James Ballantyne

Tag: help

  • The (not so) wonderful thing about Tiggers

    Without question this was my favourite Disney song. My beautiful Auntie Heather, only 10 years older than me, had in her record collection circa 1982 a Disney compilation, as well as probably a whole load of other cool music that I had no idea of (or wasn’t allowed to hear).

    But the second track on the Disney album, moving the record player arm to the first groove on the record, was the one. The Original Tigger song.

    And probably to my Aunties great torment I wanted it to be played it over and over and over again in her bedroom when I stayed at my Grandmas house, I was about 3 or older…

    Fast forward 43 years.

    I currently am one of the lead trainers for safeguarding in the Methodist Church, and this week led a face to face session. In it the participants get the opportunity to use a variety of cuddly toys to explore how people respond in places if they feel unsafe or been abused, so there’s the turtle (retreat into hard shell) the hedghog (prickles), you get the picture, and there’s also the Pooh bear characters. The brilliant thing is that every time there’s always one new piece of insight from each group.

    The group had done all of the characters, except our friendly bouncy one.

    So, I from the front went ‘which table has got the tigger, as we all know the wonderful thing about tiggers….’

    And they sang along…

    Then a lady on the table said.

    ‘The thing about tiggers, its like the song, they are bouncy, they are fun, they are smily, but like anyone who is an abuse situation, they believe they are the only one’

    And the lady looked me in the eye, and I looked back, and a shared tear I think appeared in both. My little heart had a moment, when I just realised.

    I believed I was the only one.

    For so so so long.

    If I could see what was happening as abuse, I believed in the shame and isolation of being the only one.

    No one else was telling me that it might not be the only one who could have an abusive mother. And weak as a boy/man for this being the case.

    I felt I was alone and the only one who might be in an emotionally unhealthy/damaging marriage…as a man.

    I felt I was alone when women in work places bullied me – and that I should just ‘get over it’

    I felt I was the alone, the only one.

    I felt that I just had to survive it, that I had no choice but to cope.

    It was so confusing and bewildering that it was impossible to explain, and no resources to.

    Believing I was the only one.

    So in that moment in safeguarding training, I realised quite how much that Tigger song resonated, and as it did so gave me the opportunity to see, to know and to feel, and also to perform in the moment the self love and acceptance required.

    I wasn’t the only one.

    I wasnt.

    So many people had been damaged by her that I wasn’t unique in this.

    I wasn’t the only person to have narcissistic parents, as the book that saved my life testifies to.

    The day I realised my mother is a narcissist

    I wasn’t the only man to be hiding and surviving in an emotionally unhealthy/damaging marriage

    I wasn’t the only man feeling shame and the weight of responsibility

    I wasn’t the only man to feel on the run, incapable of being myself in relationships, just reverting to the hurt wounded teenage persona – there was a reason for this… it was the wounded me.

    I wasn’t the only man who who felt that going to therapy was weak..

    I wasn’t … but I felt it…

    And if this is you, neither are you, even if you feel it.

    Tigger needed friends to help him out of his uniqueness, the projection of being ok and not needing help or have someone else care, all hiding deep insecurity and potential counter- dependence.

    Friends with experience, friends with experience and books, the spaces online that I found eventually where groups talk about this and have resources are all healthy ways of undoing the alone thinking.

    And this week, the feedback was that it was one of the best training sessions they had had, and that it was led with sensitivity and depth. I wonder why.

    I wasnt triggered, (though maybe tiggered) it was just a gulp of realisation of the light shining on the whole, and the opportunity to hold and love that wounded little boy all over again. Yes the tears flowed on the journey home, but thats to be expected with me at the moment, love feels strong.

  • 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.