James Ballantyne

Tag: Story

  • Eyes read, what the heart bleeds.

    I got to the Coffee shop After a walk that included more work chat.

    Sitting down.

    I

    Open the blank lined page

    Green tea poured. 

    Red pen chosen.

    Ready. 

    Tired. 

    But ready, 

    The page. Blank. Inviting. Alive with possibility. Daunting with expectancy. Weary limbs picking up the pen. Mind unsure. Facing the unknowingness of what to write. This side of the release. Blank page Bleak page.

    Write,

    The place of comfort

    as the words flow from you

    to you. 

    As inside your heart breaks open its loose edges

    Awakening itself from the slumber of the tired mind. 

    Pen

    Writing

    a melody. 

    A tune echoing in the line of ink flowing onto the page

    Uneven, breaking, heart leaking its colour on the page

    Giving itself as it appears,

    To be immediately read by the eyes, 

    A message from the heart eyes.

    Eyes read, What the heart bleeds.

    Colour lines appear as meaningful imaginations of the soul

    Read back into the same mind that consumes it all with acceptance

    Rage, Wonder, Hurt, Joy

    All taken in in the moment of the hearts disposal in the pen

    Soul imagination writing its truth

    Soul imagination writing its love

    For your mind to keep reading

    Head healed by Soul

    The Delicate passage of time. Imagination working at the speed of consumption Consumption furthering the flow of imaginaion One stoke One flow One ink bleed at a time Word by word.

    Connecting the disconnect within the fracturedness 

    As mind embraces the speaking heart

    Consciousness watching the cyclical orbit around it

    Increasing as the mind and soul unite in divine imagining

    Heart creating space for the soul to expand

    One Flow Of Ink at a time.

    Soul words written by flesh hands

    Transported back into the mind

    Sealing the divine circle

    With love within

    Eyes read,

    What the heart bleeds.

    Bleed love

    Bleed kindness

    Bleed it all through the hand

    Restoring fragments buried underground

    Subconscious soul connection in the pathway of the pen

    Mind reads

    Mind hears by the heart

    A new story

    A new song

    The one it knew

    All along. 

    a person writing on a piece of paper with a pen
    Photo by Hannah Olinger on Unsplash

  • What if the story we live by, is a story we cannot tell?

    Something happened to you

    Something happened to you..that wasnt your fault

    Something happened to you…that wasnt your fault….and you had to do something as a result that you cannot talk about.

    Something happened to you..that wasnt your fault…and you coped in life with self soothing strategies…that you cannot talk about either.

    Something happened to you….that wasnt your fault….and everything since has been about staying silent about it…silent….and hiding all traces….protecting it….protecting yourself…from what happened to you.

    Something happened to you, by someone who is dominant, powerful and sometimes insane, and bewilders you from any kind of action, and you can’t share it, for recrimination.

    Something happened to you…..that you dont think anyone will believe.

    That wasnt your fault.

    That wasnt your fault.

    (even if their insanity causes you to take the blame)

    It was something done to you, when you..when I.. was a child, when I was powerless, when I was dependent…

    That set so many patterns of life in motion….

    And a story that had to remain silent.

    We live by stories.

    We all have a personal narrative, a myth, a sacred story to believe, a story to live by.

    David Macadam says in ‘Stories we live by’ that by having this personal story we then accept, reject information to fit it, or expand our story to fit the new information.

    That was one of the things I learned when I was doing my Masters in Theology and Ministry at Durham, the psychology elective that I did with Dr Jocelyn Bryan.

    In 2017, doing my Masters, I didn’t have a story I lived by, not one I wanted to talk about, it was far easier, a defence mechanism, to use my brain to disect and critique the process of story making, story telling and consider how theology, story and drama all fit together, whilst I was feeling, well, I wasnt feeling anything, just dying inside. Even the Christian story that I believed , I had critiqued and was full of doubt of it.

    Yet.

    That sacred myth that I doubted had to do a lot of work, to hold me somehow when my psychological self was a scared, wounded, abused little boy.

    The story that I was actually living by, twas a story of shame, a story of abuse, for fear, a story that I didn’t want to acknowledge.

    That was the story I was actually living by…

    Because it haunted my every step.

    It was the story that had power over me.

    It was the story that consumed.

    It broke me into a thousand pieces every day, causing…

    One trip to eat extra food every day

    One more hour watching TV news

    Three more glasses of wine

    One more hour on twitter staying distracted.

    One more week watching Friday night soothing comedy.

    One more piece of bread, then another, and another, and another

    One more football match to overlay drama with drama

    One more piece to write to stay busy

    Another long bike ride.

    More work to do, fill the diary.

    One more anything

    To run…

    Filling an ache.

    Because I was so not actually ok, that I could barely say the words, let alone say I had needs, because, that would mean being in a safe enough place where my needs were validated, even if I could articulate them.

    One more coping mechanism

    One more denial of my self

    One more day to mask and pretend.

    One more day when I couldn’t share, just keep going.

    Survival isnt a story, its fragmented existence.

    One more self soothe

    One more ‘fix others, im not important’ moment

    One more hope of change, living a story of ‘conditional okayness’

    Fear, alone, isolation.

    The story I lived by, for too long, was a story of shame, fear, anxiety and survival, and masking this so that no one could ever know.

    Shame.

    Ends.

    When stories

    are told

    in

    safe places. (Brene Brown)

    Yet.

    Shame stories

    Held

    me

    for too

    long.

    It was a story I couldn’t tell.

    It was a story I held in silence.

    It was a story that I had no control over.

    It was a story that wasnt mine.

    It was a story of what someone had done to me.

    It was a story of my coping mechanisms because of that childhood abuse and the follow up behaviour, including relationships.

    My life, was someone else story.

    My lifeless life was someone else’s story.

    How I had adjusted to be for someone else.

    How I had given away myself.

    Actually thats so not true. Because I had never had a self. Self was broken from birth.

    When real

    stories

    of us

    being alive.

    get hidden.

    There was a story I was living by. But it wasnt a story about me. It was a story about how my life was orientated around the fear of someone else, and that I was a bit part player in my own life.

    It takes so long for someone to feel the main player in their own story

    Spiralling into an anxiety I couldn’t never acknowledge. Tears hidden, as breakdowns occurred in car journeys all alone to Coldplay songs, and reduced priced Tescos wraps scoffed.

    In avoiding the negative, we only encourage it to recur (John O Donohue Anam Cara)

    I look back and realise how barely I even existed.

    To do self care, to have needs, to accept love, to do quiet, to give myself any permission, to feel power…all deemed unimportant, selfish or impossible, so invalidated all of them.

    So that story began to change.

    Or, my relationship to my story did.

    As i began to realise what was done to me, wasnt my fault.

    As I began to realise how I had been trapped in emotional contagion.

    As I realised that change on the inside brought a sense of worth, and change on the outside…

    As I began to realise how I hadn’t been loved, just stolen from.

    As I began to realise, how I had survived

    As I began to realise the damage, yet also the inner strength and resolve I had to get myself to where I have got to.

    As I began to work through every brave step, and own the bravery of it all.

    As I began to realise who I am, and who I am not

    As I began to connect with my story, to dig deep into it all, and realise myself in it all. I had ran from a past I had to connect with, to face, to love for my self strength in it all.

    As I took loving myself seriously, and self compassion, and self care, and just undoing the critical voice of inner torment. I had to love myself in a way that I had only been able to love others.

    As I began to realise my own…sense of worth….sense of love…sense of being me, wounded in many parts, but not entirely broken, and capable of love.

    As I started to be my own story. I started to be able to own the story, to make this story about me, to connect the dots, and also now, to be able to be excited about the blank pages ahead, waiting for their colours to emerge.

    As I started to write it down, and realise I wasnt alone.

    As I realised that there was life beyond it, beyond it all.

    But at the time, the story I wasn’t able to tell was the story that I was living by.

    What if the story we live by is one of abuse and the shame of what we do to cope, and the silence of both of these things?

    For, It’s not what happened to us often…it’s the silence and hiding for so long. It’s navigating a life around the shame. Thats draining and energy sapping.

    Yet, it doesn’t have to be this way, not forever.

    Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is to stop living the story that others wrote for you.

  • The Differences between a Real or ‘Reverse’ Victim.

    Trigger Warning – Abuse of any kind. Please do not read if you have experienced abuse, unless in a safe place to be able to do so. This is written to educate those who might not know the difference, if you have experienced abuse, you know this already.

    I think I was 14 when I was bought a ‘fake’ Man Utd football T-Shirt at a market stall in the south west of England by my parents. It was obviously fake. It was black, it had a ‘cotton traders’ label, the ‘Sharp’ sponsor was ironed on crooked and the badge was wrong. Yet it was ‘given’ to me as a gift. And I hated it. Man Utd were, and still are, my team, and though potentially even then I had no real sympathy with their financial situation, I knew that this fake was wrong. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t genuine. I felt, like many of the ‘gifts’ from my parents, cheap. (yet was told I was ungrateful or spoilt) . I probably was grumpy and upset for the rest of the day and told I was spoiling ‘their holiday’.

    My point was, and is now, that there’s a difference between fake and real.

    Today I read this story.

    Male Victim of Domestic Abuse Lies tells of Torment

    If you were in this situation could you spot who the ‘real’ and who the ‘fake’ victim is? Difficult.. very much so.

    The story is about how a Man was accused of being a domestic abuser, by his partner, whose story was believed, he was sent to jail on the basis of her claims. After his release, the truth was revealed. The victim story she played was fake.

    If you read this account, which will by no means be the full story, do so tracing the way in which the actual abuser plays the DARVO game throughout. As a reminder, Darvo stands for Deny, Accuse, Reverse, Victim Offender. The oft used pattern of someone accused. Playing victim is part of the pattern.

    Google DARVO to find out more – here’s a link too – DARVO

    What I mean is, that they are a ‘Reverse Victim’ rather than a real one.

    Fake, rather than real.

    And this is no criticism of Humberside police in this case. Not at all.

    Because. This cuts both ways. Both genders..and its difficult to know the difference.

    Im not sure that phrases like ‘Believe the women’ or ‘believe the victim’ help. They create a conformation or gender bias, and a woman playing victim is considerably harder to spot, than a man doing so. Especially in the face of them being able to accuse Men of wrong doing. Men play victims as much as Women do. My experience is having seen it in Women, and obviously in these stories.

    Its not just domestic abuse.

    This was a case in Cumbria a few months back. This isn’t about false allegations of abuse, its about deliberate lies and having a fake victim story being believed.

    I wasn’t the ‘real’ victim when I was given a fake Man Utd T-shirt. But I knew that something didn’t feel right when I was given it.

    These are by no means conclusive, but how can you spot a real victim, from a reverse victim?

    What is it like being a real Victim? (of abuse, of any kind)

    Lets look at the effects of abuse on someone and their emotions, feelings and behaviours. They can feel scared, silenced, bewildered, trapped, afraid – they can often mask and give a ‘false’ self to keep up appearances, they can have hard shells or even react intensely if provoked – as a defence mechanism. They may be anything like a tortoise, hedgehog, dragon or eeyore.

    They may not realise that they are a victim.

    Once they realise – as I did – it wasn’t a label they want.

    They often dont want to share about being a victim, but more about overcoming, surviving and coping, recovering and living beyond.

    They often blame themselves.

    They have nothing to lose, have often already lost everything.

    They often realise they can do something by changing and seeking help – and realising that they can – by furthering awareness, self love and compassion… which extends to others.

    They often have survivors gift.. to help others.

    Often they have fragmented story, and are afraid to tell.

    A real victim is unlikely to want to create drama. Is likely to be silent. Is likely to step away from situations. Is likely to learn to protect themselves.

    A real victim… is likely to be movitated by justice, by being heard, or by finding peace and a life beyond it.

    A real victim…. can see the games being played of the reverse victim. It’s the task of the Reverse victim..to silence, invalidate, remove the real one.

    But what of a Reverse Victim?

    This is a person who is using victimhood for a number of reasons. Usually to protect themselves, abusive behaviour or lies or denials.

    Therefore its a game being played.

    A phrase like ; ‘Look what you/she/he made me do’ or ‘ The Devil/alcohol/my mental health made me do it’ – can often be used – because that person keeping up a game, in which they present as victim/innocent and not responsible for themselves.

    False emotions usually accompany the Reverse offender, as are false projections, to accuse others.

    They often aren’t able to use the situation to better themselves through it or after it – because it wasn’t a situation in the first place – just a game.

    They can often pretend to ‘get help’ but have difficulty (blame) finding a match with a counsellor or that their counsellor isn’t working for them, or use the fact that they’re going to counselling to manipulate others into thinking that ‘they are trying’.

    When asked for more details about the situation – they might break down and cry more.. because they can’t give an answer to what hasn’t happened, there’s unlikely to be any more of a story with tears, just a more sodden weak one. And they want you to fix them. Note the drama triangle being used here too. (Persecutor, helper, victim)

    A Reverse Victim is angry when they are challenged about their game.

    A Reverse Victim is loud, and plays on victim hood. Especially in cultures where they know they elicit sympathy. Ie Churches full of nice unaware people.

    The Reverse Victim can often make claims about themselves – ‘I couldn’t do that I’m a nice guy’…’that isn’t the real me, you know the real me’ …. ‘I couldn’t do that im a christian/minister/police officer’ …..

    A Reverse victim thrives on drama. Loves the attention. Creates drama where possible. A reverse victim manipulates so that others can do their emotional work for them (flying monkeys).

    The Reverse Victim doesn’t realise that they are fulfilling a cycle, and most of the time they dont care…. until their game is up. Winning is their motive.

    A Reverse victim is likely to criticise the way in which the actual victim is responding to the situation. ‘They took their time coming forward’ or ‘They shouldn’t cry, it wasn’t a big deal at the time’

    A Reverse Victim bewilders. A victim feels bewildered.

    A Reverse Victim is threatened when their victimhood story/script is threatened. They have to stay this way.

    Often its been a script since childhood. They’ve cried wolf to get gifts, soothing and attention. ‘Dont you dare try and play victim around here’ might be their reaction. See how bewildering this is, and a projection.

    A Reverse Victim… creates a place of emotional abuse for a real one.

    Im sure there are other differences, but these are all the ones I can think of, because I have encountered them in a number of situations.

    I could say that it would take a significant amount of skill to identify the difference between a real, and a reverse victim..but as I said.. those who have been abuse victims, and done the work, can often see the patterns.. they’ve experienced them often enough.

    In the safeguarding training I’m doing there’s a phrase known as “Respectful Uncertainty”. What this means is to try and be respectful of persons whilst also being unsure of their story so that further accurate information is sought. It is not to let myths make decisions, but evidence. Its not respectful uncertainty to say that a man is always an abuser, and a female always a victim.

    I had enough respectful uncertainty to know not to take that black T shirt to be anything other than a fake. The signs on the front may have been the same, but they didnt look, feel or seem right.

    If this has affected you, then do seek professional help and/or a trusted safe friend who can listen to you non judgementally, there are helplines in the link pages too, please do give them a call.

  • 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.