You are not worth it

Part of being a survivor is relearning social interactions to exclude negative and abusive people.

It can be difficult to do when abusive relationships are all you know and learning about red flags and how abusers can charm you is fundamental to seeing through those who don't really care about anything but their own power.

Bullies come in all shapes and sizes and have the insular goal of bringing you down to their level.

Red flags involve such things as stating what issues their target has whilst denying they themselves have issues.

This is a screaming red flag.

Every single person has issues, everyone has things to work through and no one person is free from continual self growth, healing and development.

An abusive person fails to see that they are not perfect and projects their issues onto the target they deem to not have these issues.

It is not difficult to see this behaviour once you realise what is happening and it's at this point you can say "you are not worth it" and,  at least, walk away emotionally, even if it is physically not an option.

It takes great strength of character to admit your faults, love yourself and work your own faults through.

It takes an abuser to blame other people.

Smacked Down

Hospital walls, floating floors, bouncing around,

Smacked down, flung back,

Melting faces, sterile places, can't stop, sides hurting,

Laughing,

Colours stream, brain screams, can't breathe,

Smacked down, flung back,

Laughing,

Can't stop, drum beats, crawling the walls, strobe lights,

Laughing,

Sides splitting, tears streaming, Doc's laughing,

Smacked down, flung back

Stomach hurts, can't breathe, won't stop, brain screams,

Lights stream, floating curtains, sterile sheets,

Laughing,

Brain crawling, people folding, electric beeps,

Smacked down, flung back,

Laughing,

Can't stop, Can't breathe, Can't feel,

Brain screams,

Smacked down, flung back,

Laughing,

Psyche.

I wrote this in a+e in 2008 after a horrible reaction to anti depressants, I couldn't stop going from hysterical laughter to horrendous feelings of suicide. There wasn't anything the medical staff could do, I had to wait for the pills to wear off which took about 2 days. I was kept in a+e for about 6 hrs and then babysat at a friends house. It wasn't a good experience but has taught me the value of starting in small amounts for any new medication and then increasing the dosage if I don't react.

This experience really annoys me because I could have not sought help and actually committed suicide, leaving my child on his own. I have had suicidal tendencies but I do not want to die, that's not what my suicidal thoughts are about. I was unable to live with the trauma I'd received and I had no coping strategies. After therapy and learning how to care for myself by providing the love I wasn't given as a child I have overcome most of the suicidal tendencies and, although often grumpy, I do love being alive and being a mum.

Duvet days

Some days are not worth getting out of bed, they're wrong, you're wrong, the bleak endless monotony of failing over and over again growls at you like an angry black monster hiding under the bed, so you pull yourself back in, tucking the duvet all around you and pull it up over your head.

You're engulfed in softness and fluffiness and comfort, cocooned by a great warm marshmallow, keeping all the dark and growliness away.

And off you go, down a make believe well of your own choice, where you are the heroine and you can have all that you want or need.

You can speed down a flower filled path through a woodland on a galloping gray horse, hair flying wildly behind you as you duck beneath branches and jump over fallen trees. The birds singing loudly from the canopy.

Before you the path opens up onto a meadow and smoke billows from the chimneys of houses scattered around the middle of the clearing. The hustle and bustle of people working and children playing replaces the singing of the birds.
 
You slow your horse to a trot and then a walk and slide deftly from her back. Your friend Cara rushes up to greet you as you sling the rabbits from your back, dropping them at the feet of your horse.

You hug Cara and tell her how you caught the three rabbits in the forest as she picks them up. She heads over to where other people are preparing meals and starts to skin the rabbits. Turning back to your horse you unsaddle her and brush her down then turn her out onto the meadow to rest with the other horses.

Children rush past you in a haze of dust, screeching and laughing and shouting with each other.

The sun basks warmly in the sky as you take a rest upon a stump bench by the gently crackling fire.

Suddenly the childrens laughter turns to screams and the thunder of hooves comes thickly from the dark wood. Out of the trees come pouring hoards of men upon giant horses, slaying people with swords and spears as they stampede through the meadow.

You rush from the bench, crying out for Cara, as you watch a horseman heading straight for her. She dives under the table just as the sword sweeps down inches from where she stood. Running over you take hold of her arm and pull her to you.

Grabbing a large axe from the kitchen table you turn to help the other villagers fight off the dark horsemen.

Leaping across tables you jump high in the air and swing you axe low, cleanly slicing off the head of one of the horsemen. You spin round and run towards another, screaming a warrior roar, as you see them about to slay a child. Pulling your arm back you use your full force to throw the axe straight into the heart of the horseman and sweep up the child into your arms. The horseman falls from his steed as you grab the horses mane and leap into the saddle with the child. Grabbing a long spear resting against a table you turn to the rest of the horsemen and help the others to banish them from your village.

The meadow lays in ruins and people are strewn around crying over fallen loved ones and shouting for their families. A mother runs towards you and the child cries out for her. You lift the child into her arms as they embrace each other.

Jumping down from the horse you run back to Cara and start helping with clearing up the dead horsemen and preparing for the villagers funeral pyres.

Late into the evening the village works, dragging the horsemen into a forbidden part of the forest and laying curses around blackened marking stumps.

In the village several pyres are prepared for the villagers and the people lament a mournful song of loss whilst goddesses lay blessings on the fallen villagers.

Altogether the fallen villagers are raised onto the burning pyres and as the flames lick up towards the sky the villagers slowly fall into slumber.

Crazy is as crazy does

You asked me to meet you on the sandy beach,
Bitter-sweet memories of camels and typewriters,
Of bullies and bullied and broken oven doors.
You asked me to meet you on the sandy beach,
I baulked and I walked, not knowing too,
Now I don't know pandora's key hold,
Where do you reside with memories lies,
If I move forward will you live behind,
Or is it better where you fly,
It's a triangle in a pentagon,
Where the horses eat pears,
Of gremlins and witches,
Flooded ceilings,
Heart breaks,
For you,
Three out of five ain't bad,
Four out of five ain't sad,
Five out of five ain't had,
Will you meet me by the sliding stair doors.

Unsureity and made up words

I haven't posted anything for a while.

However, I have a back log of drafts in various states of completeness awaiting either the delete or publish button.

I haven't posted because I've had a mental fall-back. A fall-back to the darker days of my breakdown when I was trying to deal with being a survivor by researching everything I could about child abuse.

It was a never ending rabbit warren of victims, over and over, failed and punished by those around them.

It lead me to some stark places of paranoia and despair in the darker recesses if my mind and I don't know how I managed to crawl out of it, but I did and I don't want to go back to that place.

If I do, I know I won't make it back and will spend the little life I have left, dribbling into a metaphorical straight jacket.

The thing which comforts me and brings me back to a level I can cope with, is that, through the entire history of human writing, these things have been written about.

It's all there in plain view once you are willing to see it.

The great literatists of eons past have repeated over and over the murky cycle of abuse which permeates throughout the centuries.

They knew, they wrote.

They told it in fantasy and legends and myths.

They explained everything and that's why they're the greats.

And still today, the great writers come, concocting fantasy realms integrated with the present to give you the escape, comfort and comeradiree to know you aren't alone, you aren't the only one and sometimes, the only way to cope, the only way to exist, is through make believe.

It's less painful than the truth.

Jam, Jam, not the Jam

A non-cook's approach to Jam making

(This blog comes with a warning about cats and "presents")


Last year I tried learning how to make jam. It was a disaster.

I over cooked the jam to the point of cement and added citric acid. To be fair, the recipe I had, said to add citric acid but, never again will I use the evil stuff.

(Teen even banned it after I mistook it for sugar and added it to his cuppa. Whoops.)

So, a year has passed and the time to make jam has arrived again. I have been putting it off but my freezer is now full of raspberries and I still have to forage for brambles. There are twice the amount of bramble bushes than raspberry bushes so I really need to do something with them.

So here goes, this is how I made jam.

Ingredients

1 cat undertaking a bizarre insanity episode where it forgets it knows what anything is, this is to distract you from jam making whilst you google "Cat has suddenly gone insane" and read lots of replies stating "erm, that's normal for cats".

1 cat coming home with a "present", this is so you can practise praising said cat whilst pathetically screaming "is it DEAD".

1 further cat playing with it, (it was dead and not wholly entire), this gives you the opportunity to get trapped on the corner of the sofa whilst said cat throws around a disintegrating "present" whilst you scream "PLEASE won't somebody remove it, there's bits EVERYWHERE".

(I did wash my hands before commencing with the jam making)

Sterilised jam jars, you can sterilise them in boiling water (and wash your hands at the same time).

Twitter, so you can get badgered by LucyMooFace into actually making the jam.

A teenager (much needed taste tester, there is no way, after last time that I'm going to be trying it) + (is easy to designate them "present remover")

Numerous recipes and on line comments, this is so you can learn other peoples mistakes and not do them.

Numerous book recipes, which then get used to prop up the phone so you can listen to some tunes.

8oz of frozen raspberries, they aren't meant to be frozen I just forgot to get them out of the freezer.

4oz of sugar, all the recipes stated equal amounts of raspberries to sugar but after reading the on line comments it said to halve it. I like to keep a used vanilla pod in my sugar as it adds a lovely flavour.

Utensils

Stock pot, I use a huge stock pot, I needed to as I managed to splash the jam everywhere.

Face guard and overalls, because I managed to splash the jam everywhere.

Rolling pin, to mash the frozen raspberries.

Wooden spoon, it is easier to stir the jam with a spoon than with a rolling pin.

A bowl, this is to warm the sugar.

Method

Put the raspberries in the pot and bash with the rolling pin whilst heating.

Warm the sugar in the microwave, keep the microwave next to the stove so you don't have to stretch whilst stirring.

Boil the raspberries, not full heat, and lob in the sugar.

Stir whilst boiling and using eye protection.

Put a spoon in and drip the jam off the spoon. If it is runny it isn't done.

Repeat spoon test, whilst boiling and stirring, until the jam drips off like honey, runny honey not solid honey. You could use a jam thermometer but where's the fun in that!

Pour into jam jars, wait until they have cooled before putting the lid on otherwise you get a crusty top. I discovered this as I did this.

Viola

Whilst you're waiting for it to cool build a cat den in the kitchen with the picnic blanket then write a blog whilst waiting for insanity kitty to decide he is insane enough to sleep on the keyboard.

Get distracted by kitty cuddles and state "I'll update the taste test tomorrow after baking scones" that's "sc-on-s"

p.s. I love glass lidded jars, you can probably tell from the picture, they are so handy and useable for anything, get some,

Bye

It is not inappropriate language

There has been a child sexual abuse case brought to the headlines recently after it transpired the offender was given a suspended sentence due to his victim being labelled a "sexual predator".

A thirteen year old girl being abused by a forty one year old man is an abuse victim not a sexual predator.

The forty one year old man was given a suspended sentence.

Even though, on top of abusing a child, he was charged with MAKING, yes MAKING images of abused children.

Yet his VICTIM was accused and his sentence suspended.

This is absolutely disgusting, abhorrent behaviour on the part of the judge to agree with the victimisation of a child and ignoring the man had also MADE images of abused children.

The only conclusion I can come up with is the judge themselves sees children as sexual beings and not as children capable of being ABUSED by paedophiles.

A judge calling a child a sexual predator screams red flags as a non abuser would not be able to comprehend a CHILD as a predator.

A judge making observations like that should not be allowed to preside over cases of sexual abuse which involve children especially and an investigation should be made into the images the man made.

Where are the children abused in the images?

Who did the man supply the images to?

This case is a sad and dangerous situation, sad that there could be more than one victim and dangerous because it shows there are more paedophiles and victims involved.

The justice system needs to acknowledge the abusers and abuse apologists within their industry and enforce a standard of behaviour set to ensure that abusers and apologists are not allowed to work on cases where they can further abuse victims.

This is why victims do not come forward. There is no protection in the justice system.

The Great Distraction

Or .....

How I would do anything not to talk on the phone.

I have had to overcome many fears over the last few years, fears which came about with my breakdown.

I'd been pretty bomb proof before my breakdown, I could go to work, to a pub, shopping, away for the weekend, out with friends. All the normal things everyone does on a day to day basis.

When I had my breakdown suddenly 99% of life experiences scared me to death. I couldn't go out, I couldn't sit by the window, I couldn't go near the front door. I was a useless, fear frozen mess barely able to overcome the fear enough to go downstairs every day. I literally jumped at shadows.

It's not a place I want to go back to.

Through therapy, and because I had no one else to do it, I've managed to overcome most of those fears. I'm still not 100% and doubt I'll ever be but by using coping techniques and not pushing myself I can pretty much function, even if it means doing the task as quickly as possible. I don't even need medication anymore.

The one thing I can't do is answer the phone. I have no idea why I fear the phone, I don't know if it's connected to any abuse. I do know that every time the phones rings I jump out of my skin, I feel sick and I want to cry.

I think it's to do with having someone talking in my ear, it's obviously to do with having my abuser do that to me. Whispering in my ear, even thinking about it makes me cringe and my skin crawl. It makes me feel sick.

I don't know how to get over this fear, this issue. I really, really can't cope with phone calls. Some days I'm glad I don't have friends as they'd want to call and that would keep triggering me. It's not a normal trigger, there's no image or flashback, it's just a sensation of dread.

The only way I've found of getting around it is by missing the call, calming down and then phoning them back using speaker phone. This I can cope with but then I still can't make calls of my own back. I can't just phone someone I'm acquainted with and make up chit chat.

This I think stems from my family, from them either constantly calling or being funny if I called them.

I know I need to leave them behind but it's really difficult. These are the people I've known all my life and none of them want to have anything to do with me. That hurts too much. It makes the non abusive parts of my childhood seem worthless. It makes me feel like I have no base, no foundation.

I have to make my own foundation but the older I get the harder it seems.

Everyone has their own foundations, built with their own friends and family they've known for years. The desperate stranger hanging in the wings is invisible, not in a nasty way just that peoples lives are already as full as they need or want and I just feel stupid for trying sometimes.

I need other people though, I think. Maybe I just need the parents I didn't have, maybe I just need someone to have my back once in a while, to moan to when life's grim, to laugh with when life's good.

Maybe there's a lot of people out there who don't have it but do have a masquerade of having it.

Maybe my next post will be about loneliness.

Poetry and other animals

Battle Torn

A devilled hallowed place
upon a breathless wind
took hold of beauty deep
choked a barren lifeless soul

Brought down upon a trestle
laid on cold and squalid earth
dire waves of darkness roll
to keep its secrets close

Deathly tendrils hold a grip
with vice like lethal charm
madness, calmed with logic serene
speaks a solemn mantra call

Flowing robes billow round
white faces born of angels
shackled down with sins of old
creased, wizened, wicked holes

Low, rhythmic voices chant
to weaken more the strength
pull tighter on the hope of fear
lock down lost dreams eternal

Raised up a speck so tiny
as seen by none but those
whose life give never in
fight with nought but challenged soul

Slowly lifting up the body
encasing all so brightly
shines an effervescence divinity
breaking bonded demons whole

Falling down discarded waste
blown into ashes, specks of dust
living now with hope of love
an everlasting heartbeat drums

Resonating through body fibres
sensations coursing, splitting whole
exploding rays of sunlight shine
destroying all that drags and holds

Brought forth to answer no mans call
standing barefoot, tall, alone
power swirling, lighting coldness
Amazonian wins once more

I wrote this in the months leading up to me having a breakdown. It was a time when I could write without have flashbacks or dissociating. I used to love writing, I'd lose myself in the world my mind was creating and my pen would flow across the page as though the images in my head were real. I've always written like that and have done since I was little. My very first novel, I wrote when I was eleven, was torn up in front of me by my step father and I was ridiculed for even trying, but I kept on writing even though I did it in secret.

I haven't been able to write like that since I had my breakdown. As soon as I try to enter the imaginary worlds in my head the past comes streaming in full force and it's all I can do to just hold on. Now my writing is disjointed and short, often just a sentence and I feel it as a great loss, my biggest sanctuary was writing, it was my biggest pleasure.

I wote this during my breakdown :

Thud thud thud

Bang the fists on the wall

A body broken

Thud thud thud

Bang the fists on the wall

A silent token  

I feel like my mind is stunted now, maybe I'm not allowing myself to write because I'm scared of failing, I don't know, I hope by blogging about these things I can chase the demons from head, it's worth a try, isn't it? 

Art Therapy

Part of getting through therapy and staying as sane as possible saw me using photography to express myself when I couldn't find the words to say what I was feeling.

I have had space offered to exhibit these but haven't yet had the courage to do this as these photographs represent such a personal journey to me. I'm not worried about criticism, I'm worried they'll give an insight into my soul to people who will be able to see how scarred and damaged I am inside.

I chose to do these photographs in black and white. To represent the past, a journey, a moment in time of healing.

This is Cocoon

I really enjoyed doing these photographs and they helped me to focus away from some of the horror I was reliving.

This is the moon surrounded by clouds taken during a time when I couldn't face sleep because my mind was constantly reliving the abuse and sleeping made the bridge between reality and memories feel non existent. I feel this photograph represents that by how the moon and clouds don't have a distinct separation.

I have moved on so much from that time and hope never to return to that place, the mind is a funny thing and not least because you are never really that far from madness.

The hardest image to face

TW self harm

On my journey through therapy I've faced many challenges, many obstacles and much internal diagnosis alongside trying to understand the motives and reasons behind why and how I became an abused child.

One of these therapies has been incredibly difficult for me to do. It has caused me fear and pain and stomach churning repulsion.

I hadn't realised before that I had been living the majority of my life with this enormous part of everybody's life excluded to the extreme from mine.

The lengths I've gone to, to remove this "thing" from the world around me has been surprising, shocking but most of all incredible sad.

Sad that I have denied an amazing thing from my life just because of the legacy of the abuse I had gone through.

I haven't been able to do this one thing because when I do all I hear are echos of ghosts running through my mind, flashes of images of the ghosts behind the words.

Negative, hateful words all directed at me, all used to build the foundations of the person I came to see myself as.

For years I had no mirror in my life.

I could not bear to look upon the vile creature who stared back at me.

That's all I used to see when I caught even a glimpse of my reflection. A vile, dirty, ugly, disgusting non person.

The first time during therapy when I tried to look at myself in a mirror I just wanted to cut my face up it was so ugly. I didn't, though I did cry.

Everyday I have been trying to look at my reflection, everyday over-riding the ghosts in my head by saying out loud that I am beautiful, wonderful, amazing.

It makes me cringe to write that but I also laugh a little. I'm pretty plain, bordering on ugly but I no longer care. It is my face, it is me and I'm slowly but surely drowning the ghosts in my head and looking with care and love at the face staring back at me.

Rape threats, death threats and how twitter is a safe place for me

There has been a lot of publicity around twitter abuse recently so here's my take on it.

I've spent the last few years living that abuse off line.

I've had property damaged, threats to have my throat slit, a hammer swung at me and intimidating sexual advancements.

Just for being female.

Involving statutory agencies including police, council and anti violence charities has resulted in me being told I'm making a fuss over nothing, when the perpetrators already have previous convictions for violence and being told I have mental health issues.

Nothing has been done.

I come on twitter as it's safer for me on there than it is to leave my home.

There are women suffering physical assaults every day because we live in a culture of abuse, objectification of women and dehumanisation of people.

This abuse is not the sole responsibility of twitter, this abuse is prevalent every day in our communities, from the top to the bottom. From the privileged to the marginalised. Combatting this abuse by making twitter responsible for policing it is like putting a plaster on a gaping wound.

Tackle how abuse is tolerated off line in all communities, give those who are targeted the tools and resources and support to tackle it and charge those who commit offences.

I won't be boy-cotting twitter.

It is safer on here than having the threat to slash my throat carried out on my door step.

Another Child Victim

TW

Daniel Pelka, 4 years old.

A young child murdered at the hands of those who were supposed to love, care and protect him.

I haven't been able to read much about Daniels case. It's been incredibly triggering to say the least. For me it's brought back memories of being forced to drink salt water and scrabbling in bins for food and begging.

I was an older child though. Old enough to run away, old enough to escape.

Daniel wasn't.

He relied on his mother and step father for everything. All they gave him was pain.

Where there failings in the system? Could more have been done? Whose responsibility was it to see what was really happening?

We live in a culture where people don't speak to people they don't know, or have a different language or culture or social standing to. Yet child abuse happens in all cultures, classes and communities.

We need to stand up and talk to each other. We need to involve everyone in our communities, reach out to families, to children.

Society failed Daniel.

Daniel Pelka, 4 years old.

Welcome

Hello,

Welcome to my blog.

I'm a survivor of childhood abuse and am writing this blog to help me heal and maybe help other people going through similar things or help those working with abused children and adults have an insight into what I went through.

My blog comes with "trigger warnings". A trigger warning is to show there may be content which is upsetting to other survivors or may cause them to have flashbacks. Survivors please remember self care, http://ptsd.about.com/od/selfhelp/qt/Self-Care.htm and ensure you are safe to read on.

As a survivor I have PTSD and some dissociation, along with depression and anxiety.

Dissociation can be as mild as having small episodes of feeling disconnected from the real world to having "multiple personalities". My level of dissociation is having a "little". This is my "inner child", the part of me who broke away during the abuse in childhood. It is a coping mechanism for the harshest parts of the abuse I went through and helped me survive. 

My little is about 9-10 years old and a girl. She often comes out when I feel scared or triggered by something. My healing process is to work through things and make her feel safe and protected and loved. This is something she didn't have as a child but is something I can now give her and hopefully it will give me the same so I can move forward and start becoming a thriver. She may post occassionally so say hello, I will post a note if this happens.

The different stages of healing I'm going through are moving from victim to survivor to thriver. A tactic I picked up from the charity HAVOCA, their website is here http://www.havoca.org/HAVOCA_home.htm with the laid out table showing the journey from victim to survivor to thriver. It might help you, it might not, it does show to non survivors how we can move through the healing process from the pain to something positive. I have moved on from victim to survivor, it has taken about 3-4yrs but I am happy that I've taken the time to heal. I'm not all the way there and fall back often, but each little step forward is an achievement I can work on and work through to ensure I have the power over my life now and those who abused me no longer have that.

I will also use this blog to talk about things in society and the news which affect me. People keep telling me I survived for a reason so I want to use that for a positive and maybe give those working with children today the courage to speak out if they feel something is wrong with a childs situation. My opinions on this are my own, coming from the current place I am at in my healing.

I'll also be discussing therapy and how I use that to heal, being unemployed and hopefully moving into work and how being a survivor affects me in everyday life.

Thanks for reading through and hopefully you'll enjoy my blog,

Yours

Iliana 

p.s. All photo's on the site are be myself and available for purchase as a framed print, please email for details.