money, even if there’s not much of it?

• Are you learning about your finances, even if you’re still figuring it out?

• Are you ready to take a small step to start learning about how to manage them, if you haven’t yet?

• Do you know what you’re legally entitled to, even if you’re not getting it yet?

If you’ve separated your finances from your ex’s, even if your account is nearly empty, that’s independence. If you’re learning to budget, learning your rights, starting to understand the system, you’re building your own power.

Legal ground

• Do you have any paperwork in place? (Custody order, support order, protective order, separation agreement—anything?)

• Have you documented anything? (Saved texts, emails, taken notes, told someone official?)

• Do you know what your legal options are, even if you can’t act on them all yet?

Even orders your ex violates are evidence. Even documentation you haven't used yet is ammunition you might need. Even knowing your rights without being able to enforce them yet is better than not knowing.

What you’ve already survived

• You got out, or you’re getting out. However messy it was.

• You’re still here. Still breathing. Still functioning enough to be reading this.

• You haven’t given up on your kids.

• You’re learning. You know more about your ex’s patterns, about the system, about yourself than you did before.

Time and space

• You’re not under your ex’s constant control anymore, even if they’re still in your life.

• You have moments, however small, where you can think without your ex watching.

• You have any custody time where the kids are with you and safe from your ex’s manipulation.

• You’re no longer living in that constant tension of being under the same roof.

Holding both truths

Here’s what I want you to try holding in your mind at the same time, even though it feels contradictory:

This is incredibly hard.

AND

I have resources.

Both of these things are true. They don’t cancel each other out.

You can be exhausted and still have a job. You can be scared and still have a home. You can feel like you’re failing and still be keeping your kids safe and fed. You can be drained by legal abuse and still have documentation that will matter in court. You can feel like you have nothing and actually be standing on solid ground.

The abuse wants you to only see the hard part. The anxiety wants you to only feel the fear. But you’re bigger than what they want you to see.

You are not helpless. You might feel helpless, and that feeling is real and understandable. But feeling helpless and being helpless are not the same thing.

When you can see what you actually have—not to minimize your pain, but to know your strength—you fight differently. You plan differently. You survive differently.

So today, or this week, when that voice says “I have nothing to show for my life,” try this:

Say it back: “I feel like I have nothing. And here’s what I actually have.” Then list just three things. Three things that are real and solid and yours.

You’re doing better than you think. Not because your life is easy. It’s most definitely not. But because you’re still here, still fighting, and you have more in your corner than you can see right now.

Want to see what you’re really working with?

If you’re stuck in that “I have nothing” spiral and can’t see your way forward, I’m here to help. Sometimes all it takes is someone outside your head to help you take inventory of what’s actually true, and show you the resources you’ve been sitting on all along.

I offer a 30-minute consultation, free of charge, where we'll look at your situation clearly, identify the solid ground under your feet, and start mapping out how to use what you have to build what you want. No gratitude journaling. No toxic positivity. Just clear-eyed assessment and practical next steps.

You’re not as powerless as you feel. Let’s prove it to you.

Want to know more about what I do?

Resources

This week’s resource is just a story. About my mom.

When she was 50, my mom divorced my dad. She gave him everything. The house, their savings, everything. She left the country and moved to the UK with 50 pounds in her wallet. My mom had nothing else except those 50 pounds (I just realized now that this was the same amount as her age).

The only thing my mom had besides that was her nursing qualification. She took on two jobs in the UK as a nurse, working 70 hours a week, and rented a small bedsitter. A year later, she had a down payment to buy a one-bedroom apartment. A few short years later, she scaled up and bought a house. When she retired at around 70, my mom had also traveled extensively across the globe, visiting her children and her friends on four continents. She’s carried on traveling ever since and just visited us in Canada for my last birthday.

My mom had 50 pounds at the age of 50. That’s it. But she also had her nursing qualification, her determination, and her freedom. She could see those things clearly, even when everything else was gone. And that clarity is what let her build the life she wanted.

I was 25 when she did this, and I remember being in awe of her determination. Years later, when I left my husband at 44 with nothing, I thought about my mom and those 50 pounds...