Empowering Myself After Abuse

Hello poppets,

How the dickens are we?

Last week on my blog I spent a little time talking about my experience of victim blaming and how I was blamed for everything that happened through out my life from bullying through to my abuse.

Now I have done that a lot of you are messaging me saying

See, abuse leaves a lot of us feeling that what happened to us was our fault and mainly, because we’re told it was. Often nobody makes a dent in it and it leaves us carrying that weight through our whole lives believing that if there wasn’t something wrong with us these things wouldn’t have happened.

The question is; how on earth do you empower yourself and learn to love yourself enough to say “you know what, this wasn’t my fault”

Healing is the answer. Let’s face it though, this would be a pretty shoddy post if I left it just at that.

Let’s go back to the start and where the key healing happened for me;

• From my earliest days I suffered at the hands of playground bullies and was told from that point that it was my fault due to my fragile personality.
• I went from that to my main abuser who I was told abused me because I had left school due to the bullies.
• Then went on to sexual abuse which was apparently my fault because I was at home AND because of how I dressed.
• Then suffered two assaults which were also my fault from reasons being my fragile personality through to fear.

After all that I went…

My first experience of ever questioning what happened to me came about after talking through things with my therapist. Before this point blaming myself was just a normal part of life. My general outlook on things was these things happened to me but it was okay because it was my fault and I brought them on myself.

We began talking about my mums behaviour and the various loutish and brash things she used to do. My therapist sat with jaw dropped as we would giggle at how strange her behaviour could sometimes be. In that moment my therapist stopped and said to me “and now you’re telling me I have to convince you that you’re the one with the problem?” and to be honest, I felt ridiculous.

She went on to explain right from those school bullies and how I was a quiet kid that was trying to get on with school because I was plonked there and suddenly became the target practice of the school. I would be dragged through corridors, have my hair ripped out and kicked and pinched at any opportunity.

When it came to my assaults she explained that I had quite literally just gone for a nice day with my family before all hell broke lose. Though during that explanation I quickly reminded her that I became unable to speak due to fear and that might of upset my abuser, she quickly dismissed it asking me if I was trying to tell her that my ATTACK was reasoned because

As you can imagine, I wasn’t quite sure what to say after that. Each time she would ask me how I had let it sit in my head that it was my own fault I started to feel a bit silly. I mean, how she explained everything left those explanations to why it was my fault not even making sense. I’m sure you guys can even apply these theories to your own lives. I’ve already explained things this way with a few you of you where you have told me that you have been victim blamed for a said reason and you have responded that seeing things like this had helped you greatly.

It’s not about making you feel silly but actually removing yourself from that bubble of abuse and allowing the rational mind to take charge and be heard. When you do you start to realise that it was those that harmed you that were in the wrong and that nothing you could have done would warrant what they did.

Believe me it wasn’t that I learnt straight away in that moment that things weren’t my fault. I still had times where I was torn between the two feelings but I was beginning to slowly break down all the things I was told over the years, looking at how those people got to be in a position to do what they did to me and why they were really blaming me.

and why?

Well if we look at the bullying situation again; I had always been told that I needed to be tougher from day dot to prevent things from happening to me. Those school bullies were never told off, it was always put on me how I could change to prevent further happening to me. That happened not only due to a silly stigma but because it meant a much easier life for those of authority. Baring in mind these children age and their lack of being able to understand their ‘wrong behaviour’ it would have resulted in having to bring their parents into things. Meaning teachers would have to tell parents of their childs wrong doing which I imagine in my ‘well-to-do’ school wouldn’t have gone down that easily. The easier solution to it all was just telling me to be a bit braver to avoid being upset and avoid anyone having to deal with the situation. I don’t believe those people realised that they were basically blaming me for what was happening as school but to them it was just

That whole theory I could put on to everything during my life. From my main abusers brash behaviour that left nobody wanting to deal with her to my sexual abuse where outing it would have destroyed families and people didn’t want to be responsible for that.

Often people feel sad for me because of the mass amount of things that happened to me but I often feel that level of trauma left me learning so much about life and those patterns in abuse which allows we to teach you guys.

When it comes to empowering myself it was all about realising the things that had happened to me were a crime and they were. No amount of ‘being quiet’ or ‘wearing a certain dress’ was. I mean, when was ‘being quiet’ classed as a crime. This had nothing to do with me. Maybe I was a target because I was quiet, but that didn’t mean those broken souls could take their anger out on me and that it made it right.

With those trickier topics like empowerment after my sexual abuse it was tricky when it came to having partners at first but at the same time by that point I had learnt that what happened to me was a crime and nothing to do with ‘love’ or ‘relationships’ so could seperate the two.

It’s that true healing that allows us to claim all aspects of our lives back and why I bang on about recovery and learning about our stories to you guys. So many wounds healed themselves when I learnt about my life and that the problem wasn’t with me at all.

What I learned allowed me to love myself. I realised that no matter how much hardship I had been put through I hadn’t purposefully hurt a soul for its entirety. I had been hurt repeatedly because I couldn’t hurt anyone back and that made me proud. It made me love those band t-shirts that originally made me get ripped into as a kid because all I was doing was wearing a t-shirt. I wasn’t the one bringing other people down. It made me love that I was a bit socially awkward because it meant I had to think before I spoke and be careful with my words which was what those around me weren’t doing. I learnt to love all those parts of myself that had been belittled by other people because I wasn’t the one belittling.