A personal experience
In the whole history of the world no one has ever disliked anything as much as I
disliked the first few support group sessions. As long as I can remember I’ve hated
groups. They’ve only ever served to highlight how different I feel from others,
like an alien, like I’m missing something essential. And I’d begged to join to!
I went to a Survivors Network drop-in in October 2005. I was at crisis point, I
was drowning in it. There finally, after years on the sidelines, years of differentiating
myself from ‘these people’, I broke down. I was on the floor with it all, I wept
profusely. Some of the women there came to my aid; they were all shiny and compassionate.
They’d just done the support group and they were full of the goodness of it. They
urged me, ‘Put your name down, and get on the next one’. And so I did, I wanted
their shininess. I cried and told my terrible troubles and they crowded around me,
(people are fucking amazing aren’t they!) and I reminded the drop-in workers 5,
or maybe 10 times (and they didn’t mind a bit) to ‘put my name forward, please,
I really want to get on it….
I knew I’d hate it. But that became just another reason to do it - face the fear.
At the assessment the facilitators agreed, they said I was a perfect candidate for
it, anxiety and all; they’d love to have me. I walked away on air, perfect for something,
at last. And then I worried. I was right to worry; the group had a debilitating
effect on me. During the first few weeks I found that my life became very small,
tiny in fact. I’d go there, and I’d go to my weekly one-to-one counselling, and
I’d just about manage to do every other tedious, mundane thing essential to survival,
(I’m assuming that like me you don’t think bathing and other forms of personal hygiene,
essential) and that was it. It wasn’t that I was thinking about abuse, no way, no!
Instead, I devoured the entire Harry Potter series with a kind of manic devotion.
I don’t think I thought about anything, I don’t think I could.
Week three and I was going to quit. Things were getting ridiculous, I kept cancelling
on my friends, I couldn’t imagine sitting in a pub without succumbing to the urge
to knock over the table and scream the place down. So far I’d gotten one good thing
from the group and that was this: the women who made up the group represented a
cross-section of society, just a bunch of people, as normal as you’d like. Now,
what did that mean for me? Might I be normal too? That was it, that was the one
positive and it did not seem quite enough. I spoke to someone who I trust and she
advised me to stick with it, ‘It’s only 10 weeks,’ she said, ‘tell the group how
you’re feeling.’
Week four, I went and I sat there, gripping the chair as though I were the travel-sick
passenger of a dodgy airline, going through devil-made turbulence whilst being forced
to watch the first episode of ‘Lost’. I didn’t talk to the group; instead I stayed
behind and spoke with the facilitators. They wanted me to stay but they understood
my dilemma, I felt I was loosing what little normalcy I had. It was so nice to be
taken seriously by them; too nice, I sobbed the whole way home.
So I stayed, and it hurt. The thing that hurt the most for me was the support. A
lonely girl meeting 10 reassuring faces full of concern; that really stung. The
contrast between that and my childhood was just unbearable, so much grief, and anger
and fury and then delight at this compassionate new world way of things, then right
back to grief. My spectrum of emotions had suddenly grown very wide and I was racing
from one end to the other. It was like a fast-forward in therapy, a very intense
experience. Now, I think it’s time I told you some of the good stuff….
A friend of mine, an ex-heroin addict, was talking about his experience of N.A.
He said the groups involved a bunch of people, who took absolutely no responsibility
for their lives, being taught to take some responsibility. It struck me at the time
as the exact opposite of what happened in my support group. There you had a bunch
of women who took responsibility for absolutely everything, and needed to learn
to shed much of it. All the members of my group have achieved an incredible amount
by any measure. There is, I have to say, a trickling effect that comes from sitting
with a beautiful, talented, productive woman while she describes herself as worthless.
The cogs start to turn…ahh, but I think that I am worthless….and she is defiantly
not worthless, anyone can see that…. what does that mean about me?….Like I say,
it’s not quite a flash of lightning but the cogs do start to turn. And it’s hard
to argue with 10 women who don’t think that you are shit. It just is, it’s the sheer
weight of numbers, you don’t stand a chance. For example, there was the simple poetry
of week 7 or 8 when I sat, earnestly describing myself as ‘evil’ and ‘bad’ to the
group and another member spoke up softly but firmly, ‘But if you were evil wouldn’t
you be out plotting to take over the world or something instead of coming to a support
group’. I was speechless; there was no arguing with her logic.
To experience the courage (and the re-experiencing of terror for the sake of healing
can go by no other name) of other women’s life stories has been one of the great
privileges of my life. To hear them is to experience grief and great anger and revulsion
and above all, admiration and compassion and care, and if you can feel that for
others…well, like I said, the cogs start to turn.
I think I should make it clear at this point that although I keep speaking in the
plural (I’m so excited I can’t help it), I’m very much talking here about my own
personal experience of the Support Group. The other members may have a wildly different
perspective on it. I am only speaking for myself.
So, what did I get from the support group. I made some excellent friends and as
a bonus I picked up a radically different image of myself. Not bad for fifty quid.
I’m not saying it’s a cure-all, and that now I’ve done it I spend my days dancing
among the daisies while diamonds are showered down upon me from a great height…no…that’s
just on a good day. It’s just that…. I can’t think how to explain it properly….here,
I’ll include two diary entries and they should do the job nicely. The first is a
fairly typical entry written pre-group. And below it, an entry which I feel is entirely
a product of the group. It is so positive and full of self-love that even as I was
writing it I did a double take; ‘this is new’, I thought. New indeed!
17/08/05
I feel so bad, how can I feel so bad again. How can there be more to go
through. My body hurts. My arms hurt and my tummy hurts like I’ve been punched and
I’m tired, more tired than I’ve ever been. I’m too tired to cry, too tired to feel.
I’m lost and alone with no one to talk to and nothing going on. I wish I could die.
I wish it was over already. I can’t bear another minute or second.
23/03/06
There is nothing that life can throw at me that I will not be able to face
and live through. I’ve been in pain for twenty-six years now. I have seen the worst
that life has to offer. I have been beaten, tortured, raped and humiliated – for
ten years – murderers sometimes get less. And I came out of that an interesting,
funny, caring, beautiful individual. Yes I’m afraid, yes, I have lots of areas of
my life I need to work on and I shall. No one can get inside this body again – not
without my permission – unless they want a fight. I did not place myself in his
care, I did not choose that. I live differently to him. I choose to heal. I choose
to mend and if that means facing terror then so be it. I will not die. I will live
as fully as I am able everyday. He cannot take me this time. As I sit with the little
girl – as I promised to do – as I sit with her and experience with her the awfulness
of his violation, I will get to know myself better and come to admire my strength.
Little angel, I cannot believe what you’ve been through. You were so brave. I think
you’re amazing. I’m proud that you are part of me. I almost said that I wish this
hadn’t happened to you, but that’s not right – without these experiences I wouldn’t
have known you in this way and I would not have missed a second. This time, while
he is raping you, I will hold your hand. I will witness. I will not look away. I
can bear it and I want to. You squeeze my hand, you hold on tight. You do not have
to be alone anymore. I will be there with you. We’re going to shine a light on these
so-called men. We’re going to look at them and see what they really are. That way
we can see who we really are, a beautiful child and a beautiful woman. Thank god
we did not stop crying. Thank god we did not stop feeling or we would be as dead
as they are. I love you and I promise you that forever.
By Danielle
