Some people are just meant to be on the outside!

Some people are just meant to be on the "outside"! 

For most of my adult life, I have been looking for a place to belong, I have always felt somewhat "homesick" although for what I couldn't say.I always envied people who knew exactly who they were, where they came from, where they fitted in to the grand scheme. My abuses as a child made me alienated from society in the most cruel way, having to keep dark secrets and not having anyone to talk to about it furthered my sense of isolation. I had, I imagine, already experienced "abandonment" issues, having been adopted  at an age apparently when that would happen,  the adoption was  a strange "private" one, and  wasn't handled well. Adopted into a fiercely superstitious catholic family,with hell fire and damnation our every day agenda, and then sexually abused by a priest ( one of those who are "next to god") Further compounded my despair, and the downward spiral of self destruct was set in motion. 

I didn't belong in the family, but I didn't belong outside of it, I didn't belong in the church, nor outside it. I became a permanent "outsider"  And that pattern continued , being a small part of many things, but never totally belonging. In schools, in work, In college, in my profession, always half in half out.

I joined many organisations, many communities, I suspect always looking for that "home" and after a while, often unrealistically disillusioned ,I moved on to the next one. 

I eventually met some "blood" relations, very nice people, but I didn't have any connection with them, I didn't belong back there either. 

I am an atheist, but I have a sense of connection with Buddhist practice.I have a degree in Chinese medicine, but I prefer a scientific explanation.

I make  a lot of friends but rarely get close to people. 

I am a person who has a foot in so many camps, but doesn't really belong to any of them.

And now I have suddenly realised that all of that os OK!  Being on the "outside"  on the sidelines is not a bad place to be! 

As Spike Milligan famously once said "Everybody has to be somewhere!" and this is where I am.

Being a little outside of things can be really useful, it means that sometimes I can help, without having to get involved with politics, and other peoples issues, It means that sometimes I can be of help in a lot of different areas, perhaps in a small way, rather than only being effective in one area.

It means that sometimes I can be a bridge from one world to another.

It means that I can be a small part of a lot of things, rather than a big part of a small thing.

It means that I can be a small part of a lot of peoples lives, and have a lot of people being a small part of mine.

It means that I can sometimes see the broader picture instead of being bogged down with the immediate crisis.

These aren't attributes, these are things that have come about through my own adversity and alienation, and have allowed me to survive.

So  when I am feeling "homesick"  I have two slogans  pinned up near my desk to remind me 

       One says

"Breathe-You are alive"!

      And the other says

"I have arrived - I am HOME!"

Sue Cox - diary of a recovered catholic: Could there BE anything worse?

Sue Cox - diary of a recovered catholic: Could there BE anything worse?: I am reeling today from a shock to my system!  This morning's work  was to gather more research to further demonstrate  the severity of brai...

Could there BE anything worse?

I am reeling today from a shock to my system!  This morning's work  was to gather more research to further demonstrate  the severity of brain damage to clergy sexual abuse  survivors, largely to add to  our workshop "Brains Bombs and Baddies ".  
We know a quite lot about the physiology of brain damage already, but we never sit back or rest on our laurels, always seeking more information and  knowledge. So papers from Harvard and UCA were todays job .

Can  there be a worse shock than finding out that you have  sustained severe  brain damage? You would think not. To know that your brain has been permanently physically changed by someone else's criminal behaviour. That  distorted life paths were  an inevitability, and so the damage would be compounded by further damage . Facts that we have been aware of for some time now , and  which have  been part of my work, and a passion that has grown out of my own study of brain science, while  trying  to make sense of the effects of my abuses on my own mental and emotional health, recognising  the physiology of  my addictions, self harming, eating disorder, problems with forming relationships, low self worth, trusting etc. etc. My drive has been to learn and understand as much as possible about it,and help  inform  others of  the severity of abuse, sick and tired of it being trivialised and dismissed.

But  yes ,there is worse! Even worse! And that is the knowledge that because of my distorted life path, because of my poor choices and unskilled behaviour, I have passed  brain damage on to my children! The fact that they have witnessed so much domestic violence, harsh words and  hardship, has caused that damage to be perpetuated into  the next generation .

What a cruel fact to learn, and what a lot of tears I have shed. Of course it could be said that I  couldn't help it, and intellectually I know that to be true, but emotionally I am distraught, to think that  not only was I abused, but my children were too. How much worse could it be.

I am not sure if I am glad I know this, would I have been better with ignorance of these facts? Well, right now I think the answer is Yes, I can't stop crying!

But I know when I calm down a bit and think this through , my belief has always been that knowledge is power, and if I don't know the facts I can't make a proper judgement.Without knowing the nature of the beast it is hard to deal with it, either nurture or fight it. 

And the facts are what were always kept from us,our ignorance  and  vulnerability what the church relied upon , so we need to know the truth, and more than that we need for other people to know it too.

But right now, I need to lick my wounds and  try and think if there is anything good that I was able to pass on to my children? And can we  stop that  cycle of destruction.

How dare those bastards do this to innocent children? How dare they duck out of their responsibilities? How dare they patronise, trivialise and dismiss? What kind of people are not ashamed of these facts? What kind of people can stand by and disregard them still? The kind of people that  have ridden roughshod over human beings for far too long. 

Brains and Mindfulness.

I was at a lecture during "Think Week " in Oxford in February. The committee had very kindly nominated Survivors Voice Europe as their chosen charity, a great honour for us. It was even better because I was able to go to many of the talks, and the dinners,  and I met some wonderful people , heard some inspiring talks. This particular one I had to admit, I was looking forward to, it included a professor of neuroscience, and I have a particular passion for neuroscience, especially since I have learned so much, vicariously from my colleague Kim, himself a dedicated neuroscientist. I am in awe of the human brain, and have been privileged to teach  some of the neuroscience of addiction, in my "day job" Learning about the brain has answered many questions for me.

The debate  was quite up there with all the other inspirational talks, but there was one "bug" that spoiled it for me , and that was the neuroscience professor herself, who although being very knowledgable, was also  quite dismissive  about some things she clearly had a "beef" with. Specifically, for me, was her dismissal (complete  with wiggly fingered inverted commas) of "Mindfulness" . It would appear that she thought it a silly concept, much  overused, and was quite scathing. I was so disappointed, not with mindfulness, but with her! 

I guess she has never needed any kind of tools to help her make sense of the World around her, and I am pleased for her that she has not. I think it is very easy if someone has had a relatively "normal" life, has not had their education interrupted or  destroyed by trauma, who has had  good role models, or parents , teachers who have helped them learn the necessary life skills, who's life path has  not been distorted, their brains damaged  to be dismissive of these seemingly naive approaches. But for those of us who have not been so lucky, who  have often spent our lives trying to find a way through , unskilled and with a huge burden,  we have been grateful for many little snippets of wisdom, from whatever source.

There are lots of things that have helped me along the very rocky road to recovery, some I have discarded, having no further use for them, some,  on closer inspection, have not fitted in with my beliefs, Some I have taken bits of, and left the rest behind, some I have mixed opinions about, some I have found to be even damaging, and  some  I wouldn't touch with the proverbial bargepole!

I make no excuses for the fact that learning "Mindfulness,"  has been something that has helped me  enormously, and along with meditation, is still a source of refuge in my sometimes troubled mind. Leaving any "religious" connotation out of it, mindfulness meditation  has been shown categorically to be able to calm down an agitated limbic system and improve cognition. 

Have no doubt, I am a died in the wool atheist, I have no belief in any deity,and nothing I have seen in my 65 years has changed my mind,if anything it is reinforced on a daily basis,  I do see the garden as beautiful without the need for fairies at the bottom of it, but in order to  live in some sort of peace, to be able to function in the World, and not having the skills myself,  I have borrowed some of the skills that I have been given by my addict friends, my Buddhist friends (actually Buddhists are atheists too! ) other abuse survivors, and anyone who is showing me their altruism by simply trying to do the next right thing. I have always been more impressed by actions rather than words, no matter how clever they may seem.  

When most of my life was spent either  having dreadful nightmares about the past, or fears for the future, the concept of learning to live in the "present moment " and practice loving kindness has been a life saving gift. 

It has taken me a while to think about  this, I was disturbed and wondered why I actually felt "belittled",  it is only now, when something else came up to remind me that I was able to articulate what I had felt. 

I am still in awe of science, the workings of the human brain, and its power, but thankfully now I  am also able to see the beauty of other human beings helping each other and not dismissing anything that has helped them survive.

A Long time ago, I went with my husband to a large  art exhibition.(My husband is an artist) There were lots of artists there, many dealers and suppliers etc. One of the prominant groups was the “foot and mouth” painters, they were all doing just that, painting either with their feet or mouths.They had a variety of disabilities, some had no arms, or no legs others had neither. I was absolutely in awe of them, and I have to admit that their bravery and obvious humour brought tears to our eyes. There was not a hint of self pity.

I stood behind one beautiful young lady who had no limbs, who was propped up on her seat and was frantically painting with the brush in her mouth.I saw that her neck  muscles were incredibly taught, and well developed and actually looked quite painful.

I asked her “does your neck get very stiff and painful?” She said “Yes a does! i have a massage on my neck every day, because I have to do everything with it so I need to keep it supple and it helps a lot” She was smiling and telling me this in a very matter of fact way.

I said (through my silly tears) “I think you are incredibly brave”. and she then turned around and said (laughing!)   “ No I am not, I just have to work with what I have got!

What a lesson! what a profound bit of wisdom!  “I just have to work with what I have got “ Theres no doubt that we all have damage to a lesser or greater degree. And we all have the tendency sometimes to bewail our losses and limitations.Loss of our childhood, self esteem, ability to form relationships, fear  guilt etc. Some can be fixed, with work and some simply can not!

But I hope next time I feel sorry for myself, I will remember that I just have to work with what I’ve got! (and make the best of it!)

On days like these

Sometimes it is much easier to keep on talking about the positive side of recovery, rather than dwell on the difficulties. I try and think about the good bits most of the time, but occasionally the downside, the "defects" in me are evident, and I have to look at them. I wonder if it is a bad thing only to talk about the "Happy Ribena berry " days when actually that may not help anyone who is going through the "darkness" ?
I guess we are all different, we are not clones, but I do know there are some similarities that a lot of clergy abuse survivors have in common,and have told me about, and that I absolutely identify with.
The issue that I am thinking of at the moment is how my "trust" mechanisms are, for want of a better word, buggered! I am conscious that I can either trust people implicitly, and get very very hurt, or I don't trust them at all, in which case I can alienate people. I do know that I have difficulties with relationships, there does not seem to be a reliable trust barometer. I have left a string of broken friendships over the years, they seem to be the ones that have gone beyond "casual" and ask for more from me. I am seemingly not good with those.
What to do? I suppose the sensible part of me would suggest therapy to "work this out" maybe, but actually I have never been able to trust a therapist either so far!! (which I think is a big admission!) I don't want anyone else in my damaged head! It can be bad enough being in there myself! 
So with the latest broken friendship under my belt, I am thinking a lot about this common dilemma.
Whenever I am hurt (again) I go very much inside myself, I make my World as small as it possibly can be, and stay as safe as I can until I can dip my toe into the water again without panicking. I suppose I get into a metaphorical foetal position and lick my wounds. It is not a bad strategy, it makes me evaluate the important things, makes me value the relationships that I çan trust, and it gives me time to breathe.
I think that there are many kinds of people in the World, the Universe has evolved because of its diversity.There are those who are nurturers, warriors, builders, diplomats, rescuers, peace makers, there are those who wear their hearts on their sleeves, those who value privacy, those who can befriend the entire world and those who have a few intimate friends. We are all who we are because of our genes and our life experiences.
I guess I am just different, not neccessarily worse, or even better, just different. Because of my own experiences, some of those extremely traumatic , I have areas which I am simply not skilled in, and when they show , I am in pain. So my conclusion is that I will stay with the things I am good with, and keep away from those which I do badly! 
I don't see that trust mechanism getting any better than it is now, so I need to work with what I have got. 
Is this negative? not for me, it is a way of dealing with a brain which has some parts of it that have been damaged beyond repair , and recognising the strength I have in other parts 
So for anyone else going through "the darkness" I guess we have to all remember that the "Ribena berry days" don't come without cost.