James Ballantyne

Category: Journey

  • The Breadcrumbing tactic

    The Breadcrumbing tactic

    One of the confusing things about growing up and living with someone who is emotionally abusive (and this also applies to physically abusive too), is that they are rarely abusive all the time.

    Some people are, and that id learned to switch off from my parents at an early age would indicate that I knew they were unsafe, and emotionally neglectful and immature.

    Because if someone is abusive all the time, then, unless they were trapped in the relationship, and spousal, or parental relation is certainly entrapping, the person on the receiving end is more likely to leave, and do so pretty quick, especially if theres a safe alternative.

    In my own experience of surviving abuse I was on the receiving end of this trick.

    Its known as Breadcrumbing.

    and for someone like me who likes watching wildlife, at Cowpen Bewley Duck pond, the image is pretty accurate.

    Families every now and then show up with bread for the ducks. The left overs, the scraps. Its rarely/never the first slice of the sourdough or granary crusted loaf. But each time, the ducks swim to the shore, ready to be fed.

    The problem with too much bread is that it causes issued with Ducks. But they forget and devour it anyway.

    Its the same with Breadcrumbing.

    Its like swallowing ultimately toxic bread, receiving the scrappy gifts from abuser, to keep you heading back to the shore. Like a pavlov dog, but in duck form.

    This video is where I first came across there term, do have a look

    Breadcrumbing in an abusive relationship has a number of aims, depending on the type of abuse.

    1. To try and create confusion in your mind that this person isn’t always abusive/horrid
    2. For the abuser to show to others that they are ‘trying’
    3. For you to give them a second/another chance

    In my own experience I’ve tasted the breadcrumbs. I think there’s a number of different types, both physical, verbal, emotional and financial. I probably don’t need to describe all the different options used some include:

    1. Overly Expressive physical gifts
    2. Sex
    3. Promises of verbal affection ‘Im trying to be good’, ‘Ill try harder’ ‘ill say I love you every day..if you do’
    4. Offering to help you when you’re in dire need, but this is out of character (abusers can love playing rescue, especially if you’re ill)
    5. Financial gifts,
    6. Being given a pay rise of 3% as NHS staff through the pandemic – when theres corruption elsewhere. (Yes, sometimes breadcrumbs are scattered to ‘feast on’ by the hungry ducks, when theres first class feasting happening elsewhere.
    7. Some physical help, again to rescue you.
    8. A one off, unguarded moment or experience that ‘wasn’t that bad’ – the fun stops when your feelings and needs are considered though…As long as you were enjoying their fun…
    9. They might even ‘do’ something to keep you happy – like fulfil a request, like go to AA or therapy, but its only as a trick, and not done with authenticity

    Whatever it is, its crumbs from the table, to keep you going back..

    For some of us though, the crumbs themselves have been toxic, not even nice bread at all. I know of gifts given to me that make for uncomfortable receiving. Like trying to be grateful for a ‘gift’ of reduced priced food, or napkins, or presents that were clearly won on raffle tickets. Some of those gifts evoked beatings as a child, for not being ‘grateful’ , and I wasn’t the only one. On some occasions these were justified because I was just ‘spoilt’ for asking for too much.

    One of the problems, as Lindsay C Gibson writes is that the breadcrumbs represent a kind of misplaced hope that we think ‘they may have changed’ or that ‘we think that the relationship may be better’ , and as a child what happens is that the child hops around that parent like an hungry bird, trying to elicit some kind of positive response from them. The abusive parent, or partner, gives away the occasional reason to keep hoping. Though some, as I experiences really dont bother.

    Gibson writes that somer Emotionally immature parents can be generous, with a catch. (Gibson, C 2019) . Giving with their own tastes in mind, and what they would like to get, they give to themselves by proxy, and sometimes get it right, but rarely. And even though they say they might be ‘being fair’ the bread crumbing from parents is different to different children, as it fuels the division and projects the different roles for each of the siblings.

    It makes sense though doesn’t it, and is a reason why the receiving of gifts is so difficult beyond an abusive relationship, because what’s been received has often been gifts chucked like breadcrumbs to the ducks.

    The thing is, how many crumbs do you accept before realising it?

    What do you do to realise its only the crumbs you’re getting, when you deserve better?

    References

    Gibson , Lindsay C – Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents 2019

  • The struggle to ‘do’ my own healing work

    The struggle to ‘do’ my own healing work

    One of the hardest things for me about rebuilding after trauma is to do it.

    Its not a linear thing, but I find it fascinating that what I needed in the midst of dealing the traumatic situations was a calm cool head, the oft said ‘breathe’ and as Van Der Kolk writes about, to use breathing to begin to bring the intellect into play, when in an emotionally traumatic experience.

    If part of the rebuild after emotional trauma is to be in a safe place, a calm one, then its fascinating that the rebuild requires a active shift.

    Research suggests that creative practices (Cappachione, 1988) and physical practices (Van Der Kolk 2014) are keys to the re-make post trauma.

    So its a doing thing.

    I have to participate in my own trauma rebuilding.

    Id rather learn the theory.

    Im used to creating spaces to help others do this

    Im used to watching from the sidelines

    I watch, while others dance.

    Watching, rather than being active, Hobbies that have included transporting, birdwatching, all stemming from a need to be observant of others.

    Yet I still find ‘doing’ recovery from trauma practices difficult, because it involves parts of me that have been inhibited, restricted, shamed into non being.

    ‘We dont do that sort of thing’ (Dance),

    ‘Thats a bit weird and of the devil’ (Yoga),

    ‘Dont make a mess , we dont want to clutter up the kitchen with these drawings’ (Art and Creativity), dont be silly, dont be messy.

    Its like to trying to de-concentrate and just do.

    Id rather write a blog about why I find doing trauma remaking practices difficult than pick up a wax crayon. But its so that I didnt have to write this line, that the last week I have been picking up the wax crayons.

    Thats the thing though, I have to let my head stop. Yet its what I needed to survive.

    I need to just do. Let my body do.

    I may have read about theory of trauma, but unless its a tick box exercise, Id avoid the exercises in even the list of resources in the menu above.

    It was only in front of my therapist that I drew a picture.

    Draw something on a sheet of paper. No – I cant draw

    Go on – No – why, its pointless

    Do it….No its silly

    Its like learning to swear and get it out. Let feelings loose

    Use crayons and scribble, let it happen…

    Theres so many reasons why I find participating in my own healing difficult.

    So many excuses not to, because theres other peoples to think of

    But also, so used to being the observer to other peoples existence, the soother of others pain, concentrating to stay safe, being told not to feel, easily distracted by the safety of helping others, and having my brain engaged in debates, or the empathy and response patterns of social media.

    It means me being selfish with my time. Investing in myself as I reparent myself.

    My remaking after trauma and through it involved my participation.

    Just doing it. Like there Nike Advert.

    Im glad my therapist recommended this book: ‘Recovery of your inner child’ by Lucio Cappachione to me. Because, although it contains some writing, it also has many exercises to actually do. Things I had to do. Myself.

    Things I had to do and feel. Do and respond to.

    Im not sure its possible to theorise my way out of trauma. Or to watch others. Or just to talk about it.

    Remaking after trauma is a participation thing, that I have to do.

    What about you? Are you in that mindset struggle to ‘do’ the practices of self care/healing? Do you have strategies, things you tell yourself? Do share below:

  • Healing of wounded history : A Prayer

    A beautiful blessing on the healing of wounded history ( from John O’Donahue) , that I saw share by Andy Raine and wanted to post here as a gift and reminder to myself.

    For Someone Awakening To The Trauma of His or Her Past:

    For everything under the sun there is a time.

    This is the season of your awkward harvesting,

    when the pain takes you where you would rather not go,

    through the white curtain of yesterdays

    to a place, you had forgotten

    you knew from the inside out;

    and a time when that bitter tree was planted

    that has grown always invisibly beside you

    and whose branches your awakened hands

    now long to disentangle from your heart.

    You are coming to see how your looking often darkened

    when you should have felt safe

    enough to fall toward love,

    how deep down your eyes were always owned by something

    that faced them through a dark fester of thorns

    converting whoever came into a further figure of the wrong;

    you could only see what touched you as already torn.

    Now the act of seeing begins your work of mourning.

    and your memory is ready to show you everything,

    having waited all these years for you to return and know.

    Only you know where the casket of pain is interred.

    You will have to scrape through all the layers of covering

    and according to your readiness, everything will open.

    May you be blessed with a wise and compassionate guide

    who can accompany you through the fear and grief

    until your heart has wept its way to your true self.

    As your tears fall over that wounded place,

    may they wash away your hurt and free your heart.

    May your forgiveness still the hunger of the wound,

    so that for the first time you can walk away from that place,

    reunited with your banished heart, now healed and freed,

    and feel the clear, free air bless your new face.

    John O’Donohue, ( from ‘To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings’)

  • Healing: as we slow down

    When you are so busy that you feel perpetually chased

    when your worrying thoughts circle around your head

    when the future seems dark and uncertain

    when you are hurt by someone has said

    Slow

    down

    Even for a moment.

    What do you hear?

    What..does..you’re..body..feel?

    What does the sky look like ?

    Only when we slow down can we finally see our relationships, our thoughts, our pain

    As we slow down, we are no longer tangled in them

    We can slowly step out and appreciate them for what they are.

    The faces of our family and colleagues whop always help, the scenery we pass by every day

    but..fail to notice, our friends stories that we fail to pay attention to

    in the stillness of the

    pause…

    the entirety of our being is quietly revealed

    Wisdom is not something we have to strive to acquire.

    Rather, it arises naturally as we slow down and notice what is already there.

    As we notice more and more in present moment, we come to a deeper realisation that as silent observer is within us.

    In the primordial stillness the silent observer witnesses everything inside and outside.

    Befriend the silent observer. Find out where it is, and what shape it has assumed.

    Do not try to imagine it as something you already know. Let all your thoughts and images merge back into silence and just sense the observer already in silence.

    If you see the face of the silent observer, then you have found your original face, from before you were born.

    Haemin Sumin, The Things you can see only when you slow down (2012)

    The Epilogue of this book, written in full, for you, a gift, an encouragement, to slow down, and let the silence speak and for us to see more as we notice.

  • 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.