I would give anything to make sure that my daughter never has to face what I did. Obviously, as she's a toddler at the moment she is far too young to talk to about any of it, but here's some of the advice I would like to give her one day:
You are special, unique and loved. You will always be our special girl, no matter what you do with your life. Your Heavenly Father thinks you are amazing too - he created you to be unique, and he saw you forming in my womb before you were even born. You are not a cheap copy of someone else, you are a one-off, an individual who has her own path to follow in life and her own unique combination of talents and gifts. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking differently.
You do not need to follow the crowd to be popular or successful, even if that's the message you get from the people around you or the things you see on tv or the internet. Although it's nice to feel that you are part of a crowd, you do not need to lose your own identity in order to be accepted by others. You will be more accepted for being you. There will always be people in your life who try to put you down to make themselves feel bigger. They do that because they feel you are cleverer than them, or better at something, or you are different from them in a way which they are unable to understand. Do not listen to them, they don't know you like we know you, and they don't know you like God knows you. They don't know how kind and thoughtful you are, or how much you like to make us laugh and smile. They haven't seen you when you are at your most relaxed and happy. They don't know what makes you tick, and they can't appreciate you because their eyes are not open to your special nature.
Be confident with who you are, and don't let anyone stand in your way, but be kind to those around you. Do not be someone who holds others back. Appreciate that everyone is born with unique gifts and talents, and in the same way that you do not need to listen to those who put you down, do not put others down for the same reasons. If someone is better at something than you, know that you have been given other gifts and do not turn their talent into a reason for looking for ways to attack them personally. I know it is easy to look at other people and think they are better than you, I had a friend or two growing up who were extremely bright and talented at many of the things that I wanted to be better at. But just concentrate on being the best friend you can be to those around you, and you will have a much happier life.
One day you will meet someone who you feel is special and worth keeping. Don't sell yourself short and think that just because he has shown an interest, that you have to let him into your life, unless you think he is really worth it. Look at how he treats you, not at your feelings of attraction, but at how he is in other ways. Is he kind and considerate? Does he want to listen to you and take an interest in you as a person? Does he try to make you wear different clothes, listen to different music, do things that you wouldn't normally do and which make you feel uncomfortable? If he is not letting you make decisions about your clothes, music or other things, then he is not right for you, he is not treating you as a person able to run her own life. Does he get along with your friends and family? If you have been as careful about who you choose to have as your friends as I have suggested, then their opinions and those of your family should carry weight. If he does not fit in with them or appears not to like them (and especially if he tells you as much), then alarm bells should start to ring. He will create a rift between you and those who love you and you will become isolated and less able to be part of our family. It will be harder for us to help you if things were to go badly wrong further down the line. You do not want to find yourself alone in a situation where you have no way out and nobody to turn to except your partner.
A really special man will want to share your interests, and will be keen for you to share some of his (but won't force you to). He will listen to you if you want or need to talk, and he will be open and honest with you even if it is about something difficult. He will respect your opinion, even if it is different from his own, and he will not try to force you to change anything about yourself, but will love you as you are - the unique and special person that you are. He will help you to grow as a person. Hopefully he will be a Christian too (assuming that you are, I pray you will be) and so you will have someone to pray with and to grow closer to God with too.
I pray that one day, you will become the amazing person that I can already see you have the potential to be, and that you will meet an equally amazing man who will treat you well and love you as much as we do. You are our special daughter and I am so glad to be your mother.
Thursday, 26 November 2015
Saturday, 21 November 2015
Believing in a God of healing when you are not yet fully healed
As a Christian, I have always believed that God heals us if we ask him, and I even experienced physical healing as a child. But I have been finding it hard in recent years to reconcile this belief in healing with the knowledge that I have been noticeably different since the abuse. I have been left with the remnants of PTSD and suffer periodically from depression and anxiety issues, which can sometimes make it very difficult to lead a normal life. I went to a Christian healing centre where the team prayed for me and I did experience a degree of healing and release from some of the things which I was struggling with. but I have still not overcome the rest.
The Bible tells us that God is a God of healing. Much of Jesus' ministry was healing the sick, not just physically but spiritually too. The story which comes to my mind is that of the paralysed man whose friends lowered him through the roof of the house where Jesus was teaching, because there were too many people to get him through the door on his mat. The first thing Jesus did was to say to him 'Your sins are forgiven'. Not physical, but spiritual healing. And then he healed the physical paralysis and the man got up and walked. (This story is found in Matthew, Mark and Luke's gospels - see Luke 5:17-25). I believe that the Gospels are true accounts of healing, and I do believe that God heals today - as I said, I was healed as a child. But it is so easy to get bogged down in questions of why God heals some people and not others, or why he sometimes heals when we pray and not at other times. Questions about whether it is a matter of a lack of faith on the part of the person needing healing, or the person praying can get in the way. Sometimes I think God has a purpose in not healing; although he does not cause illnesses and pain, he can use them for his glory and to reach others. This does not mean that he wants us to suffer. During a prayer time in my housegroup in a previous church, one of my friends said that they felt that God was as upset over the abuse as I was, and that he was crying with me through it all and through the painful healing process. This gave me a lot of comfort.
We do need to show caution, however, in ascribing purpose to every painful experience, whether or not we encounter or ask for God's healing. Sometimes bad things just happen. They happen to everyone whether they are good or bad, Christian or non-Christian. What matters is that God is present in all our experiences, whether we sense him or not, and he helps transform the aftermath of these things so that they can become a force for good for others. Paul writes that God 'comforts us in our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.' (2 Corinthians 1:4). I think of God as being the God of silver linings - he can bring good out of any bad situation, but he did not create the situation, he merely rescues it and turns it to good. However, this is often only visible in hindsight. In my case, I was certainly not aware of his presence during the abuse and was only partially aware of him afterwards, but the comfort I received from God has had a number of positive outcomes: I have felt able to allow my case to be used to train detectives in domestic abuse, and I have begun to lobby for changes to how victims of crime are treated in the parole system. I have also got halfway through writing a book to help others rediscover their faith. I have tried hard to use the worst experience of my life to reach others and help them, but it does not change the fact that notwithstanding my husband and daughter, I would be very happy for the events of a number of years to be erased from my life.
I am aware that I have needed to undergo a range of different types of healing for the different things that I suffered. I needed physical healing for the injuries. I needed healing from being bereaved twice during the last year and a half of the relationship when I was not allowed to grieve properly. I needed spiritual healing for the damage the abuse did to my relationship with God. And I needed emotional and mental healing for the emotional abuse and the PTSD. Looking back, I can see now that I have undergone most of the physical, bereavement and spiritual healing that I needed, and although I still have difficult periods, I have healed a great deal from the mental effects too. However, it is always easier to look at how far you still have to go rather than look at how far you have come.
There's a song by Josh Groban that I listened to a lot on my way home from my EMDR treatment, which sums up what I think God wanted to say to me. It's called Don't Give Up, and I like to listen to it when I am feeling a bit low. It reminds me that God is there in the hardest of times and he will bring me back and hear and heal me.
I do believe that someday I will be released from the rest of the problems which were a result of the abuse. I am not sure when that will be, and sometimes when I am feeling low it is easy to get despondent and forget that I have a great and powerful God. I forget that we need to keep asking him for our daily bread - in other words, what we need each day. But he never gives up on us. There's a brilliant song by Matt Redman that we used to sing at my previous church that sums this up so well - You Never Let Go. If we remember that he never lets go of us, then why should we fear?
So I will continue to pray for healing for myself and for those around me who need it, even when I am not able to see the immediate results, because God is strong and powerful and his timing is always perfect.
The Bible tells us that God is a God of healing. Much of Jesus' ministry was healing the sick, not just physically but spiritually too. The story which comes to my mind is that of the paralysed man whose friends lowered him through the roof of the house where Jesus was teaching, because there were too many people to get him through the door on his mat. The first thing Jesus did was to say to him 'Your sins are forgiven'. Not physical, but spiritual healing. And then he healed the physical paralysis and the man got up and walked. (This story is found in Matthew, Mark and Luke's gospels - see Luke 5:17-25). I believe that the Gospels are true accounts of healing, and I do believe that God heals today - as I said, I was healed as a child. But it is so easy to get bogged down in questions of why God heals some people and not others, or why he sometimes heals when we pray and not at other times. Questions about whether it is a matter of a lack of faith on the part of the person needing healing, or the person praying can get in the way. Sometimes I think God has a purpose in not healing; although he does not cause illnesses and pain, he can use them for his glory and to reach others. This does not mean that he wants us to suffer. During a prayer time in my housegroup in a previous church, one of my friends said that they felt that God was as upset over the abuse as I was, and that he was crying with me through it all and through the painful healing process. This gave me a lot of comfort.
We do need to show caution, however, in ascribing purpose to every painful experience, whether or not we encounter or ask for God's healing. Sometimes bad things just happen. They happen to everyone whether they are good or bad, Christian or non-Christian. What matters is that God is present in all our experiences, whether we sense him or not, and he helps transform the aftermath of these things so that they can become a force for good for others. Paul writes that God 'comforts us in our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.' (2 Corinthians 1:4). I think of God as being the God of silver linings - he can bring good out of any bad situation, but he did not create the situation, he merely rescues it and turns it to good. However, this is often only visible in hindsight. In my case, I was certainly not aware of his presence during the abuse and was only partially aware of him afterwards, but the comfort I received from God has had a number of positive outcomes: I have felt able to allow my case to be used to train detectives in domestic abuse, and I have begun to lobby for changes to how victims of crime are treated in the parole system. I have also got halfway through writing a book to help others rediscover their faith. I have tried hard to use the worst experience of my life to reach others and help them, but it does not change the fact that notwithstanding my husband and daughter, I would be very happy for the events of a number of years to be erased from my life.
I am aware that I have needed to undergo a range of different types of healing for the different things that I suffered. I needed physical healing for the injuries. I needed healing from being bereaved twice during the last year and a half of the relationship when I was not allowed to grieve properly. I needed spiritual healing for the damage the abuse did to my relationship with God. And I needed emotional and mental healing for the emotional abuse and the PTSD. Looking back, I can see now that I have undergone most of the physical, bereavement and spiritual healing that I needed, and although I still have difficult periods, I have healed a great deal from the mental effects too. However, it is always easier to look at how far you still have to go rather than look at how far you have come.
There's a song by Josh Groban that I listened to a lot on my way home from my EMDR treatment, which sums up what I think God wanted to say to me. It's called Don't Give Up, and I like to listen to it when I am feeling a bit low. It reminds me that God is there in the hardest of times and he will bring me back and hear and heal me.
I do believe that someday I will be released from the rest of the problems which were a result of the abuse. I am not sure when that will be, and sometimes when I am feeling low it is easy to get despondent and forget that I have a great and powerful God. I forget that we need to keep asking him for our daily bread - in other words, what we need each day. But he never gives up on us. There's a brilliant song by Matt Redman that we used to sing at my previous church that sums this up so well - You Never Let Go. If we remember that he never lets go of us, then why should we fear?
So I will continue to pray for healing for myself and for those around me who need it, even when I am not able to see the immediate results, because God is strong and powerful and his timing is always perfect.
Wednesday, 18 November 2015
Things that have brought a smile to my face
I discovered so many things during my recovery that brought a smile back to my face. I actually kept a book of them to read back over when I was having a bad day. Here are just a few examples:
Being able to spend my own money again and choose my own clothes. I went on such a spending spree, in just a few months I made up for years of having done no clothes shopping!
Going to see as many live stand-up and music performances as I could - in just a year and a half I went to see Eddie Izzard, Ed Byrne, Russell Howard, and a number of concerts too. I not only got to enjoy these but I also got to enjoy them with my friends - something else I had been missing.
Discovering Facebook and finding loads of old friends who I thought I had lost touch with (which has now become quite a source of time-filling for me if I'm not careful!)
Being able to cook what I liked and eat cake as much as I liked (this was fine at the start of my recovery when I was underweight. Not so great for me now though!!)
Going for walks in the countryside, enjoying being outdoors.
Reassessing the music I liked and the books I enjoyed reading - figuring out which ones I actually wanted to listen to and which I had gradually come to tolerate. This means that although other people might consider some of the music I have chosen to be unaccountably cheesy or bad, I am happy with it as I have thought about it and decided my opinion is the only one that counts!
Being able to help out with Messy Church at my local church when I had finished my MA, encouraged by a couple who knew my faith was wobbly but still wanted to encourage me to be involved. This was one of the key things that helped me get back in touch with God. I had always loved doing children's work at church over the years and just being able to be there with them really helped me a lot.
Realising that my faith has not only recovered from the trauma, it has become a lot stronger. I actually reaffirmed my baptismal vows / got re-baptised a few years back as a statement of how far I believe I had come and how my faith was alive again. It has been great realising that I am not and have never been alone, even in the darkest of times. There's a short Bible passage that sums up how I feel: 'Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour.' (Isaiah 43:1a - 3a). God did not prevent the overwhelming events of my abuse taking place, but he was with me, and this will not change.
More recently, meeting a fellow Christian who was so much like me it was scary, and realising that I could trust him implicitly, and that he wasn't going to treat me like something which should be controlled or dominated, but as a whole person. Having someone to go to church with me and pray with at home was a wonderful new experience. It turned out that our meeting was the result not only of me and my house group praying together for me to find someone nice, but him and his house group (at a different church) praying the same prayer for him. I do not believe it to be a coincidence that we met and are so suited. We were married a year later and are very happy. Having a relationship where I am an equal and listened to has simply highlighted what was missing before and how much I had undervalued my own worth in settling for so much less. But I am trying hard now to look to the present and future rather than to the past.
And finally, our daughter. She is definitely the best thing I could have wished to happen to me. Often frustrating, and I sometimes find it boring being at home and having yet another teddies' picnic for the fourth time that day, but I always wanted to be a mum and before I met my husband I never believed it to be a possibility. She greets me every day with an amazing smile and loves sitting on my lap. She even doesn't seem to mind that in the mornings I am usually terribly grumpy and not functioning very well - she still wants to be around me! (I wouldn't want to be around me first thing in the morning, given the choice!)
It has helped to look at the positives. Rather like climbing a mountain, most of the time we spend looking at how far there is left to go, but sometimes it really helps to look back at the view behind us to see just how far we have come. My mountain is big and I have a long way to climb, but I would say that I have already come a very long way already.
Being able to spend my own money again and choose my own clothes. I went on such a spending spree, in just a few months I made up for years of having done no clothes shopping!
Going to see as many live stand-up and music performances as I could - in just a year and a half I went to see Eddie Izzard, Ed Byrne, Russell Howard, and a number of concerts too. I not only got to enjoy these but I also got to enjoy them with my friends - something else I had been missing.
Discovering Facebook and finding loads of old friends who I thought I had lost touch with (which has now become quite a source of time-filling for me if I'm not careful!)
Being able to cook what I liked and eat cake as much as I liked (this was fine at the start of my recovery when I was underweight. Not so great for me now though!!)
Going for walks in the countryside, enjoying being outdoors.
Reassessing the music I liked and the books I enjoyed reading - figuring out which ones I actually wanted to listen to and which I had gradually come to tolerate. This means that although other people might consider some of the music I have chosen to be unaccountably cheesy or bad, I am happy with it as I have thought about it and decided my opinion is the only one that counts!
Being able to help out with Messy Church at my local church when I had finished my MA, encouraged by a couple who knew my faith was wobbly but still wanted to encourage me to be involved. This was one of the key things that helped me get back in touch with God. I had always loved doing children's work at church over the years and just being able to be there with them really helped me a lot.
Realising that my faith has not only recovered from the trauma, it has become a lot stronger. I actually reaffirmed my baptismal vows / got re-baptised a few years back as a statement of how far I believe I had come and how my faith was alive again. It has been great realising that I am not and have never been alone, even in the darkest of times. There's a short Bible passage that sums up how I feel: 'Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour.' (Isaiah 43:1a - 3a). God did not prevent the overwhelming events of my abuse taking place, but he was with me, and this will not change.
More recently, meeting a fellow Christian who was so much like me it was scary, and realising that I could trust him implicitly, and that he wasn't going to treat me like something which should be controlled or dominated, but as a whole person. Having someone to go to church with me and pray with at home was a wonderful new experience. It turned out that our meeting was the result not only of me and my house group praying together for me to find someone nice, but him and his house group (at a different church) praying the same prayer for him. I do not believe it to be a coincidence that we met and are so suited. We were married a year later and are very happy. Having a relationship where I am an equal and listened to has simply highlighted what was missing before and how much I had undervalued my own worth in settling for so much less. But I am trying hard now to look to the present and future rather than to the past.
And finally, our daughter. She is definitely the best thing I could have wished to happen to me. Often frustrating, and I sometimes find it boring being at home and having yet another teddies' picnic for the fourth time that day, but I always wanted to be a mum and before I met my husband I never believed it to be a possibility. She greets me every day with an amazing smile and loves sitting on my lap. She even doesn't seem to mind that in the mornings I am usually terribly grumpy and not functioning very well - she still wants to be around me! (I wouldn't want to be around me first thing in the morning, given the choice!)
It has helped to look at the positives. Rather like climbing a mountain, most of the time we spend looking at how far there is left to go, but sometimes it really helps to look back at the view behind us to see just how far we have come. My mountain is big and I have a long way to climb, but I would say that I have already come a very long way already.
Support and help after abuse - what's out there and how helpful I found it
Part of my journey from my old life with my abuser to my new life of freedom involved having treatment at various intervals for my mental health. The help I received over the years since leaving my ex has been varied in terms of helpfulness and levels of support.
Post traumatic stress disorder left me with horrendous nightmares by night, and flashbacks of horrible memories by day, both of which hit me only a few days after leaving my ex. It took years to heal. This was accompanied by the physical pain of the injuries that I had suffered, which served as constant reminders of the experiences I had been through. This all happened whilst the police were gathering further statements and evidence to use in his trial, which was fast-tracked through the Crown Court. I won't go into detail here, partly because I don't think it is helpful to look back on that, and partly because he is still serving his sentence and I would like to think (perhaps unrealistically) that he will turn his life around one day... Suffice to say that it was one of the worst cases that police team had deal with in terms of injuries and they reckoned that I could have died if I had remained in that situation with him for just a few days longer than I did. I was one of the lucky ones.
But I can give a breakdown of the type of help I have had and how helpful I have found it, in case anyone else would find it useful:
1. Traditional counselling
This has had a varying degree of success depending on who I saw. I had some counselling on the NHS at the beginning which as helpful, but the well-meaning psychologist I saw didn't want to put a diagnosis of PTSD on my medical records because she was concerned it might hold me back in the future. Unfortunately the effect of this was to delay me getting more PTSD-specific treatment without having to go back to the GP and demand it. The NHS has only got limited resources and so the number of sessions offered is very low, hence the need to go back on several occasions. I have also had private counselling, which has worked better for me but obviously has cost money, so isn't an option for everyone. I have also had a couple of bad experiences with counsellors assuming that the reason I was abused as an adult must be because I was abused as a child, and then refused to believe me when I said I wasn't. If this happens to you, you are entitled to make a complaint and request an alternative counsellor, which is what I did. Counsellors are not supposed to back you into a corner and make your sessions fit their preconceived ideas, they are supposed to listen to you and support you. I have found counselling can help if you are having problems with your memory or processing your feelings about your experiences, which are both side effects of having PTSD, and which will ease over time with help.
2. EMDR - 'Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing'
This is a very effective treatment for PTSD, but it is not available on the NHS in all areas. It involves having to recall the most distressing memories and talking through them, and then the therapist will get you to follow his or her finger from side to side with your eyes. It will bring up other memories as a result. All I can really remember about having this treatment is that it brought back more memories at the time, and it as really hard to go through, but once the course of treatment was completed, virtually all of the flashbacks and many of the nightmares had stopped. It was also exhausting, and after my morning treatment appointment I would tend to sleep for much of the rest of the day. The theory behind the finger waving is that when you have a trauma, your brain is unable to process the memory of that into your long term memory and it gets stuck in your brain like a loop of videotape (if you are old-school like me! If not then you will need to think of another metaphor!) - this is what causes the flashbacks and nightmares as your brain continues to try to make sense of the memories. What the finger waving does is activate different parts of the brain and help your brain to process the trauma memories into your long-term memory and take them away from the loop they are stuck in. This really made a difference to me and helped me to get my life feeling more normal again.
3. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - CBT
This was something I had later to help me with panic attacks that were a direct result of memories coming back at unhelpful moments - not flashbacks, but more like anxiety attacks. This was on the NHS but I had to really push to get it as a one to one as my local area likes to get people to learn about CBT in groups and I really felt I needed to talk about my individual experiences rather than sit quietly and be taught techniques to apply by myself at home. This was effective for me. We talked about what I was afraid would happen, and then by the end of the course of treatment I was identifying what I feared would happen in a particular situation, what was likely to happen, and the afterwards, what actually happened. In looking at how my fears did not come to pass, I was able to reduce my anxiety around the situations that I had been struggling with.
4. Mentoring
I was very lucky in that the police who worked on my case referred me to a mentoring scheme local to me. The charity paired me up with a volunteer who was also a survivor and we met on a regular basis for a chat and just to have someone who I could talk to - about anything I chose, but if I needed to talk about the abuse, I knew she would understand. In fact, we ended up becoming firm friends and are still in touch.
5. Independent Domestic Violence Advocate - IDVA
I saw my IDVA when I first returned to my parents' house after leaving my ex, and I saw her on a regular basis for some months. She helped me to identify that I had not only been abused, but abused very badly. She gave me a leaflet which asked a series of questions about the behaviour of my partner, and he had done all of the things except those relating to being a parent as I had no children. It was a bit of a shock. Had the court case been taking place nearer to my home town then she would have been with me to court as well. It was so good to have someone to talk to in detail when I couldn't talk to my family.
6. Freedom Programme
This is a group programme which looks at similar things to the one to one work my IDVA did with me, looking at the tactics and behaviours used by abusers to maintain control over their victims. I think it is a very good idea and would give the support of meeting other women who have been through similar situations which I didn't have at the time. However, if you have a faith then it can be less helpful as it does not help to address questions relating to where God is in abusive relationships, which I found hard. But the book which goes with the series, Living with the Dominator by Pat Craven is very good and did help me to figure a few things out. Check out www.freedomprogramme.co.uk for info.
7. Restored
This is a Christian charity which has been working hard to raise awareness of violence against women worldwide. They offer training to churches to help them better support victims of abuse in their congregations and they are in the process of setting up a survivors' network for Christian survivors. See www.restoredrelationships.org for further information. I have personally found them very supportive and helpful.
It's well worth getting some form of help from a professional after going through abuse - it is too hard for family and friends to hear about the details of how bad the experiences actually were. I found that whenever my family got upset, I would feel horribly guilty for how they were feeling and this fed into my feeling of responsibility for the abuse. It took a long time to stop blaming myself for everything and to accept that their distress was in fact a way to show how much they cared. I am so grateful for the wonderful support my family and friends gave me during a time when I was not always able to react to them in a very positive way due to the PTSD.
Post traumatic stress disorder left me with horrendous nightmares by night, and flashbacks of horrible memories by day, both of which hit me only a few days after leaving my ex. It took years to heal. This was accompanied by the physical pain of the injuries that I had suffered, which served as constant reminders of the experiences I had been through. This all happened whilst the police were gathering further statements and evidence to use in his trial, which was fast-tracked through the Crown Court. I won't go into detail here, partly because I don't think it is helpful to look back on that, and partly because he is still serving his sentence and I would like to think (perhaps unrealistically) that he will turn his life around one day... Suffice to say that it was one of the worst cases that police team had deal with in terms of injuries and they reckoned that I could have died if I had remained in that situation with him for just a few days longer than I did. I was one of the lucky ones.
But I can give a breakdown of the type of help I have had and how helpful I have found it, in case anyone else would find it useful:
1. Traditional counselling
This has had a varying degree of success depending on who I saw. I had some counselling on the NHS at the beginning which as helpful, but the well-meaning psychologist I saw didn't want to put a diagnosis of PTSD on my medical records because she was concerned it might hold me back in the future. Unfortunately the effect of this was to delay me getting more PTSD-specific treatment without having to go back to the GP and demand it. The NHS has only got limited resources and so the number of sessions offered is very low, hence the need to go back on several occasions. I have also had private counselling, which has worked better for me but obviously has cost money, so isn't an option for everyone. I have also had a couple of bad experiences with counsellors assuming that the reason I was abused as an adult must be because I was abused as a child, and then refused to believe me when I said I wasn't. If this happens to you, you are entitled to make a complaint and request an alternative counsellor, which is what I did. Counsellors are not supposed to back you into a corner and make your sessions fit their preconceived ideas, they are supposed to listen to you and support you. I have found counselling can help if you are having problems with your memory or processing your feelings about your experiences, which are both side effects of having PTSD, and which will ease over time with help.
2. EMDR - 'Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing'
This is a very effective treatment for PTSD, but it is not available on the NHS in all areas. It involves having to recall the most distressing memories and talking through them, and then the therapist will get you to follow his or her finger from side to side with your eyes. It will bring up other memories as a result. All I can really remember about having this treatment is that it brought back more memories at the time, and it as really hard to go through, but once the course of treatment was completed, virtually all of the flashbacks and many of the nightmares had stopped. It was also exhausting, and after my morning treatment appointment I would tend to sleep for much of the rest of the day. The theory behind the finger waving is that when you have a trauma, your brain is unable to process the memory of that into your long term memory and it gets stuck in your brain like a loop of videotape (if you are old-school like me! If not then you will need to think of another metaphor!) - this is what causes the flashbacks and nightmares as your brain continues to try to make sense of the memories. What the finger waving does is activate different parts of the brain and help your brain to process the trauma memories into your long-term memory and take them away from the loop they are stuck in. This really made a difference to me and helped me to get my life feeling more normal again.
3. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - CBT
This was something I had later to help me with panic attacks that were a direct result of memories coming back at unhelpful moments - not flashbacks, but more like anxiety attacks. This was on the NHS but I had to really push to get it as a one to one as my local area likes to get people to learn about CBT in groups and I really felt I needed to talk about my individual experiences rather than sit quietly and be taught techniques to apply by myself at home. This was effective for me. We talked about what I was afraid would happen, and then by the end of the course of treatment I was identifying what I feared would happen in a particular situation, what was likely to happen, and the afterwards, what actually happened. In looking at how my fears did not come to pass, I was able to reduce my anxiety around the situations that I had been struggling with.
4. Mentoring
I was very lucky in that the police who worked on my case referred me to a mentoring scheme local to me. The charity paired me up with a volunteer who was also a survivor and we met on a regular basis for a chat and just to have someone who I could talk to - about anything I chose, but if I needed to talk about the abuse, I knew she would understand. In fact, we ended up becoming firm friends and are still in touch.
5. Independent Domestic Violence Advocate - IDVA
I saw my IDVA when I first returned to my parents' house after leaving my ex, and I saw her on a regular basis for some months. She helped me to identify that I had not only been abused, but abused very badly. She gave me a leaflet which asked a series of questions about the behaviour of my partner, and he had done all of the things except those relating to being a parent as I had no children. It was a bit of a shock. Had the court case been taking place nearer to my home town then she would have been with me to court as well. It was so good to have someone to talk to in detail when I couldn't talk to my family.
6. Freedom Programme
This is a group programme which looks at similar things to the one to one work my IDVA did with me, looking at the tactics and behaviours used by abusers to maintain control over their victims. I think it is a very good idea and would give the support of meeting other women who have been through similar situations which I didn't have at the time. However, if you have a faith then it can be less helpful as it does not help to address questions relating to where God is in abusive relationships, which I found hard. But the book which goes with the series, Living with the Dominator by Pat Craven is very good and did help me to figure a few things out. Check out www.freedomprogramme.co.uk for info.
7. Restored
This is a Christian charity which has been working hard to raise awareness of violence against women worldwide. They offer training to churches to help them better support victims of abuse in their congregations and they are in the process of setting up a survivors' network for Christian survivors. See www.restoredrelationships.org for further information. I have personally found them very supportive and helpful.
It's well worth getting some form of help from a professional after going through abuse - it is too hard for family and friends to hear about the details of how bad the experiences actually were. I found that whenever my family got upset, I would feel horribly guilty for how they were feeling and this fed into my feeling of responsibility for the abuse. It took a long time to stop blaming myself for everything and to accept that their distress was in fact a way to show how much they cared. I am so grateful for the wonderful support my family and friends gave me during a time when I was not always able to react to them in a very positive way due to the PTSD.
Tuesday, 17 November 2015
Lessons I have learned from my toddler
Becoming a mum put so much of my life in perspective, as did being in a happy marriage after being in such an abusive relationship. It helped me figure out my relationship with God in a totally new way, as well as allowing me to see that my abusive ex had, in fact, been behaving like a toddler in so many ways. So here are a few things I learned:
When we walk with our children anywhere that is likely to have danger, we hold their hand (and they sometimes hold ours back!) and guide them around obstacles and through paths where the toddler does not know the way. My daughter will often hold my hand tighter when she is unsure or frightened of something when we are out and about, and seek reassurance from me in order to feel safe and secure. This is what God wants us to be like with him, he will guide us through difficult, scary or dark places if we keep our hand in his, and he will help us know his reassuring presence even in the most frightening of times.
Toddlers often want to go their own way and show how much they think they can do, often before they are actually capable of managing to do things. They want to show how clever they are and we often praise them for showing a new skill they have learned. But sometimes we do not want them to show their independent spirit by wandering off and trying to go it alone - if they do, we search for them to try to find them and bring them back to safety as soon as we can before anything happens to them. Often when we do find them, if they have not noticed that they were lost but simply enjoying a taste of independence, they will throw a tantrum before agreeing to come back with us and go where we are taking them. This can be like the way that we behave with God when we decide that we want to go it alone without him. We abandon the way he has been guiding us and go it alone. Often we can get badly hurt before we realise what has happened. I am not saying that anyone who ends up in an abusive relationship (myself included) is responsible for being abused or that they had somehow decided to turn their back on God in favour of being with an abuser, but in other aspects of our lives this can be the case. We do not like being told that we are wrong, and so even for someone who has been a Christian for a number of years, there can be a cycle of drifting away from God to go their own way, and a realising and returning to him later. The parable of the Lost Sheep is like this - a man has 100 sheep, but one day he notices that one is missing. He searches all over until he finds it, and then brings it home to the rest of the flock and celebrates with his friends. (This is found in the bible in Luke chapter 15 verses 4-7).
Sometimes when we are in a safe environment, I will let my daughter let go of my hand and run on ahead of me. She thrills at the excitement of her small amount of independence and believes herself to be able to do anything. But even though I want her to learn some independence, I still keep her within my sight, and if she falls over I rush to pick her up again and comfort her. God can be like this too, not always making it clear which way we should turn but allowing us to choose for ourselves. But he never lets us out of his sight, even when we feel we have gone a long way from him.
Toddlers think they are the centre of the universe and that everything should revolve around them and their desires. My daughter will often tell me 'Mummy want to do xxx' because she simply cannot imagine that I would not want to do whatever it is that she wants to play. This is very much how we can be with God. It is in our human nature to be self-centred, self-absorbed and plain selfish, putting our own desires ahead of all else. We know what he expects of us but we can often decide to try our way first before listening to his. This is also how an abuser behaves, including my ex. The difference between this and a toddler's behaviour is that an adult will of course be aware of the needs and wishes of others, he will simply be choosing to ignore it in favour of his own. Everything in the relationship will be set up to centre around his desires and wishes first, and then the victim's second. That way, he can occasionally surprise her / catch her unawares by seeming to be really thoughtful by actually putting her first for a change, and appear to her to be loving and generous because she has become so used to coming second. This is not love, but manipulation.
Even toddlers are occasionally capable of showing affection, love, thoughtfulness and generosity of spirit as well as the self-centred behaviour that can result in tantrums and anger. They have a simplicity of understanding which can seem to us to be naïve or innocent but which can open our eyes to another perspective. My daughter regularly tells me when we pass dogs or cats on the street that they have come to say hello. She has no concept of them being aggressive (and long may this continue). Sometimes toddlers can surprise us with the amount of unselfconscious kindness that they can show. This is the behaviour that I believe Christ has called us to show to one another.
But it is in the shows of anger and tantrum behaviour that I have learned the most from my daughter. At the moment she is too young to use such displays to manipulate me into any change of heart, she simply expresses her feelings. However, as she gets older I am fully expecting her to try to manipulate me by behaving badly in public in a way which I am sure I will find challenging. This is very much how my ex would behave. If I was doing something in a way which he deemed wrong, he would show me. He would yell, throw things, or make threats. He would lash out not only at me but at my belongings. He would make sure that if I looked forward to anything, all the enjoyment was taken away by his behaviour. It was like having a thirty year old toddler, but one which could not be disciplined or reasoned with. However, it only happened when we were alone, never when we had people with us and especially not when his family were around. It always appeared to me to be anger, but then it happened in such controlled circumstances that it could not possibly be true emotion. This in contrast to my real toddler has made me realise what he was doing and how manipulative it was.
Being a parent to a toddler is challenging but also so rewarding. My daughter frequently comes out with things that make me and my husband laugh out loud or marvel at her view of the world. It is the sense of wonder that she has at the world that I want to take into my relationship with God. A sense that he is with me no matter what, and that he has made so many good things for us to enjoy. And he will hold our hand through it all.
Monday, 16 November 2015
8 Questions never to ask a survivor of abuse
It has sometimes felt like people are focussed so much on the victim of abuse and why she was in that situation, that they forget to ask the obvious question: Why did he behave like that? So here are a few questions I think should never be asked of a victim / survivor (including ones I have been asked myself):
1. Why didn't she just leave / why did she go back to him?
This implies several things. Firstly, that she had a choice in staying and secondly, that she was free to make a balanced and rational decision without being pressured. It assumes that she had not been groomed by her abuser over a long period of time, with the result that her life had become intertwined with his to the extent that she had actually begun to believe that an independent life without him would not be possible. Do not underestimate the effect that another person can have on someone's state of mind, with a daily drip feed of negative and emotional manipulation. She may not have realised for a long time that she was actually being abused - this is hard to believe but in fact it does happen. It happened to me, even though I had many physical injuries. She may have been deprived of sleep or food - both of which can impair decision making considerably, especially when paired with emotional abuse and manipulation.
2. Surely she comes from the wrong background / wrong age group / wrong income bracket to be a victim of domestic abuse?
This is perhaps the hardest one to explain to people, especially when you are trying to recover. In actual fact, abusers and victims can come from any socio-economic background, any age group, and any level of education. It happens in council houses and Millionaire's Row, and every type of housing in between. Where there are controlling and selfish men, there is likely to be abuse. In fact, the taboo surrounding speaking out about abuse has meant that a lot of women have simply put up with it instead of getting help and support, and the stereotype of women coming from poor backgrounds with little education has meant that women from more middle-class areas have felt very isolated and unsupported even when they have attempted to speak out.
3. But he's such a nice bloke, surely she's exaggerating?
Believe me, it takes so much courage to speak out about abuse, if someone you know has said they are being abused, the last thing they need is for you not to believe them. You may be the first person she has spoken to about it or she may be feeling unable to cope with being on her own after having split up from her abuser. Abusers take delight in pulling the wool over everyone's eyes by keeping up a front of charming behaviour in front of the outside world, while behaving like a demon at home. This is a way for them to isolate their victim and ensure that she will be unable to get help and thus escape his control.
4. Don't all couples go through a rough patch?
There is an enormous difference between a rough patch and abuse. In a non-abusive relationship, both partners are able to discuss their relationship with one another in a rational way without it becoming a dangerous situation for either of them. In an abusive relationship, there is no equality between the partners, and thus the relationship can become very dangerous for the victim if she dares question how things are going. Looking back, I thought we were going through a rough patch for much of the relationship, but I didn't realise it at the time. Abusive relationships can go through periods of less bad as well as severely bad, but over time they will generally escalate into worse behaviour by the abuser, whereas a non-abusive relationship should hopefully at some point become better again.
5. But he never hit her, so it can't be abuse, can it?
Violence is usually the final attempt by an abuser to control his victim once other tactics have failed. Abusers usually use a combination of other methods including emotional blackmail, guilt, threats of violence (without violence occurring), damaging the victim's belongings, and financial abuse. Once these begin to fail they start to use threats, and finally, actual violence to maintain control. Some women manage to get away before the violent phase begins, but that doesn't mean it wasn't abuse.
6. But they are both Christians, so it can't be abuse?
Why not? Christians are human too, we suffer from greed, selfishness and all the other negative aspects of human nature that everyone else does. The difference is that Christians are supposed to repent and try to change their behaviour once they realise that they are in the wrong. If an abuser believes himself to be a Christian (and makes everyone else believe he is) but his behaviour does not reflect this, then he is deceiving himself and therefore simply being a hypocrite. Moreover, in some cases the fact that the victim is a Christian simply gives the abuser another tool to use against her - Scripture, which can be manipulated and quoted out of context to make her comply with his wishes or believe that she has failed as a Christian as well as in every other aspect of her life. The damage this causes can take years to repair.
7. Why don't you take responsibility for the situation you found yourself in?
This was perhaps the most hurtful question I was asked just after leaving my ex. It implied that I was complicit in the behaviour of someone who had taken over my life and tried to take it away. It accused me of not seeing him as everyone else evidently had, and made it sound as if it was something I should have seen coming. In fact, this was asked in the context of how I should repent for turning my back on my faith, which meant I felt attacked on two fronts. In fact, I did (and still do) lay the responsibility for my abuser's behaviour at the feet of my abuser. To blame myself for how he behaved would be futile and untrue. And it feeds into question 1 above, I was not able to recognise the abuse as I was not thinking straight....
8. How can you still be a Christian after all that - surely it's God's fault?
It is because of God that we have free will, which the abuser chose to use in such a way as to abuse. But just because God doesn't prevent us getting hurt or manipulated by someone else does not mean that he does not care. And it doesn't mean that he is not with us in the worst of times as well as the best. I very nearly didn't remain a Christian after all I went through. I felt that God had abandoned me to be hurt in every way and that if he was just going to stand idly by while I suffered that I wanted nothing to do with him. But then I realised two things: One, if I let my faith die then my abuser had taken a vital part of who I was, and Two, if I was angry at God then that meant I still believed in him. I will write about this at some point but it would be much too long to share here!
1. Why didn't she just leave / why did she go back to him?
This implies several things. Firstly, that she had a choice in staying and secondly, that she was free to make a balanced and rational decision without being pressured. It assumes that she had not been groomed by her abuser over a long period of time, with the result that her life had become intertwined with his to the extent that she had actually begun to believe that an independent life without him would not be possible. Do not underestimate the effect that another person can have on someone's state of mind, with a daily drip feed of negative and emotional manipulation. She may not have realised for a long time that she was actually being abused - this is hard to believe but in fact it does happen. It happened to me, even though I had many physical injuries. She may have been deprived of sleep or food - both of which can impair decision making considerably, especially when paired with emotional abuse and manipulation.
2. Surely she comes from the wrong background / wrong age group / wrong income bracket to be a victim of domestic abuse?
This is perhaps the hardest one to explain to people, especially when you are trying to recover. In actual fact, abusers and victims can come from any socio-economic background, any age group, and any level of education. It happens in council houses and Millionaire's Row, and every type of housing in between. Where there are controlling and selfish men, there is likely to be abuse. In fact, the taboo surrounding speaking out about abuse has meant that a lot of women have simply put up with it instead of getting help and support, and the stereotype of women coming from poor backgrounds with little education has meant that women from more middle-class areas have felt very isolated and unsupported even when they have attempted to speak out.
3. But he's such a nice bloke, surely she's exaggerating?
Believe me, it takes so much courage to speak out about abuse, if someone you know has said they are being abused, the last thing they need is for you not to believe them. You may be the first person she has spoken to about it or she may be feeling unable to cope with being on her own after having split up from her abuser. Abusers take delight in pulling the wool over everyone's eyes by keeping up a front of charming behaviour in front of the outside world, while behaving like a demon at home. This is a way for them to isolate their victim and ensure that she will be unable to get help and thus escape his control.
4. Don't all couples go through a rough patch?
There is an enormous difference between a rough patch and abuse. In a non-abusive relationship, both partners are able to discuss their relationship with one another in a rational way without it becoming a dangerous situation for either of them. In an abusive relationship, there is no equality between the partners, and thus the relationship can become very dangerous for the victim if she dares question how things are going. Looking back, I thought we were going through a rough patch for much of the relationship, but I didn't realise it at the time. Abusive relationships can go through periods of less bad as well as severely bad, but over time they will generally escalate into worse behaviour by the abuser, whereas a non-abusive relationship should hopefully at some point become better again.
5. But he never hit her, so it can't be abuse, can it?
Violence is usually the final attempt by an abuser to control his victim once other tactics have failed. Abusers usually use a combination of other methods including emotional blackmail, guilt, threats of violence (without violence occurring), damaging the victim's belongings, and financial abuse. Once these begin to fail they start to use threats, and finally, actual violence to maintain control. Some women manage to get away before the violent phase begins, but that doesn't mean it wasn't abuse.
6. But they are both Christians, so it can't be abuse?
Why not? Christians are human too, we suffer from greed, selfishness and all the other negative aspects of human nature that everyone else does. The difference is that Christians are supposed to repent and try to change their behaviour once they realise that they are in the wrong. If an abuser believes himself to be a Christian (and makes everyone else believe he is) but his behaviour does not reflect this, then he is deceiving himself and therefore simply being a hypocrite. Moreover, in some cases the fact that the victim is a Christian simply gives the abuser another tool to use against her - Scripture, which can be manipulated and quoted out of context to make her comply with his wishes or believe that she has failed as a Christian as well as in every other aspect of her life. The damage this causes can take years to repair.
7. Why don't you take responsibility for the situation you found yourself in?
This was perhaps the most hurtful question I was asked just after leaving my ex. It implied that I was complicit in the behaviour of someone who had taken over my life and tried to take it away. It accused me of not seeing him as everyone else evidently had, and made it sound as if it was something I should have seen coming. In fact, this was asked in the context of how I should repent for turning my back on my faith, which meant I felt attacked on two fronts. In fact, I did (and still do) lay the responsibility for my abuser's behaviour at the feet of my abuser. To blame myself for how he behaved would be futile and untrue. And it feeds into question 1 above, I was not able to recognise the abuse as I was not thinking straight....
8. How can you still be a Christian after all that - surely it's God's fault?
It is because of God that we have free will, which the abuser chose to use in such a way as to abuse. But just because God doesn't prevent us getting hurt or manipulated by someone else does not mean that he does not care. And it doesn't mean that he is not with us in the worst of times as well as the best. I very nearly didn't remain a Christian after all I went through. I felt that God had abandoned me to be hurt in every way and that if he was just going to stand idly by while I suffered that I wanted nothing to do with him. But then I realised two things: One, if I let my faith die then my abuser had taken a vital part of who I was, and Two, if I was angry at God then that meant I still believed in him. I will write about this at some point but it would be much too long to share here!
A little about myself
Where to start...
I am a Christian who a number of years ago ended up in an abusive relationship for several years. This gradually eroded away at so many aspects of my sense of self that I nearly lost who I was and my faith as well. By the time I got away, my then partner had turned so violent and controlling that after leaving him I ended up spending many months having physiotherapy to get my limbs working properly again. His control of every aspect of my life even went as far as keeping me in the same room as him all the time, not allowing me to sit anywhere but the floor, and forcing me to ask for permission to go to the toilet. He was eventually arrested and given a custodial sentence. I was left with physical injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder, which have to some extent healed.
Out of the old life where I felt that I had been so lost, a new life developed. I was able to make steps towards a good recovery, making new friends and rediscovering who I was and who I wanted to be. I also managed to cling onto my faith, even though in the beginning of my recovery I wanted to forget the whole thing. It took me a long time to get myself in a place where I could work out where God had been while I was suffering, but I persevered and tried going to church.
I went back to university to study for a Master's degree, something which would have been unthinkable during that toxic relationship. I needed to prove to myself that I wasn't stupid, after a number of years of being made to believe that I was. I started to go to a new church simply to meet people and feel settled. But while I was there I met some lovely people who introduced me to a friend of theirs, and we hit it off so well that we are now married with a toddler.
I have begun to rediscover old hobbies and take up new ones, make new friends as well as reconnecting with old ones, and generally find a new me. I hope to not only talk openly about my experiences of abuse but also to share some lighter, happier moments too.
My new life emerged from the old, transformed, very different, but considerably better. There are challenges, some of which relate to my past experiences. I'm not pretending it is perfect, or that I have totally left behind the past, But I am definitely able to look at my life and see how far I have come.
I am a Christian who a number of years ago ended up in an abusive relationship for several years. This gradually eroded away at so many aspects of my sense of self that I nearly lost who I was and my faith as well. By the time I got away, my then partner had turned so violent and controlling that after leaving him I ended up spending many months having physiotherapy to get my limbs working properly again. His control of every aspect of my life even went as far as keeping me in the same room as him all the time, not allowing me to sit anywhere but the floor, and forcing me to ask for permission to go to the toilet. He was eventually arrested and given a custodial sentence. I was left with physical injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder, which have to some extent healed.
Out of the old life where I felt that I had been so lost, a new life developed. I was able to make steps towards a good recovery, making new friends and rediscovering who I was and who I wanted to be. I also managed to cling onto my faith, even though in the beginning of my recovery I wanted to forget the whole thing. It took me a long time to get myself in a place where I could work out where God had been while I was suffering, but I persevered and tried going to church.
I went back to university to study for a Master's degree, something which would have been unthinkable during that toxic relationship. I needed to prove to myself that I wasn't stupid, after a number of years of being made to believe that I was. I started to go to a new church simply to meet people and feel settled. But while I was there I met some lovely people who introduced me to a friend of theirs, and we hit it off so well that we are now married with a toddler.
I have begun to rediscover old hobbies and take up new ones, make new friends as well as reconnecting with old ones, and generally find a new me. I hope to not only talk openly about my experiences of abuse but also to share some lighter, happier moments too.
My new life emerged from the old, transformed, very different, but considerably better. There are challenges, some of which relate to my past experiences. I'm not pretending it is perfect, or that I have totally left behind the past, But I am definitely able to look at my life and see how far I have come.
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