James Ballantyne

Category: Healing

  • Healing is like an iron clad onion

    The first layer is the toughest to crack.

    It took something major for me, it might do for you

    To admit, finally.

    To creak open that iron clad exterior

    That protector.

    That protective layer.

    That thing you’ve been using to hide everything vulnerable inside.

    Staying busy

    Helping others

    Survival of the responsible-ist

    until it cracks

    reveals a tiny slither of the next layer

    soil. Brown dirt. Mess.

    The clean up is about to start.

    The recent pain – on the exterior, just under the surface.

    Time to get it clean.

    Cleanse. Brush it off. Wipe.

    But what’s that smell? discovering that the core is trying to make itself known

    An energy that pushed open the iron clad skin

    The voice from within

    Healing is like an iron clad onion

    Seeing new layers

    Having them shed

    peeling them away

    being pushed from the core

    New layers all the time

    Codependency, Emotions, Fears,

    Layers of pain

    stop to let tears flow

    they do

    they will

    Work to remove

    Sometime need professional chefs to prize them open

    Therapists with a culinary hand

    and time

    to gradually peel off some

    very

    slowly

    carefully

    ones that

    have hidden

    for decades

    Voices.

    Abuse.

    Feelings.

    Shame.

    Fear.

    Layers that are labelled.

    That hide the core.

    A loving, caring hand to hold, and peel the layer.

    Revealing the next.

    Healing is like an iron clad onion.

    Exposing the next layer

    Raw, Vulnerable

    Getting closer to it each time. Holding

    it tenderly.

    Not beating the onion like an egg, or treating it like a tennis ball.

    Held lovingly.

    Gentle.

    Not rushing.

    Healing revealing

    new layers to peel.

    New parts to heal.

    Flesh wounds

    Hurts.

    Heart.

    That stopped beating.

    Hidden

    Healing is like an iron clad onion.

    With a core wanting to be revealed

    Wanting to be

    Just be.

    Not covered

    in layers

    Free

    to

    be

    again.

  • Growing though Trauma (personally and collectively)

    Growing though Trauma (personally and collectively)

    In my last piece I shared a little about how we love ourselves through healing, what it means to be kind on ourselves, as we do so, forgiving our missteps, not over dwelling on the tiny attempts to try that fail in the bigger picture of overall healing. Today I have come across this concept. Post Traumatic Growth, after reading this tweet.

    The staggering thing for me is that this is only 10%.

    But then again, I realise that looking back how many times in the last 10 years I ignored the warning signs. How scared I was to try and deal with things that I couldn’t describe. How I thought I could just ‘keep going’ and be ok (a trauma response in itself).

    Thats me overthinking to the point where it was ‘safer’ and ‘easier’ to stay stuck, swirling in the muck of abusive relationships.

    Healing is undoubtedly about growing, and changing. As you change, others around you either do, or dont, and reveal themselves through their actions (even if their words say something different).

    And to anyone reading this, especially, but not exclusively men, – lets not be afraid to change, and become a better version of ourselves.

    That ‘self-help’ guru that you dismissed in your criticism, that you now have to admit is right… thats ok. Humble pie is good, when it means that you are healing too.

    That breakdown, that illness, that continual knowing ache… might be the sign and symptom that is trying to tell you something, that something isn’t right, and a reason to stop.

    One of the key factors in helping me to grow, was that 2 of the friends who walked with me through the easiest time had also been through therapy, had also experienced what I had in different ways. They were the wise guides, showing me paths that I could take (though never forcing it).

    I recognise some of myself in this article. I have been relentlessly optimistic about my own capacities since I was about 11 and a strong, if coherent, sense of self, even in the difficult times, and doing lot of practical and written tasks to keep going, though I also know that my coping styles were avoidance , not wanting to deal with things. Maybe thats a key one for us all.

    Learning to turn around and face the trauma.

    To name it, see it, and understand it for what it is.

    To deal with the root thats been nagging away.

    It was for me. Maybe it is for you.

    Theres definitely no sense of ‘look at me ive made it’ as I write, dealing with trauma is an ongoing struggle, healing and recovery takes time, and requires so many new, daily moments of inner work. Its too simple to say ‘What doesnt kill you makes you stronger’, too trite. As in this piece..

    But as stories and literature often reveal, it is possible not only to recover from trauma, but to actually grow from it and flourish. Suffering has long been romanticized in literature, art, and folklore as transformative and empowering. There is an element of truth to this concept. But it needs to be looked at more closely. Simply experiencing suffering and trauma does not guarantee that you will become a better, stronger person for it. This attitude is a trite and irresponsible one that men for centuries have used as an excuse to abuse their children in the name of “toughening them up.”

    From Growth and Recovery through trauma in Psychology Today

    Also, this isnt trying to say that ‘if you do this, X happens’ , for me the growth happened in the process and took a lot of work. It’s not a promise, but it could be a new reality. Its about how to rethink the abuse, how to put ourselves in the centre of our lives, and this takes significant effort.

    Right now, approximately 50% of you who have experienced trauma are reading this and saying, “I’m supposed to be grateful for all the crud that happened to me? Each day, I struggle for even a modicum of what other people take for granted. There’s no amount of ‘growth’ that can stop me wishing this hadn’t been my life.”

    Post-traumatic growth is not a given. We’re not going to gloss over the long arduous road to recovery from trauma that for the most part does not feel victorious or courageous for those who are on it. However, at least 50% of survivors have found that they can begin to define themselves and their communities by their strengths and that in no small way these strengths have been forged by adversity.

    Taken from https://www.echotraining.org/the-promise-of-post-traumatic-growth-part-ii/

    “Out of the hottest fire comes the strongest steel.” – Chinese proverb

    My hope is that this piece is an encouragement to you. Not a burden of expectation. My hope is that it causes you to see what can be possible, what is possible. We dont choose the trauma we have experienced, but we can start t choose how we heal from them, how we live our lives from and beyond them. In the midst of it all, tiny shoots of green start to appear. They may be tender. They may be small. But they are there.

    Additionally: Since 2020 its not just a personal thing, trauma, whilst we have all experienced the effects of Covid in different ways, how we rebuild from it, healthily may have something to do with what our reactions have been during it, this piece on ‘Why PTG might be what we all need in 2021′ has some helpful insights in it.

  • Recovering and Healing (Part 7) Self-sufficient me had to ask for help.

    Recovering and Healing (Part 7) Self-sufficient me had to ask for help.

    I had no money, no job, no knowledge of where the next week was and was told to be out of my house.

    Self sufficient me.

    For the best part of the previous 18 months I had been trying to grow my own produce, carrots, herbs, chillies, potatoes, onions, courgettes, radishes, lettuces, peppers, garlic (40 bulbs) .

    For the best part of the previous 17 years I had been the person who helped others. The passionate supportive helpful youth and community worker. The person who wrote to be helpful. The quintissential but unhealthy Enneagram 2.

    For the best part of the previous 40 years I had had to deal with emotional trauma mostly alone.

    I had grown up, knowing that I had make life happen for me, the ‘internaliser‘ ‘The Mature for his age kid‘ , The person other people went to for advice. The person, who looked like they were ok.

    The person who struggled to know what they wanted or needed, though, because I was used to coping. Used to battling through. Used to survival.

    Used to not wanting other people to help me.

    Used to keeping people at arms length, especially when they asked any difficult question.

    I faced a choice. Being homeless, desperate and walking the streets, or asking for help.

    Being vulnerable.

    Having to ask

    I wasnt used to this.

    Survival and coping alone was my trauma response.

    I just had to ‘deal with it’

    I just had to ‘take responsibility’

    The abusers needs greater than mine. So I only hid mine.

    But now im at my lowest point.

    With nowhere to go.

    Something has to give. Something has to change. Lucky for me I chose the right person.

    I didn’t want to ask for help

    and… given my past – who would I ask?

    I was used to not doing so, the kind of ‘help’ in the past had been with strings attached, emotionally loaded, or met with ridicule.

    I was supposed to meet their needs.

    I had to let someone else..help me.

    That was one of my first lessons, that I had no choice but to learn, the hard way, with tears streaming. I have nowhere to live, no money, no job, and nothing

    Do you want to live with me?

    Was the response.

    Grateful.

    That I had asked.

    I didnt want to be a burden. I didnt want to look weak. I didnt want to ask

    I had no reference point to any of these things.

    I had always coped..tried to cope…or avoided.

    Learning to ask for help

    Learning to trust that I might have friends who might not think I was crazy.

    Learning to trust that I was deserving of help

    Learning to realise that other people might want to ‘be there’ for me.

    I didn’t have to be the strong one.

    Men, you dont have to be.

    (Neither do women either)

    It wasnt weak to ask for help. It was bloody hard and I didn’t want to

    It wasnt weak to need someone else.

    I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t.

    Survival alone, and not asking for help, was my trauma response.

    Self sufficient me, was now not alone. Self Sufficient me began to realise that he was actually loved. Self sufficient me, began to be in community.

    All I needed to do was ask. Yet it felt like the hardest thing to do in the world.

    To say. To admit. To ask.

    To ask for help. That was one of the many things I had to begin to do, from Rock bottom.

  • Loving ourselves through Healing

    Loving ourselves through Healing

    Be kind on Yourself

    Just be kind

    Soothe with warmth

    Be kind

    Be kind on yourself- when your mind is so focussed on the big things – you will put the recycling bags in the fridge or forget where you put your keys. Its what happens. We all do it. Be kind

    Be kind on yourself when you look past and see what you had to do when you were surviving, yes you got into a difficult relationship or made a weird job choice, but its ok, be kind, maybe even feel thankful for what was learned

    Be kind on yourself for turning up every day, for putting the effort in, to take responsibility, to give of yourself, say something kind about the effort you put in, be kind, be a coach and friend to yourself. Theres enough critics already.

    Be kind on yourself for reacting when you were tired, for falling into an old trap or default. Healing wasn’t going to be perfect, linear, easy. You started, learn, feel, recover, you were tired, give yourself a break. You can recover, its not square one..its the next step.

    Be kind to yourself when you speak to yourself. That critical voice is what’s stopping you from being closer to you.

    Put your hand onto your heart and say…I love you…

    Be kind on yourself.

    Stop pushing yourself, to an exhaustion you might not recover from next time

    Be kind

    on yourself

    Start to have words with the inner critic. Being kind to yourself, might mean being firm. Being angry. To make it disappear. To take power over it.

    Tell it to get lost. Tell it where it needs to go.

    Listen to a different voice. It does exist.

    Nurture yourself, don’t criticise yourself.

    Each hour, each day.

    Speak kind words.

    You did ok today

    You did more than ok

    You are ok as you are

    More than ok

    Because.

    You are enough

    You have a right to be kind on yourself

    You can play, dance and be silly

    You can

    Be kind, listen to your heart. Stop. Breathe. Be the you from your heart.

    Be kind on yourself.

    Love yourself despite your imperfections

    Do you not feel compassion for yourself as you struggle through life?

    You are so eager to help your friends, but you treat yourself so poorly

    Stroke your heart once in a while and say

    I

    Love

    You

    Haemin Sunim, 2012, The Things you can see, Only when you slow down.

    Nurturing is how we empower and energise ourselves. When we love, accept and nurture ourselves, we can relax enough to do our best. A bonus is, when we love, accept and nurture ourselves, we’re able to do the same for others..Loving and accepting ourselves unconditionally doesn’t mean we negate our need to change and grow..Its how we enable ourselves to love and grow

    Melody Beattie, 1989 , Beyond Codependancy,
  • Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 18) Terrified by breakfast table Jesus.

    Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 18) Terrified by breakfast table Jesus.

    Christ is the Head of this house

    So far, in parts 1-17 of my story of what I needed to do to survive psychopathic parenting, I have talked alot about emotional abuse, emotional neglect, narcissism and the drama triangle, and the eggshells that had top be continually walked upon. I haven’t really talked about the spiritual weaponising that associated all of this as I grew up.

    At the same time as all of the events I have described went on, it was all occurring in a ‘home’ that outwardly professed to be a ‘Christian’ one. So much so, that for most times in my life I would have said ‘I grew up in a Christian home’ . Now id say I grew up in an abusive home and my parents also had an evangelical faith.

    What did this mean?

    It meant that I grew up with a distorted sense of God.

    ‘Family’ mealtimes of course included ‘saying grace’ – but also this ritual meant having to be ‘serious’ and ‘saying grace properly’ – and at times having to be thankful for food that was delivered with little care or value.

    Breakfast was accompanied by an elongated daily bible reading – usually ‘Our Daily Bread’ and lengthy prayers by the parents afterwards.

    The unseen guest

    Prayers that were often messages, sorry, prayers that were messages of morality to us as children. Im not going to say that they didnt pray for exams or issues (that they knew about) – but thats not really what I remember. This time was enforced on me (us as it included may sister too) , it was as important as the eating part.

    It enforced daily that God was on their side. It enforced daily a time that they projected outwards to keep casting moral messages to us as children. They knew God, God was on their side. God was a weapon they used to control our behaviour.

    The Silent listener

    ‘We pray that we (though looking at me) dont behave like the older child when the prodigal returned (on the brief occasion my sister started going to church)’

    ‘We pray that the lost are returned, and you accept us when we return (looking at my sister who had stopped going to church)’

    There were many that were worse than this.

    Im not sure that the writers of ‘Our Daily Bread’ had this in mind, when they ensured that evangelical parents were starting every day with this, and reading it publically in front of their children as a control, a weapon.

    Christ is the Head of this House

    The Unseen guest at every meal

    The Silent listener of every conversation

    Was hung bold and in a red (not green) background large and proud in the dining room.

    On a blood red background.

    In a place where it had to be walked past every day to get the kitchen, or to where our shoes were kept in the back room.

    It was put there as deliberately.

    God was on their side. God was to be terrified of.

    God was watching us. (he wasnt watching them)

    In his book ‘Ghost Ship’ A.D.A France-Williams writes…

    My mum would point to this piece of terror art and use it as a motif of her and Gods total surveillance. So whatever I was getting up to at home, I was being watched

    A.D.A France-Williams (2020)

    My mum would always sit on the side of the table nearest the kitchen. That may have been one reason. The other was that it meant that, as she dominated every conversation, that picture was in view behind her head. She didnt point to it, as the author of Ghost ship described. In my case the picture was to be as feared as its message.

    God was to be terrified of. He was no help in the emotional abuse, in fact he was on their side.

    A.D.A was right though. This was terror art.

    We were being literally watched.

    From being Sunday school leaders and Primary school dinner ladies. We were being watched.

    If we didnt behave in church that morning, or in Sunday school, there were repercussions afterwards.

    They were watching, God was watching. God was to be terrified of, because she was to be terrified of. The God who was said to be about love – was delivered by the parents with bucketloads of added fear, terror and morality.

    God was abused by them.

    As an older teenager , who fearfully stayed within the box, I remember going to one of the bigger christian festivals in the mid to late 1990’s, and someone there talked about ‘Father God’ and if what we might need do ‘if people have a poor image of God because of a damaged relationship with their Dad’. Which is all perfectly legitimate. But I wonder about what space there was to talk about a damaged relationship with God, because of the way that he was presented as a child. What about the effect an abusive mother who was a powerful evangelical woman, could have on the image of a child, a teen..and me? What about, as I know now, that God the father to me was unprotective, abused and also silent?

    As she damaged the whole family, doing so claiming that God was on her side.

    Fast forward 40 odd years to me writing this now. looking back, what did I do to survive?

    I did what I had to do, and that was try not to upset or go against them, or make things difficult for them. Those eggshells to navigate on the ground were multi facetted. I conformed, out of fear. And eventually, and only because they left that church, it could become a place of safety. (Yes, they left the church, thats been a common pattern ever since)

    Its no wonder I grew up with a large dose of evangelical fear and self loathing . I internalised all of that fear, guilt, shame. I hid myself, disconnected, and ultimately ran away as far, geographically as I could.

    Before then though, I had started to re think God. I felt home, and also something of a different God in places where I felt safe. However, I, took on the same devout faith as them, usually not because I wanted to, but because I thought it was make them proud or pleased of me. An impossible task, as I have realised now. Its what abuse does to you, you keep going back for more beatings even if you’re carrying a bunch of flowers, flowers you think they will like.

    I did discover that God was and is love. Though removing the shed skin of being traumatically terrified of God can be hard to shift.

    Im working on what faith is, beyond trauma, in the midst of reconnecting with myself all the time. Im learned that I dont have to keep going back to God with flowers to show my efforts. I can do what was always words sung, I can ‘be still’. Be still and know. As I’m learning to know myself, and to be myself, im discovering faith new again.

  • Healing started with me…

    I was ok

    It’ll be ok

    Ive always survived

    Ill get through this

    Another thing to get through

    Im ok

    But I wasnt

    I was hiding

    I was pretending to say things were ok

    Whilst parts of me were screaming

    and wanting me to face them

    But ill keep running

    or saying things will be fine

    or denying

    pretending

    making myself look as if im ok

    My red flags.

    My codependancy

    My trauma response

    My fear

    My hiding

    Running

    That monster is too difficult

    Its too big

    I don’t want to face it

    Id rather avoid

    run

    I had to change

    I had to face the reality

    I had to

    I

    Healing started with me

    not trying to run, hide, deny

    But to say

    I need help

    I dont know what to do

    I cant do this on my own

    I dont understand

    What I relied on doesnt work here

    Healing started with me.

    My insides

    That had burned

    That I had denied

    That were screaming to get out

    But id ran from the pain

    Healing started with me

    the stuff that would mean difficult choices

    the stuff that would mean I would have to be real

    No

    Please dont make me face

    that

    stop

    rest

    Healing started with me

    Not you, not everyone else

    not trying to survive

    but realising

    that

    life

    could be different

    life was possible

    real

    feelings

    I am

    loved

    worthy

    worth the effort to be real

    Me.

    Healing started with me.

    What did I need ?

    Who arrived to heal and carry me?

    Love me.

    Heal me.

    Be actual me.

    Healing started with me.

  • The Power of Story: Healing through Harry Potter

    The Power of Story: Healing through Harry Potter

    ‘Why are you reading those, they’re just children books’

    I once said to my late friend Bex Lewis about 7 years ago, and then I sat with her and watched a scene of one of the films, one with dementors in, I think. Fast forward a few years and my daughter Anna proposed that we watch the films as part of what was a family tradition then, movie night. I think I fell asleep in some of them, maybe all.

    At the age of 43 I have just finished reading the Harry Potter books for the first time.

    It was as if I wasn’t ready to see what I needed to see in them.

    At the weekend I finished reading the last book of the Harry Potter series. Its taken me 18 months to read them all.

    On one hand Harry Potter has accompanied me through the time of the Pandemic, so far. It has also accompanied me as I have processed significant family abuse and also the death of my grandmother last year.

    I remember once reading that JK Rowling grew up as Harry grew and developed in her own writing of the novels, to me there is no doubt that Harry undergoes significant internal processing and healing throughout the books, in a way that I didn’t encounter in other mythical hero stories such as Lord of the Rings or Narnia.

    What I saw in Harry was a boy who struggled to express the truth in the face of his abusers – and yet when he was able to it was no relief, it was exhausting.

    What I saw in Harry was a co-dependent child who suffered physical and neglectful abuse – who was desperate to please, and had instincts to be the hero – a default that those who were evil could manipulate.

    What I saw in Harry was that not everyone experiences Trauma the same, I think the Boggarts in the wardrobe is a fascinating section.

    What I saw in Harry was someone who understood what it was like to grow up alone, and to have to grow up fast in that space.

    What I saw in Harry Potter was also stuff about friendship, power, structures, rules and community.

    So it isn’t ‘just’ a children book – but you all knew this already.

    Its a myth, a parable, a story, its a healing story that I believe could only be written by someone who had experience of abuse, from family, and relationships, someone who describes what narcissistic behaviour looks, and feels like

    The air felt cold and lifeless, as if it had everything sucked out of it

    I thought reading Harry Potter would be the relaxing read to partner with reading the self help books and undergoing trauma therapy. What it was actually was, was a story that revealed what I needed to heal from.

    Maybe its me and that I struggle to stop thinking – or maybe its that I identified with Harry from virtually the first page. It wasnt far into the second book when the extent of the emotional neglect I experienced as a child was beginning to be revealed to me. I could see myself as Harry in a way that I had never identified with the Hobbits, or Edward or Peter as they looked in the wardrobe.

    I wrote in a previous pieces about how I began to feel that the universe was calling and directing the process of healing in me, especially in being open to see them, some of those healing particles were discovered in the Harry Potter series.

    David Macadams writes that we adopt stores to live our lives by, setting ourselves into a narrative that causes us to have purpose and identity.

    Karen Armstrong writes that we are mythical beings and that the literary writers of the last 150 years have been those who have engaged our mythical nature in a way that the religious stories of our historic past have been reduced to moral making.

    I wouldn’t say that reading Harry Potter was a healing experience, by the time I finished the last one I was drained and exhausted. But what it did do was help me see. There is great power in story, as it weaves its magic wand to reveal its mysteries.

    I was reminded about how fearful some parts of the church were/are about Harry Potter. Its unlikely that the reasons for this were from a position of having not read it. For, its not the magic that evangelicals should fear, its that churches and structures are revealed in the story to be manipulated, controlling and abusive. Its the magic that overcomes, a deeper magic. Its a book about revealing the truth, about revealing abuse.

    But its also a book that reinforces the view that children are still alone. Adults fleeting offer a combination of support (Mrs Weasley) , fun (Hagrid), wisdom (Dumbledore, and in a lesser way McConagall), paternal substitute (Sirius) , but in the face of the many struggles to overcome, none are ultimately comepletely effective, responsible, true, or fair. Maybe that is the point, maybe that’s the reality, but it does cause me to question where children and young people might find, and see models and examples of responsible, protective, emotionally healthy adults in their lives. They see glimpses of it in Harry Potter, and clues are given away by those adults to offer glimpses, but in the main the three (and the other supporting children, Ginny, Henry, George, Luna, Seamus, Neville etc) are those who have to put the complete jigsaw together, and have the agency on them to overcome. Then again, if there was such a character, there would be no need for Harry, Ron and Hermione to have to do what they had to do.

    At times reading Harry Potter I felt extraordinarily emotional. I think I cried on a number of occasions, I was also triggered at times too. All of that is a good thing. Stories have the power to reveal, and to heal.

    What fiction has done for me during the process of healing has continued to open up my heart. Thats the power of the story. I might be able to intellectually understand the abuse I suffer from reading the books and the case studies. This is undoubtedly helpful. But Stories, like Harry Potter, and also Matilda have been as instrumental too.

    References:

    Karen Armstrong: A Short History of Myth, 2018

    David MaCadams, The Stories we live by, 1996

    The Harry Potter Series, JK Rowling, Bloomsbury Books.

  • Recovering and Healing (Part 5) Taking Power back

    Recovering and Healing (Part 5) Taking Power back

    It was a dark January Evening, I was staying at my friends house, and a month into starting a new job, I was about to attend in person training (its funny, ‘training’ was just ‘training’ in Jan 2019) , with Citizens UK, and their ‘branch, in Tyne and Wear.

    I’ll come back to that in a second.

    Powerlessness wasn’t something I thought I was. But what I had consciously and subconsciously adopted in most of my life was a combination of the following, as a youth worker

    • Siding and empathising with the oppressed
    • Thinking that being a youthworker was also a place of oppression

    A lecturer of mine once said to me that I had assumed the position of thinking that youthworkers were also oppressed.

    What I was doing was assuming myself into those places. Assuming the victim.

    What I was also doing was assuming powerlessness

    ‘I cant do that’

    ‘I cannot change that’

    ‘This will never happen’

    What I did, as a youthworker, and as a person was become wholly reactive. I didnt want to, or maybe more so, I feared a position of power.

    That was a position abusive people took.

    I didnt want to be like the powerful people who had abused me.

    Even though I had responsibility placed upon me. Rarely, if ever, did I seek to assert power within these spaces. It was a position to develop others, that ’empowerment’ thing.

    So I knew about power. Or so I thought. I even wrote about it in a few of my MA essays.

    Know about it, but don’t take any. Assume powerlessness. That was the right thing to do right? Thats what Jesus did..wasnt it?

    Back to the story above. I was about to see things differently. And at that time, in January 2019 I needed to.

    I needed to see power as something healthy. I needed to see that I could take power, I needed to begin to take more power in my own life.

    So much confusion around my life, at the time, and a journey on Sunderlands public bus/metro system in the rain to ponder my lifes choices ahead. And training that I didnt want to like. But it was something I needed.

    I needed to indwell having healthy power. Of feeling that I can make decisions.

    That I didnt need to give myself away. That I didnt need to react.

    It was unhealthy to see myself as powerless. That there was nothing I could do. That was part of the breaking down the summer before. Despondent confusion and feeling like there was no way out.

    In a way, the lesson I was receiving on Power was from an unlikely source. But then again. Un likely sources sometime showed me that the universe was in a conspiracy to wake me, teach me, push me, and hold me. I was soaking up and learning something new. My mind was being changed.

    That ‘mind’ that over thought and over worried, that ‘mind’ that had been on overdrive since it was 11.

    I was being educatied by community organisers, how to get my own power back. Giving myself permission to think of myself as having power.

    Yet, in some ways I had started. But this was another one of the many pushes in the same direction.

    This from ‘Inner Practitioner’ on Twitter summed up much of my relationship with power.

    Things start to happen when you start taking power.

    Those around me who were used to me acting in one way, were reacting, revealing themselves, to me acting differently.

    When I changed. I couldn’t be controlled the same

    Small steps of starting to take power.

    I started to fear less their reaction, even if it had been demonstrative before, and I had been scared.

    I begin to not let the control freak have control. I could choose.

    Learning about power, learning to take power. Learning to stop, wait, and pause – even in the midst of emotional abuse – were small, beginning examples of taking power.

    If you have a read of my Survivor story (link here) you will understand how my childhood revolved around staying small and assuming powerlessness. Fearing power was like fearing becoming like the person who dominated and abused me.

    Taking power, starting to assume having some, starting to think of myself in a healthier respectful way, was one of the many aspects of my healing and recovery journey. On yours where are some of the surprising lessons coming from that you are needing to hear?

    Maybe it really is a conspiracy when the universe starts interfering in all the ways, in working you towards wholeness. Maybe its that true power being awoken from within.

  • Recovering and Healing (Part 4) Healing the Toxic time

    Recovering and Healing (Part 4) Healing the Toxic time

    Time is something Abusers like to control

    It’s also something that exists in a weird dynamic for them.

    When you dont reply to them, or include them

    they say

    How dare you not reply to my message!

    Or, maybe less abruptly

    Did you get my message, I expected a reply by now

    Often they want a response.

    Part of my healing was realising I didnt have to respond.

    Part of my healing and recovery was slowing down a response

    Slowing down.

    Then realising, that the communication was more important than the response.

    They often want the dialogue to keep going, not just the answer.

    A quick answer, I had to learn, was one that was reactionary.

    A slow answer revealed actually what they wanted.

    They wanted to control time.

    They expected an immediate response

    If I say something… you will do this straight away.

    I expect you to jump when I ask

    Is it important to respond straight away? Really?

    What kind of response am I giving if I give it straight away?

    if you’re in the role of rescuer – do you need to rescue- shouldn’t that person rescue themselves?

    If you haven’t read it yet, this is what Voldemort uses to manipulate Harry in The Order of the Pheonix; Being the hero without stopping to work out what was going on, Harry could be manipulated with a strong sense of rescue.

    What if youre naturally empathetic, and let’s face it, most of us generally are, is that the best default to respond out of?

    When our abuser makes demands of our time… what tactics do they use to make us ‘jump’? – and what might we need to work on to reduce feeling fear, shame or guilt for not doing so.

    Some requests do not require an answer.

    because I didnt hear back from you, I did it myself

    Oh good, but now please dont make me feel guilty for it.

    Lindsay Gibson writes:

    Emotionally immature people Exaggerate everything. Every frustration is the end of the world. They are the boy who cried wolf ; you dont know whether to believe them or not. That is why it is so important not to accept their completely self-focussed view of their situation. It is up to you to clarify the reality of things

    Lindsay C Gibson, 2019

    In their mind, the only answer is that someone save or rescue them.

    When you start feeling compelled by duty or obligation, ask yourself who’s suggesting that and why

    Gibson, 2019

    Theres something else to do with Time that I had to learn with abusive people.

    They have a weird sense of it. Its a kind of selective toxic amnesia.

    They dont store or remember any of the abuse they doled out to you, yet, they do remember the few times that you were critical or questioning back.

    Its as if, with no empathy, every moment is lived in the strategic present to them, a present in which they just try and get what they want or need – without remembering or dealing with any of the reality as to why its not liked, possible, considerate, respectful, decent or dignified.

    Its the over realised entitlement, that knows that it can get, and can weasel its way out of keeping any of the rules that do or don’t exist to prevent or be abhorred by it. (its like doing a ‘Cummings’)

    Instead of analysing their mistakes, they think ‘that was then, this is now’. They are famous for moving on and ‘getting over it’ and other forms of not processing lessons from the past. They dont notice when they are repeating past mistakes, nor can they steer themselves to a better future. The future isnt a real consideration for them, so they feel free to deceive others, burn bridges or create enemies. They concoct something that gets them off the hook but don’t realise others will be suspicious due to their past lives

    Gibson, 2019

    There is no recollection of previous occurrences, no sense that time is a coherent continual ongoing concept – its just what they want now.

    So, learning and recovering from abusive situations, for me is about developing a different understanding of time.

    Its also about realising that an understanding of time in which there is an acceptance – not a denial- of reality.

    When we say no, or not yet, or no response to the emotionally abusive – it reveals them. Their desire to control, their entitlement, their feelings of power.

    Yet, healing and recovering meant realising that I am important. That I am only going to respond when it is respectful. That I dont need to. That I am worth more than being someone elses rescue mission. That I am not responsible.

    Time is power – for you

    Time is power – for them too – so be aware, and realise the emotional amnesia that goes on with the emotional immature.

    You are unlikely to be the crazy one, if you’re constantly bewildered by that weird time thing.

  • Recovering and Healing (Part 3) Discovering the real me

    Recovering and Healing (Part 3) Discovering the real me

    As well as the space to discover what was good for me, to see the situation pdf my marriage, and childhood, in a new light, and to get therapy to help me with tools, part of my recovery and healing involved me discovering who I am.

    Until then I had in the past done the odd personality test, but had done my best to invalidate it in my mind, filling in the answers I wanted to, dismissing the enneagram in college 12 years ago as ‘weird’ and not important compared to ‘real’ stuff in youth work..like theory.

    In the space of safety, part of my healing and recovery meant starting the process of who I am.

    Up until then ask me and I wouldn’t have known, ‘I dunno’, I think im ok, I think ill be ok, I think im good at a few things. I might have gone as far to say that I was a person of faith, but it all felt flimsy, loose, uncertain, unconvincing. So ill say that not knowing who I was, not knowing my real self and me, was part of how I ended up in situations. Drifting? Probably, taken advantage of? Yes..and not knowing who I was, meant I had nothing to protect or stand up for. You cant defend a castle if its made of water.

    18 months prior to actually accepting it, one of my friends had already mentioned me being an introvert when they saw me present my Thesis findings at this event but like everything else, I ignored, dismissed it, was almost scared of it. Scared of Discovering myself.

    That same friend reminded me of this, in the same month I started my first season of Therapy, and so, the second book I read after this one, was Quiet by Susan Cain.

    It was like a breath of fresh air on so many levels.

    Stopping to discover who I am. And know that it was ok.

    This isn’t a piece about introvert/extrovert thinking, it is instead about the process of discovering who I am as part of my healing.

    Who I am, not just how I am in relation to other people

    Who I am, not just what I do

    Who I am, in terms of the detail of my inner, real self.

    Who I am – and what I can start to defend.

    Putting off learning about myself was now out of the question. A breakdown was the opportunity to painfully discover the hidden treasure of myself. I couldn’t love myself if I didnt know myself.

    It began with accepting my introvert side, as I was lapping up self discovery like a drug.

    I say to any men reading this, or anyone, its not too late, its not too early to discover the real you. What you may have hidden for so long will make its way known in actions, behaviours and reactions. You are more valuable than you think, and the process and journey is so worth it. You may have already started this, and so my deepest encouragement to you as this continues in your life. The best person you can be for yourself and others, is the one that accepts, knows and understands itself.

    Discovering my introvert side was just the start, but Im glad it was a start.

    Starting to accept, not run from discovering who I am, realising how important it was…realising how important I am.

    The next chapter of my life, was about to me made with me knowing myself, for who I am.