HOW THE ABUSE HAS CHANGED MY LIFE

So, the inspiration for this post came after I first submitted the manuscript for my soon-to-be-released book; Everything Disordered, to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). There were a few changes and corrections needed in terms of the sizing and layout of the book (it has already been proofread by Emma Wharfe from St Oswald’s Hospice) and one of the biggest and most obvious change was the design of the books cover. Having made a little song and dance about the original cover design in using social media posts to build up the release of it, I was dubious about making the change. I was so worried that others would see me as inconsistent and unreliable. After speaking about my worry and think about it a bit more, I came to the conclusion that to feel the need to make changes in this way, shouldn’t be discouraged or belittled. At the same time, having been a completely intolerant person to change of any kind, I could understand others struggling with this…

HOW THE ABUSE HAS CHANGED ME:

1.    My childhood impression of the world was destroyed

I think the first big change in my life was a combination of my trauma – the abuse – and growing up. I had an idyllic childhood that was full of love and safety. I can’t remember anything ‘bad’ ever happening until I was fifteen and the abuse started. I’d love to give my children (if I have any!) a very similar childhood, but with one difference: I’d make sure that their schooling gave them better education around trauma and mental health.

2.    The self-harm response

I think whilst it’s more than understandable, for abuse and rape to have a hugely negative impact on a person’s mental health; I can imagine a factor to increase the risk of this happening, is when the victim (or survivor depending on which way you see it) lacks the knowledge to even determine the abuse to be wrong and to know what to do about it. I mean, I’ll probably always wonder whether knowing those things would have provided a level of stability in some way. As though knowing the words ‘rape’ and ‘abuse’ would aid me in the aftermath for my mental health. That maybe I’d have coped in a much safer way.

TRUST & MENTAL HEALTH | MY SUNDAY TWITTER TAKEOVER WITH TALK & SUPPORT | AD

By chance, the Social Media Manager for LEAPS (the support group I Chair) noticed a call for individuals to take over the Twitter account for Talk and Support (https://twitter.com/TalkandsupportJ) and kindly nominated me for the role! When I was given the login details, I felt a true honour in that moment from the realisation that I was being hugely trusted – not only with the account’s reputation, but also trusted to produce content which will be of interest to their followers. And it got me thinking about trust in general, why it’s so important to me, and what it means in mental health…

The first instance which I feel massively affected my thoughts around trust, was the abuse I experienced from November 2006 to April 2007. Since CPS determined there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute my abuser, I’m now unable to disclose his identity; but what I can say is that he was in a position of power and therefore was trusted by a number of people (including professionals). He was trusted to do the exact opposite of what he was doing to me – he was supposed to be helping, supporting, and caring for myself and others.

Instead, he took that trust and used it as an opportunity to hurt me because it instilled in him the belief – maybe even ‘knowledge’ because he was arrogant like that – that he’d get away with it. I mean, he frequently reminded me during the abuse that even if I did tell someone what he’d been doing to me, they wouldn’t believe it of him. They would never be able to even imagine the person they knew and trusted doing something so awful (massive understatement!).

THE REALITY OF LIFE AFTER ATTEMPTED SUICIDE | TW

I’m all for using previously popular posts as inspiration for new content, and the success of my post ‘THE REALITY OF LIFE OF LIVING WITH SELF-HARM SCARS’ last April, has inspired my thoughts around this new post about what it’s really like to continue living after you’ve attempted suicide. Another inspiration for this post came in the form of someone sharing an in-depth look into their suicide attempt story after finally recovering from jumping off a bridge and ending up in a coma and with a lot of broken bones and internal injuries. This person’s aftermath was obviously a completely different journey to my own, especially physically, but it inspired me to talk more about the consequences to a suicide attempt rather than my usual concentration of the run-up to one and the actual act of it.


I’d like to also give a trigger warning (TW) to this post because after the media shared the means which Caroline Flack used to commit suicide, there was a lot of controversary in the mental health community around the necessity of disclosing this information. Some people worried that it would trigger others to follow suit and some thought it completely inappropriate and unnecessary to talk about the method. Personally, I agree that it isn’t relevant to tell the general public such details, so for this post, I will talk about the method of suicide I used only where it is necessary and relevant such as when I talk about the physical aftermath. If you’re concerned that this information will be upsetting, then please don’t continue reading this post! If you do read on and it becomes triggering, please use healthy and safe coping mechanisms and speak to a professional for help and advice.

THE PHYSICAL AFTERMATH

This is probably the only area where talking about the method I have used is relevant, so I thought I’d get it out of the way quickly! I also thought I’d talk about this aspect first because it is probably the most immediate because all of my suicide attempts have been through overdoses of paracetamol. 

HOW MY BELIEFS HAVE CHANGED

I was talking to my Richmond Fellowship Tyneside support worker about the changes in my thought processes that she wasn’t aware of because we’ve only been working together for a short time and I realized that it might make an interesting blog post… As much as I hate the thought of people going through what I have, I hope that if there are people out there who have the same beliefs that I used to hold, then reading this might work as reassurance that you can get through it and come out the other side!

I will die young

This belief was such a huge role in my mental health deterioration that I had to discuss it in a Psychology session whilst an inpatient in a specialist psychiatric hospital. I had to put a lot of work into changing this belief and developing a replacement for it (in fact, I wrote all about my efforts here) because without that work, I was well on track to succeed at committing suicide. This belief spurred on my suicide attempts because it led to the thought process that eventually, one of them would work and I’d be free forever. Now that I’m happy and enjoying my life (for the most part!) I wish it could carry on for all eternity!



I deserved the abuse

This belief started literally immediately after the abuse did. Straight away I knew I’d brought this on myself. Though, I won’t lie; this was definitely an irrational thought because if I was confronted with it then I probably couldn’t provide much evidence to support it! I guess I just thought of myself as a generally bad person; and perhaps it being so irrational is what kept it so solid in my head. It meant that no matter what anyone said they couldn’t disprove my belief because there was nothing to really contradict! Eventually, I learnt that what was done to me says more about the person who did it than it does about me.

FIVE WAYS THE ABUSE HAS CHANGED ME

Oh, so you think you know me now?
Have you forgotten how,
You would make me feel when you drag my spirit down?
But thank you for the pain,
It made my raise my game,
And I'm still rising, I'm still rising, yeah

Jessie J – Who’s Laughing Now

I saw an article on The Mighty about the ways Cancer can change someone and it inspired me to write this post about the ways that abuse has changed me. I know that they’re two completely different subjects, but I think that the message is quite similar: there might be physical elements to mental health and cancer, but they also have huge psychological and – so-called – ‘invisible’ affects. Things that you might never know about unless the person tells you.


I also had a conversation with my new Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) recently and she asked if I’d had any difficulties before the abuse or if I believed that everything stemmed from it. Initially, recognizing that the abuse has changed me in so many ways was difficult, and I tried to pretend that they weren’t such big changes but deep down I knew I was kidding myself! Then I realized that these changes didn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. There had been positive ones too! And I had learnt and grown from the more negative ones!

A CHAT ABOUT TRUST IN MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES | TW

After self-harming over a week ago I was put under the care of the Northumberland,Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust Crisis Resolution Home Treatment Team (or the Crisis Team basically!) and on the day before I was discharged from their caseload I self-harmed again. When I did it the staff arrived to see me and ended up taking me to A&E for stitches. When they went on to their next visit with another service user, they ended up leaving my care plan at that person’s house and as soon as they realized they returned to the house and got it back. Then I got a phone call with an apology to tell me what had happened and that the Team had reported the breach of data protection. The support worker who called me asked if I wanted the complaints procedure and it didn’t take me long to reply with ‘no.’ I think he was surprised but I came to that conclusion because I knew that the Team had done all that they could to rectify the situation; they’d realized what had happened, gotten the care plan back, reported it, and apologized to me. It was that last bit that really helped in my decision not to make a formal complaint. I’ve talked before about how important apologies are to me and how I think they’re essential in mental health because they’re the cornerstone of building – or maintaining trust in a person or a service. The Manager of the service called me and asked if there was anything else they could do because she didn’t want me thinking that I couldn’t trust the Team and therefore wouldn’t utilize them as support in a crisis. But that trust has been maintained with the apology.