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.
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