HelenzArt-life-musings

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  • To sit in the cool of late winter….

    To sit in the cool of late Winter, seeing miniscule signs of the Spring to come.  A leaf bud, a nodding Snowdrop is to feel a hopefulness.

    I want signs of hopefulness as I  feel that this work with Chris is going to plunge me deep within.  To take me beneath my surface of understanding and perhaps unmade what I think I am.

    Why would I feel that?  Because I have felt a depth of my world where there is no bottom, that walk to the deepening slope of a swimming pool where you begin to float. Where only you can save yourself by starting to swim.  Yet all I actually have to do is surrender to the water, allow myself to enter the flow and trust that by relaxing into that I will float or atleast not sink. 

    That’s a scary moment.  Can I trust myself with this?  I feel  that I can, and that is a hope. 

    I’m still edging round emotions  about my mother and brother.  Perhaps a way of becoming accustomed to seeing them in other ways. 

    I’m brought to memories of the split with my husband.  The lonely, desperate race through the streets to reach a shelter that may give me a room to stay in.  Trying to get to the office so I can get social help to feed myself.  Adamant that my husband has done the right thing to protect our children and himself.  Such overwhelming feelings of total loss of all I knew.

    The body can only sustain such feelings for so long.  Become exhausted and shut off or down. Yet the thinking in the head can be so continuous that there feels little respite.

    Once I had a room and a little money.  I started to sort through things, and I was drawn to journal for awhile.  In that, I returned to what I surfacely remembered of my brother.  That was as far as that went yet it was like an invitation to feel deeper which I denied as I was so consumed with setting things right for my family.  I’ll admit that suicide was considered, and strangely it came quite easily to make those considerations of How’s and where’s.  That too was denied. I needed to take the consequences of my actions of fraud. Stand up and be the right person.  In that fraud I did have sensation s that this was being done by a different me.  Of being in a sealed room whilst another signed the papers. Lied and made false bank statements to show my husband.  A more remoteness of action. 

    In my next session with Chris,  I took me to this time of my life, or rather my subconsciousness did. This time, Chris asked whether my subconscious has a name.  He said it didn’t matter if it did or not, but she does. Eileen, it’s good to know that.  It allows a familiarity.  She shows me how things then might well have surfaced, yet I hadn’t been ready then, but seeds had been planted that are pertinent to what arises next. 

    So in that session I revisited those feelings of having lost it all. The overwhelming substance of having nothing.  Tears and sobs. The shame and guilt for having done that to my world of family. To hear the disappointment in my father’s voice. The pain in my mother in laws words.  The husband that can’t bear to look at you. 

    So much pain. Yet survived. Perhaps that was the purpose of the session to see what one survives.  Preparing me to revisit so much and yet understand that it was survived then, and will be again in any revisiting. 

    Again, the utter relief of spent emotions when returning from inner world to Chris and his safe and comfortable room.  It’s a lot to take in and needs time to sift and sort.  The skipping in time frames was surprising, though necessary to my inner world and I will go with that. I trust that.

  • Well, here I am!

    The beginning of 2025, a new year, not a new me.  A different me? Perhaps yes. Physically, there has been a renewing and replacing of the biological cells, so yes, in a way. There’s certainly changes in perspectives.

    Integrations of that which has gone before. Mulling over ones personal history. Even considerations of ones parents’ histories, ancestral history too, if known or surmised. 

    Partaking in therapy with Chris was to be an adventuring into history.  Now history can be taken as that which has been recorded.  That often assumes that to be a written record.  Yet there is arguably an authors perspective in that. It is said that battles will only be written about by the Victor’s rather than the losers.  Not entirely true perhaps, but discernable differences in accounts may be seen.

    There is an accounting in the body, too, though.  To read ‘The body keeps the score’ by Bessel van de Kolk can be helpful when the time is right to find an understanding of this.  And what I was to bring to my therapy sessions was my inner coded history. Written indelibly with invisible ink, where the light needed to be shone on it in a particular way.  There were also multiple layers where the light needed to come from one way and then another. 

    That first discovery session was an easing into a new way, learning how to read myself. To not take others’ narrations and perspectives to adopt as my own. 

    Admittedly, after that first session  and the overwhelm of emotion, to then actual partake in a finding of a potential source for those in the second session was to teeter on the edge of considered madness.  Yet that strangeness of feeling that all ‘felt’ right and sound was to feel how sane it was. 

    Now, having arrived home, with a relief of spent emotions, to be with my hubby, I could be an observer for a while. Bring a distancing to that which I had experienced, or rather re-experienced with Chris.  To be honest, and in retrospect, I have always had an ability to compartmentalise, segregate, and isolate.  Part of my genetic makeup both known and unknown, its my innate survivor mode, as well as, perhaps, a cultivated coping mechanism. To feel deeply and compassionately, but without ‘falling apart’.  I can be moved to tears, emotionally engaged,  yet with an engaged resilience too. 

    OK, it still felt like a bomb had blasted my world apart. Not dissimilar to my grief at the loss of our son. There was also a disbelief that these things could have occurred and not been recalled at the surface of memory. Yet, in that observational space where I could monitor that response, it felt an absolute truth of my experiencing.  Non deniability.  It actually made sense of other events.

    Yes, the questioning in and of myself was…  ‘Am I fantasising, or deluded, or insane?’ And I kept coming back to the absolute certainty of ‘this happened to me’. 

    As the following day dawned, I had things, well, images and suggestions of happenings,  arise in my mind.  Not thoughts as much as feelings. Echoes of events and occurrences that did add to actual thinking of ‘I’m going insane’ yet these too were simply those encoded writings held deep within. Held within my subconscious, in the phenomena of being a bodied person. 

    These etched moments were to be followed as I continued into finding me and another session with Chris.

  • A seasonal musing.

    I haven’t continued with my ramblings around taking therapy for a bit.  There’s not one reason that can be given but a combination of excuses perhaps. 

    Not feeling that the timing was right mostly.  yes, I go with my intuition on that.

    Yet, I am prompted to write today, it’s Christmas day here in the UK. For many, a day to gather with family whether we enjoy their company or not.  My own family is much smaller now.  Parents have passed on. The passing of our son, Gavin. That’s been 6 years now and still sometimes feels like yesterday.  My husbands siblings have their own things and families to be with, and that could make me feel excluded.

    So I’ve pondered on that this morning whilst sat in my back garden. Surrounded by dormant plants and flowering plants. Listening to bird song and flutterings. Feeling a breeze on my face.

    All around,  in their houses, people are going about their festivities and celebrations perhaps or maybe feeling a bit lost and sad as they too have fewer loved ones than last year. Trying to shape new traditions as loved faces no longer gather at the table, or laugh at the old jokes.

    It’s OK to miss them, but perhaps remembering them brings them closer, to share in the day anyway.

    I’m grateful to this quiet day.  The birds that visit, my dogs dozing on the grass.  The vast sky above in greys and blues.  A small sliver of moon setting.  I’m at peace with who I am and where I am.  I’m at peace with where others are in their lives, too.  That is the best gift at any time of year!

    As the sun comes out, I’m grateful that my family has other places to go and their own traditions that don’t require my inclusion.  When I’m gone, they will be fine with what they have. They can raise a glass to the memory of me.  Until then I shall enjoy their company when I see them. Hold them and tell them of my love for them. Laugh and cry as needed with them through all my remaining breaths.

    Smile, as every day is a good day.

  • When I was just a little girl.

    There’s a Doris Day song, ‘Que sera sera‘, (‘what ever will be will be’) that, though written back in 1956 when my mum was 21 years old, fits with these retrospective views. I’m going to share my first experiencing of a therapy session with Chris so as to give an insight as to how there can be an opening up to what lies beneath.

    I was walking into the realm of what ever will be, will be. I had no preconceived notions about where this next meeting with Chris would take me.

    As I walked up the stairs to his office, there was trepidation for sure. A small knot of not wanting this in my chest and a clenching of muscles. Tension. Yet my intuition was saying ‘go for it’. It’s hard to explain that ‘gut’ feeling’ when you haven’t really listened to it much before. Yet I felt it and heeded it, just as I had when I traversed the terrain of grief, I was listening to that guidance.

    Chris has a wonderful warmth to him and as he took my jacket and invited me to sit in the squishy, comfy, reclinable chair. I had no doubt that I was where I needed to be. We chatted around my experiences through my week. The sadness and tears, the presence of my mother. He shared how hypnotherapy may work by allowing a quietening of the known consciousness., the working, accessible, memory. To perhaps let my subconscious show me what needed to be seen. I start to relax and as the session begins the chair is reclined, my shoes are kicked off and he counts me under.

    I hear his voice, I can hear other noises that come through the window or movement in the building but they aren’t diverting. My breathing deepens, he asks for communication with my subconscious through my right hand. An index finger raise for yes, a little finger for no, they signal appropriately. It’s strange, as it’s like a tic which is involuntary, yet it is voluntary. Yet it’s not a thinking and doing voluntary though, by which I mean that if we played a game requiring those movements when either yes or no was called out there would be a small lag while the response was processed. This was instantaneous. It’s a suspension of what I have come to call a ‘surface thinking’ or ‘head mind’, perhaps even ‘working mind/memory suffices.

    Chris then asks if there is something that needs to be seen and if so to review it. The need to sob is irresistible, it’s a scary moment as there is little control, as there was none in the prior days. It’s an out pouring of feeling of being harmed, certainly emotionally. Not understanding why, when I was only playing. Chris guides me through a tapping exercise that starts with the side of my left hand, moves to above the eye, repeating after him that the feelings are welcome, that we are open to feel this strong emotion. To accept that it’s here and that it can move through, tap to the side of the eye, under the eye. That the pain can be released and the causes seen clearer. Tap above the lip, under the lip. To the centre of the collar bone. The sobbing subsides and as I move the tapping to the thumb there comes a sensing of a source. Chris then asks if it’s ok for subconscious me to share this with the knowing me and it is. Another reviewing happens. There’s a pause in me to see. It’s strange seeing, re-experiencing these things. Seeing what I’ve always known, yet hidden all the detail, suppressed so much.

    A reintroduction to the mother I didn’t know I knew. Survival mode for a young girl. My mother writ large. A tall woman who carried more weight than she wished for. To a young girl she appears monstrously looming.

    Had I not heard her call? Probably not, as I’d be caught up in something interesting, like ants moving eggs or the way the ditch water burbled. Had I caused offence somehow? For her, yes I had. She was a harsh handler. I was scared of her, I had always been wary of her, her long sharp finger nails of which she took great care of.

    Chris asks few questions and those he does are generally along the lines of how my body is feeling. What am I seeing, sensing? What I’m feeling. Where any feelings of tension may be? I can respond to these queries though some consideration is often required before answering. If there is a particular tension or concern with a sensed place then that can be investigated or tapped into a welcoming. Eventually there comes a sense of relief. That what was needed to be seen, heard, acknowledged and accepted has been reached for this particular session. That I have been given enough for now.

    The seeing is done, the emotion is spent , Chris counts me brings me back to the chair and the room. I am feeling at peace, even though the seeing was not pleasant, it feels right to have brought this out. It’s a lot to take into my ‘normal’ world. To ‘get my head round’ as the phrase goes.

    Chris says to allow this to integrate. Wasn’t sure what that actually meant. Though I now see that as a means of reshaping the unknowing to knowing, become more whole, accepting of one’s past to inform the now of me but not define it the same.

    I went home feeling a little different. Achy eyes, but with a sense of serenity. Little did I know that this was the beginning of revelations that would turn me inside out. Bring doubt, shame, guilt, questioning sanity, veracity and who I am.

  • Finding Courage.

    The Latin root of courage is ‘cor’, the heart, the core or centre of what we are. That centre of feeling. Where we may feel fear and love and hope . To take courage to face our fears with love and hope that things will be OK. They will be OK yet not necessarily in the way we anticipate.

    So if it’s ‘cor’ for the heart, is it ‘rage’ too? Perhaps not in an anger sense but yes, to heightened emotion, a vehemence of passion or desire. An intensity to bring about change.

    Intent…. A focussing in on, paying attention.

    I have waited for this intensity of gaze, a focus of courage to write of my experiences with myself in therapy.

    My post of the 20th of June, covers my reasoning of finding a hypnotherapist. Of how I found myself in floods of tears. Of my intent to continue a journey, step by step. A journey that began decades ago, even life times ago though I didn’t know that at the time. A journey that began with death. That of my son, Gavin. Mine too, in more ways than one.

    So from one visit I went from feeling positive about changes to feeling utterly bemused, confused, bereft and all at sea.

    I arranged to have second visit to see the hypnotherapist, Chris, who was to become my way marker.

    The appointment was for a week later, yet what was I ‘to do’ in those intervening days. Chris advised simply sitting with what ever came up! I had always been able to sit for hours and read, watch TV, but might this be hard to do?

    When Gavin died, I learned how to sit and feel, actions for when I felt that welling up would be to pause what I was doing, find a comfortable place to rest, and let the tears flow. Sometimes I would look through the condolence cards and letters received from people who knew him. A freeing and expressing of my grief of loss and the other emotions that surround that. Yet that had a knowable cause, a rooted source, a physicality of a reason. A logical response to a circumstance.

    This depth of emotion, which felt of overwhelming sadness seemingly had no source. No seeable, no logically on the surface of knowing, root cause. It’s scary to feel such extreme emotion and not have any, ‘in the head’ reasoning for it. It was deep within and intent on coming out. The force of releasing through tears made sitting with it easy. In part perhaps by making the choice to carry on a discovery voyage, was a surrendering of control. I didn’t know where I would go, yet I intuitively felt it was time to go. I would simply sit and weep. I didn’t or rather couldn’t read, the same paragraph would be returned to as sight blurred, eyes ached from welling tears. Just so sad…. as if I was crying for all the world. I could still pull myself together, put it aside, be with company, my husband and family. Smile and laugh as usual, yet beneath, when in solitude, I would simply sink into an ocean of sadness.

    Solitude was key for me. It all felt very, very personal and I didn’t require pity nor to feel judged. Yes, I did tell my hubby that I was going to see Chris again and that smoking wasn’t simply a habit to be easily cast aside like an old sock. That there were deeper roots to the need. Which I don’t think he was particularly surprised at though what else he thought isn’t for me to guess at. Like many people without an addiction it’s often hard to understand a compulsive need.

    Over a number of days the sitting continued though the weeping subsided. I would watch the world around me, something I have always done. Marvel at the trees as I have always done and drift. Mind of nothing in particular, just sorrow. Then something might sift up, a ghosting of a memory from childhood not specific. Only a hint of where this pain may arise from. My mother kept coming to mind.

    I will mention that my Mother left when I was in my teens with never a birthday card, nor a gift at Christmas. To be honest I have never knowingly mourned her departure. Not cried at her leaving. I was always closer to my Dad so never upper consciously considered or admitted to feeling abandoned. I don’t recall even asking why or where she had gone, and my dad never offered any reasoning voluntarily. That it shaped some behaviours in me is certain. That yearning to be loved, or at least wanted for something, turning to promiscuity in an effort to find an embrace. She did reappear from her self imposed anonymity when her sister traced her down as their mother was dying. I allowed a contact for the sake of my then only child, for her to have a grandmother, the caveat being that she was not a mother for me, as she gave up that right when she vanished. Occasional visits happened over the years til she died in her early 60’s. No sorrow then either, just the death of someone I knew. We mutually stayed at arms length, no warmth or affection kindled on my part.

    Was there more to my wariness of contact with her? Was there an underlying relief to her going that made me so sanguine to her departure back then. I didn’t rightly know but the seeds were being sown.

    Extreme emotional out pouring can only last for so long, whether we understand a reason for them or not. By the end of the week I was utterly spent. There was a suspicion that my life would once again be turned upside down yet I felt that this was absolutely necessary to bring about an inner sense of peace.

    I was ready to step into my next session with Chris. I had found my courage to face what was asking to be faced. Just as I have found my courage to write about my experiences.

    Looking beyond

  • Why has it been a while?

    At the end of my last blog I felt as though I was ready to write about my experiences of unravelling my thought of self. A venture into the paradox of insane, sanity.

    As you can see it’s now 2 months on so ‘why has it been a while?

    I have had life’s usual distractions of being a human, wife and mother and also a hugely rewarding experience of curating a solo exhibition of my art works.

    For 2 weeks I got to sit and paint in the gallery/exhibition space with over 50 of my paintings. Sharing a high ceilinged space with painted musing of almost 5 years.

    From my previous blog to the show opening was nearly a month, 2 weeks of which my hubby was away. I was able to dog walk, eat when I chose and tend to my works by cataloguing, tagging and revisiting them. Sitting and having new conversations with those inner created works. Manifestations that have taught me much about me, gifted insights building on the opening out that therapy offered and which I gratefully took.

    The 2 weeks of the exhibition was opportunity to see how far I have developed, not only as an artist but in my ability to talk freely about how and why I create with the themes involved. Although that isn’t separate from all that I am, I do chose not to mention much of my past as it is simply that now. Past experiences that though shaping who I am now, are no longer held within my body like a toxin, poisoning my view of myself and the relational aspect to the world in my view. And yes, my inner viewing wasn’t the happiest of ones!

    Art can be a therapy too, yet for me it’s never been about putting down emotional content, but an allowing or creating a visual space for emotional content to be found and felt. Not angst ridden vistas of dark and violent strokes, nor fairy tale vistas, but honest, semi surreal landscapes through which I get to express a vision or boundaried version of my world. As neither words nor painted depictions can truely express how I feel in every moment of every breath. Though I must admit that there are just one or two dark recollections. My work comes from my found well-spring of serenity. That place of connection with my soul that is found and valued, loved beyond measure. Balanced to see all, to feel it all deeply and honestly yet to not hold that within, to express with gratitude.

    So that sitting in amongst my work brought about some deep, emotional responses. A rounding up of and integration for the last few years. Letting go of the trauma responses to the revelations gifted through my therapy. A healing of the past and a rehearing of those brought into the present.

    I am now ready to write and express though they may not be chronologically accurate as feelings and high emotions when recollected over time become hazy. I’ll do my best.

    I set myself free.

  • I Take a Deep Breath.

    So the wanting to stop smoking is a by me, for me. In the past it’s always been tried for the sake of others. That wasn’t wrong it was simply perhaps not heart felt enough. I have tried gums and patches. Herbal cigarette substitutes and vapes not like the real thing and I crave the real thing. It was a deep need that isn’t really rational when, as a well informed and intelligent woman, I know the harm it can do to my body and to others around me. I can visualise the money going up in smoke but that makes no difference to the drive to smoke. I wanted a quick fix, little effort required. Find a hypnotist in the hope and expectation that with a seeming magic wand and an ‘abra cadabra’ they would make that drive disappear. Vanish in the proverbial puff of smoke! An ‘on stage’ like hypnotic implanted suggestion to be averse to cigarettes. A Derran Brown type that would click their fingers and ‘ta dah’ it’s gone. I’m sure there are those around, a friend of mine did that decades ago. One session and a tape to reinforce that if needed.

    It took a lot of courage to even dial the number for the researched and chosen Hypnotherapist. Even more to accept an appointment, then, at the appointed time, to climb the stairs to his office. I didn’t know what to expect but I walked in and felt at ease, most of me wanted to be there. To make changes to how I was. The man I met was calm and friendly, non clinical and although I know they are likely to develop skills to put people at ease this was all so comfortable. With little prompting I began setting out the where’s of when I started smoking. Accessing those known ‘facts’ of my life. He talked me through the process and took me on my first journey to meeting me. I recall revisiting that 8 year old who made a choice with what she thought she knew. Brought to see an alternative of how life would look without the smoking. Though I don’t recall all the session, I walked out of there and felt invincible. This was it, I was no longer going to be a smoker. No urge to light up, buoyant in step. That evening no drive to smoke, no antsy feeling. He did it. I seemed to have got what I wanted.

    The next morning I was in floods of tears. Totally bewildered about what was happening to me. That was scary. I was awash in emotion that seemingly had no focus. I was just adrift in an ocean of nothing that I could, nor still can, give words to. I called Chris, the hypnotherapist, and asked what was all this about. He said that in all likelihood there was a lot more to the need to smoke than I had ever assumed. That it wasn’t simply a ‘habit’ to be changed. This was my next choice, and it was a no brainer. I was going to peep into the crack and see what was there. An appointment was made for a week later and in the intervening days see what arose.

    I lit up a cigarette after the phone call, it’s a soother, and a deeply rooted identifier, and although it was a key to suppression it was also going to be a key to opening too. Life’s full of paradoxes. I seemingly knew I was going to radically change and that was going to rock the foundations of my relationships. Relationships with me and with those around me. As both me, and they, were going to have to get used to the shifts, it could make the transitions easier if somethings were obviously the same.

    Perhaps it’s just as well that I didn’t foresee the pain that this was going to bring. Though with the seeing that I now have, deep within it was known. I was more than ready to face the intensity of feeling that meeting my past would raise, otherwise I wouldn’t have had the invitation, and I wouldn’t have done it. I would have been able to continue in a denial that anything had ever been other than I knew on the surface.

    So though I didn’t initially get what I wanted, which was to stop smoking, I got what I innately needed. A crack in the shell, a ladder into the void. Wings to lift me up.

    So what arose in those intervening days will be in my next post, which, now I’ve found the will to write of my experiences again, shouldn’t be as long to wait for.

  • Why the need for change?

    Hind sight is a wonderful thing. I’ve seen where there have been so many times in my adult years where I have been brought to a chance to make those life changing experiences deeper than before. Chances to remember who and what I am in and of myself. Places in time where situations have brought me to my knees in losing so much but not seeing and hearing that inner urge to reawaken to life’s possibilities. To be more me. To emerge from conditionings, yet those chances weren’t heeded as I knew not how to be still and listen to those.

    When, through my own actions of deception I nearly lost our roof over head, my husband having no choice but to eject and reject me to protect himself and our children. I was bereft of family and home. Yes, to terminate my own life was a consideration but I was resolved to see things right first. In doing that I came to stillness of body yet the mind still focused outwards on how to help them. There were glimmerings of seeing my hidden past yet I wasn’t ready to visit those then.

    I ought to state though that ‘my own actions’ is potentially a mis-direction, as, on occasion, it felt as though I was in a room with a window watching a facsimile of me do what was felt to be necessary for survival! I have had insight into that too which may or may not be shared as these blogs turn through my musings.

    As the Universe turns it will bring circumstances into view where that invitation for change comes round again. May be we listen and may be we don’t.

    Our son’s death was pivotal for me. That deep loss and the way I learned to grieve was a loosening of those ties and binds that kept the veil over my inner, as yet unknown, unseen, unfelt, reality. Small learnings through absolute devastation to find a way to rebuild remembrances of innate nature. A darkening of the soul to move toward the light. To choose to undertake hypnotherapy purely to stop smoking was serendipity, as that was going to show me how to open out what lies beneath with guidance from both inside and outside. To plumb unrealised depths of pain and torment. Yes, it hurts, yet it can also bring an intense gratitude. Therapy is of most benefit when it is undertaken of one’s own needing for relief. To do it for the sake of another or because it is prescribed by someone may encounter some resistance in the body. That feeling of non engagement in the process. I’ve seen those that have tried and have felt it to be a failure, thinking that it’s not for them and in that moment, it’s not. Why? Because when it feels right, it is right, that inner instinct of ‘I can and must do this’ will be so strong, there will be no holding back of that will to change.

    I have come to a serene space within. Where works are created and words spill forth in the hope that others can feel safe that all will be OK.

  • When you have no idea…

    I’m still setting out my ‘on the surface’ memories of my young life, simply to give a baseline for how when my world was shaken like a snow globe. A topsy turvy world of grief through which I came to question the world. Therapy that made me question reality and sanity and everything I thought I knew of my life.

    There are many young people who know from early on, where they want to head their steps towards on their life path. I saw it in my own children. Our late son declaring at just age 10 that he wanted to go to either Oxford or Cambridge, following a sciences path. Our daughter too seeing Uni on her path. Even our oldest grandson has a good idea of where he wants to go.

    Me, at that age, had no clue. That I had academic abilities was likely, even a natural talent for something’s. Yet, no drive to make the best of those, no nurturing of those from others or myself. My peers seemed more decisive. Those that were less academic still saw possibilities even if those were the manual labour or apprentice schemes. Still an era of the secretary and marry well for girls. Building and plumbing or mechanic for the boys. I had no passion for anything, a career advisers nightmare. Though by chance he gave me a Civil Service brochure and that had forestry office. Out doors and trees sounded good to me. I applied, and had to take their written exam for Executive Officer entry. That was a breeze and led to an interview. Passed so next was to get my ‘A’ levels in English and Biology, took Art but that didn’t count. Too little too late. I couldn’t summon the drive to knuckle down and study. Exams taken, failed to get a Biology pass. So I still had no idea what I wanted to do, though I did join the Civil Service at a lower grade. Which sort of fell in my lap, not a drive for it but luck.

    That having ‘no idea’ was my way. See what happens.

    The summer of my 19th year I’m in a relationship where I dress how he wants and go where he wants, spending my earnings on his car and expenses. Why? Because that’s what I do to feel accepted and wanted. I dance to others tunes as a line of least resistance. To feel like I’m human and needed. Being what I think others need of me, obedient.

    I enjoy my job but I’m still a one friend kind of person and she’s at Uni now. I drift. I drift out of the relationship as I start to see it for the poor state of affairs it is. I have met people who see more in me than I do. I have no idea how or why but time to make a move.

    The rest can be abridged to settling into a relationship with a good man. Marriage, miscarriage, children. Ups and downs. My almost losing everything through mishandling money and fraudulent deceit. Which will be the last post before I express what taking the step to therapy did.

  • What do I care!

    When the ‘boyfriend’ turned up after school, I wasn’t too bothered. The relationship hadn’t really ended as such, just drifted as I hadn’t seen him for a month or so. I’d never actually told him about being pregnant, but he had been spoken to by the police. His family made choices for him and those hurt him somehow, and he took me and I was back to being his sex on tap. As I was in a smallish town it wasn’t exactly easy to avoid him and I never really thought to try if I’m honest. I went to school, went home. If I had sport training after school I had to take the bus from town, or walk the 3 miles, by the same route, he often found me at the bus stop, or he’d step out from the houses on the route home. To take me by the arm and I’d go with him. No resistance on my part. There never was resistance. Perhaps I’d had a learning felt deep inside that resistance was futile. Just like the Borg say in Startrek! Reflecting back it’s easy to say that I dissociated and compartmentalised. I didn’t consciously do it, it’s just the way I was. He wasn’t brutal as such but certainly not gentle. He didn’t need to threaten or keep hold, I was acquiescent to his wants. Even when he invited his friends to have sex with me. Yes, that’s abuse, some of it I recall some I don’t.

    The inevitable happened again quite quickly. This time I didn’t see a doctor. I couldn’t do that again, yet what was I to do. Sort of didn’t care enough to ‘do’ anything! He stopped seeing me and at that time I didn’t know why but that was a relief. Now it was pregnant me, on my own. Me, hiding sanitary products so my dad didn’t know. I didn’t want to be a disappointment to him! Going about my life but not really engaging with school work. The usual reports of ‘could do better’. Not confiding in my best friend. Summer came and I took casual work with my dad. Working in the fields where I was happiest. Getting fatter, dad not seemingly concerned, probably thinking it’s that female, laying down fat stores or something! I was a brides maid at my brother’s wedding that summer. Him, 19, his wife to be in her 30’s with 3 kids. The dress I’d had a fitting for too tight! Almost the last time I saw my brother!

    Heading for 16 and the exam year, finally a teacher sat me down and expressed concern. My skipping classes especially sport. I told her. So that began the process, I saw a doctor, my dad was told and I was determined that the choice was for the child to be adopted. Altruism perhaps, as it would give someone a chance to be a parent. The child would have better chances, I hoped, of not having a poor start in its own life, to be wanted and chosen and cherished. Selfish, self preservation, in that there was no way I was going to be able to give it the financial and nurturing support needed, and that was important to me. I had no support network, none was offered either. I recall no discussions with social workers or other support agencies. I made my choice and that was it. So that was me, home schooling ‘til the child was born in December. Appointments at the doctors, until the time came for the hospital admission to induce me. All vague as I had a Caesarian due to foetal distress. In a room of my own, dad visiting and telling me he’d been to see that boy child I’d had delivered. I never went to see him. I signed the paperwork. My scar healed and life went on. Back to school, no questions no follow ups. Which, on my surface, was ok.

    My year of being 16. I never gave much thought then about how that could have, or even should have, changed my life. It happened, it was dealt with and that was it. Never brought up again. Did it make me shy from relationships? Not really. The only difference was that I started using contraceptives. Did I change in behaviour? Only in that I started skipping school more. Took to climbing out my bedroom window at night to take a walk and stand on the bridge over the main dual carriage way near my home. Watching the traffic, wondering where they were going. If a car or truck stopped and offered a lift for a drink or chat I’d usually get in. See! No sense of personal safety. I didn’t care for me, it seemed that those drivers cared more than I did.

    Different times then perhaps, though the people who do horrendous things have always been around. With the instancy of media at our fingertips now we just hear about it more often. Yet, I met some nice people, non threatening, gentle, lonely people looking for something too, however transient! I was always willing to have sex if that came about, but it wasn’t always the case. And it was sex, a commodity of reciprocation. Even if I wasn’t in the mood it was doable, as I could sink into the sensations. A whisper of breath over bare skin, a tease of tongue on nipple or elsewhere. The wish of some to rub their member on full breasts. Nothing kinky or truly bizarre, just fleeting connections of contact. Some even became ‘friends with benefits’. No strings, just companionship.

    The next few years were of a similar vein. Didn’t do great at those exams but I stayed on to do ‘A’ levels. A new friendship at school, her mother caring more than my own had ever done. Caring enough to express concern over my ‘careless’ behaviour. No career in mind though knowing Uni or art college not an option. I wanted to make a living, earn money and have a husband and family. Make more of life than I had.