Child Abuse Story of Healing and Recovery From Jo H

by Jo H
(Victoria, Australia)

Healing for Life: 
My story includes horrors which have touched the lives of so many affected by child abuse. I am a survivor of emotional abuse, physical abuse, abandonment, sadistic abuse, spiritual abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, rape by strangers and abuse by an organized pedophile group. My abusers include males and females, family members and external perpetrators. I became part of the foster care system and have spent time in juvenile institutions as well as navigating the adult legal system.

To outsiders I look normal. I live in a house with my husband and a white picket fence. I do volunteer work. I go to church. I have close friends. The only obvious signs of my past are the permanent scars on my arms and other body parts self-inflicted from years of self-mutilation. The track marks from years of drug abuse. At only 35 I have 8 of my original teeth remaining as a result of extreme opiate addiction. I have struggled with eating disorders. Bulimia, compulsive exercising and still have extreme difficulty with food on a daily basis. My house is not very organized as I moved so often as a child, and had so much trauma affecting my ability to concentrate, no-one ever thought to teach me how to look after a house or cook. My education is abominable as I got expelled from one school after another, acting out the torment that was my home life. I have a police record. Mostly charges from years of prostitution which I began at the age of 14, also shoplifting as if I did not provide for myself no-one else was going to. Having children has not felt like an option to me as I have so little role-modeling in that area and am terrified I’ll pass the mistakes of my parents onto the next generation. So here I am at 35, trying my best to start again and making plans for what I’m going to do when I grow up.

I’ve been all but shunned by a mental health system which remains ignorant and apathetic to the effects of trauma on the brain and treats me like I’m simply seeking attention because of my history of self-harming and suicide attempts. Finding a therapist that can meet my needs and I can afford has been close to impossible. Functioning in this world when my mind is overloaded with trauma is difficult to say the least.

However there is good news. I have found help and understanding and empathy in a place called Heal for Life, which runs healing weeks in most states of Australia as well as the UK. At Heal for Life I found people who accepted me as Heal for Life is run by survivors, for survivors. All the carers have done their own healing weeks as well as extensive training under a psychologist and continue on their own healing journeys. Best of all, from the moment I got there I have been believed and this has helped me shift my own denial and begin pursuing my truth and tackling it head on.

I did my first healing week at Heal for Life four years ago and have done a number since. Unlike the rigid structure of therapy the healing weeks run from Sunday to Friday and we have as little contact with the outside world as possible so that we can focus solely on our healing. Up to 12 guests and four to five carers attend each healing week and it is carefully structured so that we can open our wounds and feel our pain, release that pain and re-empower the hurting child within. We have groups but do not share story in groups as that is simply re-traumatising. We the guests decide what we wish to work on and when and a carer will walk beside us as we address the trauma which has been held onto for so long. At Heal for Life it’s safe to cry, to be angry, to express our fear, to share our shame and most wonderful of all, we are given the opportunity to experience joy, something preciously rare to many survivors of child abuse. Towards the end of the week we are encouraged to look at the tools we’ve learnt which we can continue to use at home and bring back into our adult selves so that we can return to the world in a safe space.

There are healing weeks for adults, guests range in age from from 18-90 plus. There are single sex healing weeks if there is a demand and some Christian healing weeks by request. Nearly everyone who works at Heal for Life is a fellow survivor and so even though we have extremely limited money, the work that is carried out is a labor of love. It is truly a joy to walk alongside our peers as we all heal together.

At Heal for Life it’s safe to feel and we are encouraged to feel. In a society which expects those of us who have been through childhood trauma and abuse to suck it up this alone is truly liberating. For all who have suffered trauma at a young age we have a wounded child within us, desperate for the needs which were never met when we were little. We are taught that it is the emotional equivalent of cancer.

Childhood abuse and trauma cannot simply be ‘got over’ anymore than cancer can. We have to do the hard yards but as a result we can truly live, for many of us for the first time. At Heal for Life we can cry, we can be held, we can be angry, we can scream, we can reveal our fear and be assured that we are safe now. We can share the depths of shame with just one person who will help us to return that shame to the people it belongs to.

We learn about the effects of trauma on the brain, especially when that trauma is inflicted while our brain’s are still growing. We are taught about triggers and our tendency to be in the amygdale a great deal of the time. The amygdale is the fight/flight/freeze part of our brain which works overtime in survivors. We are taught about attachment styles, parenting styles and the effect that’s had on us. We are taught when we are reacting from our wounded child within, or our protective child, or the wonder children we were meant to be, and how to start responding in a healthy adult manner rather than reacting from our fears. We are taught about boundaries, what is healthy and what isn’t. We are taught about the results of post-traumatic stress and how that affects us on a daily basis. Most of all we are taught that what happened wasn’t our fault and that we can heal from the effects of even the most deep seated trauma. The brain’s of survivors of trauma work differently from those who haven’t experienced this and yet the good news in that by feeling and releasing those pent up emotions and by challenging those negative belief systems we can heal.

Since starting this amazing journey I have decided I want to live for the first time ever, something which was an impossibility before. I spent my life since I can remember wanting to die and trying to die and the lightness of having that weight lifted is immense. I have stopped using drugs. I am no longer a prostitute. I have stopped cutting myself up and hurting myself. I am able to love more, love my husband, my friends, my animals and most of all myself. I have a greater appreciation of both the big and the small things in life. I am determined to tell my truth, both to reach out to other survivors and also to reveal the horrendous things that were done to me and the people who did them.

Best of all I have hope. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be able to sit here and say that. I thought life was something to be endured not lived. Some cruel trick of the universe intended to test the limits of our tolerance. I’m still on my healing journey and Its undoubtedly a life long journey but one I’m now happy to be on. While I wouldn’t wish my past on anyone I can now choose to learn from it and appreciate the strengths I’ve gained and the skills which serve me well in a world which can be tricky to navigate. It is my personal mission to spread the word to other survivors that there is hope and we can lead a life of joy and fulfilment. My past will always be there but no longer am I a slave to it. I have chosen to learn from it and live the life I was always meant to live, still scarred but no longer crippled. Mine is a story of hope and one by one, as we endeavour to restore our lives and find peace of mind, I believe that we can journey alongside one another, speak our truths and travel this path of reconciliation together.

Jo

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