Pain, I just wanted to chime in with two comments:

1 – You are definitely not dumb. I seriously know some people with PhD’s that don’t write as well as you do. I’m serious.

2 – I wish I knew how to deal with abuse. I am in the same boat, trying to figure out how to move on and how to live with the past. Acknowledging what happened and facing my fears head on has helped a great deal, but the most vulnerable work that requires looking inside and being extremely honest with myself is super hard. I don’t know what kind of abuse you are referring to, but in my case, it was extremely necessarily to take distance from my family/abusers. After that, I could feel all I needed to feel (and still am feeling) and accept, just accept. I’ve been doing this for 5 years, and from what I gather here and in life, it is a life-long process. There’s no magical cure, unfortunately, but it does get better with time.

I wish you well!