ending abuse | Dare Boldly

I read a fascinating article at Tales from the Conspiratum about research coming out of McMaster University on the effects of anti-depressants on our brain’s ability to cope with stress.

It doesn’t make depression better. In fact, it could be making it worse, suggests Wade Hemsworth, author of the article from the McMaster University Daily news, “The Science behind commonly used anti-depressants seems to be backwards”.

It’s an interesting read that suggests for people suffering from the most common forms of depression, SSRIs might actually be an obstacle on their path to recovery.

Nature, writes Tales from the Conspiratum, is still the best anti-depressant.

It is one of the challenges of depression. That which is healthy, healing and natural for recovery is also that which takes energy. And energy is not high on the list of things to expend when depression is clouding every thought, breath and feeling.

Had I gone to a doctor and been diagnosed when in the depths of a relationship that was killing me, I might have been prescribed anti-depressants.

I had no energy. My thinking was dark. I had constant suicidal thoughts. I had little to no belief in getting out of the relationship alive. Every joint, muscle, cell of my body hurt. I would awake in the morning and wonder if I didn’t have some incurable disease because it hurt so much to move out of the bed. I hoped I did. That would put an end to my misery.

And then, he was arrested and I was given the miracle of getting my life back.

Overnight, my bones stopped aching, my joints stopped hurting. When I walked, my hands were no longer clenched tight into fists. My gait was no longer stiff.

Yes, suicidal thinking still clouded my mind, but not every moment.

Without the poison of his abuse feeding me lies about my worth and my right to live, I could see clearly that without him, I had only one task, to heal so that my daughters could heal too.

It became my sole purpose in life. To do whatever it took to ensure my daughters knew, what happened to me had nothing to do with my lack of love for them. I knew as teenagers they could easily translate my disappearance into ‘I am not loveable’ and I could not let that happen. They had to know they are loveable exactly the way they are.

At the time, I remember believing what happened had everything to do with a lack of love for myself. In retrospect, miles from those dark days and nights of wishing to die and feeling like I already had, I can see that it was never about love, always about abuse.

What happened to me had everything to do with being in an abusive relationship.

Once the abuser was gone, I was free to fall in love all over again with me, myself and I. The depression that had clogged every fibre of my being began to lift as I began to see clearly, without him I had peace of mind.

I was blessed. I was in a time and space, surrounded by the loving support of my sister and her husband, to heal without fear. Everyday I would walk in the woods with Ellie the wonder pooch and breathe in freedom, exhale sadness. I would look up into the trees and see the limitless possibilities of the sky above and know, in freedom from abuse I could do anything.

I didn’t take an anti-depressant. I took nature’s natural gifts and breathed deeply into all she had to offer to help me heal. I was surrounded by beautiful seascapes, mountains soaring to the sky in rain-forested glory. Wrapped in nature’s embrace, beneath the sky and wind, beside the ocean, amidst the trees and wind-swept vistas of Vancouver’s north shore, I found the one thing I savoured and needed most, freedom.

Being in an abusive relationship is depressing. Staying in one is nullifying.

For a long time I couldn’t see that there was only one thing in the world that could change the sadness and fear that permeated my being throughout that relationship, and that was to walk away.

And then I did.

I had a lot of help and I am grateful. Walking away from abuse into living life beyond the edges of my fear has been a great gift. I don’t look back to remind myself of what he did. I look back to remind myself that that was then, this is now. And now is the gift of time to live with peace of mind, a joyful heart and restful soul.

And now is the time to walk in nature and give thanks for all her beauty shimmering in the air I breathe.

I am speaking out against abuse on Friday at the launch of Family Violence Prevention Month 2013.

I am nervous.

I am grateful.

I am excited.

And I remember. All these emotions are present in my being present. They do not make me who I am. They are a measure of what I am feeling, in the moment. They are not me.

It was something I learned in my healing journey away from abuse. Anger is present. I am not anger. Sadness is present. I am not sadness. Regret is present. I am not regret.

Just as happiness, joy, gratitude are present. And in their presence I choose what I want more of in my life by choosing to breathe into those things that feed me, nurture, love and heal me. I choose where I shine my light.

Once upon a time I called myself an abused woman. It was not me. I did not own the abuse. I was not the abuse. I was a woman who was abused. It is not mine to hold onto, to claim, to own.

What is mine to hold onto, to claim, to own, is freedom. Freedom from abuse. Freedom from allowing another human being to determine my worth, to dictate my being free, to control my expression of me.

And in that expression I choose how my emotions control me. I choose how I control my emotions. I choose to set myself free.

in freedom, I accept and acknowledge and celebrate the fact that I create, permit or allow 100% of what is going on in my life. I am not a piece of flotsam tossed about by the waves of life, out of control, rudderless, directionless, powerless.

I am powerful beyond my wildest imaginings.

I am talented beyond my greatest dreams.

I have the capacity to make my own dreams come true and the ability to create the life I envision.

Isn’t that amazing? If I have that much power, if I am the one directing this ship, then I am capable of steering away from rough waters, and, weathering any storm. I am able to chart my course, change my path, adapt and shift my direction — as and when I choose.

No one has me locked down or dialled into the coordinates of my life. I do. it’s my choice to not change direction and to change direction. It’s my decision to take A to B or Y to Z.

It’s my life.

When I was in that relationship that was killing me, it didn’t feel like that. Like I had the power, because I didn’t. I had given it up. Allowed myself to fall so far into the distress and dis-ease of his abuse that I could no longer see or feel or even hear my voice of reason, my voice of knowing, my voice of power calling me to rise up and throw off the yoke of his abuse. I had become so blinded by the power of my fear of breaking free, I could not stand up and step free.

And so I fell.

It didn’t feel like a willing fall. It wasn’t that I wanted it to hurt so bad I couldn’t make it stop. It was that I had lost all sense of who I was, where I was, what I was doing and going and being. I was lost.

That’s the thing about abuse. In its grip, you lose all sense of direction, all sense of self, all sense.

Abuse is insidious.

It kills.

Hopes. Dreams. Spirit. Lives.

It robs us of our will to live. It steals away our heart’s-desire to create, to conceive, to be free. It destroys self-worth, tears apart families, rips apart homes.

Abuse is wrong.

Stop it.

And if you can’t stop it, then get help. Reach out for support. Call someone. Talk to someone. Find someone, something to hold onto that will shine a light on the darkness of where you’re at so that you can find yourself swimming free of the dark and dangerous waters pulling you under.

Abused or abuser, abuse hurts.

Abused or abuser, there is help. Out there, beyond the dark, dank depths of the shame and fear and horror of what is happening in your life.

When I was in that relationship, I believed there was nowhere else for me to be, nowhere I could run to get away. I believed I was all alone.

I wasn’t alone. And there was lots that could be done to stop it. But I was too lost, too scared, too ashamed to see, it had to start with me. I had to choose to change directions, stop my drift and reset my course away from what was killing me.

I couldn’t do it alone. I didn’t have to.

I needed help and support to stop the abuse in my life. And in stopping it in my life, in you stopping it in yours, we create a ripple that begins to move out into the world inspiring change all over the place.

And that’s the thing about abuse — for it to be present, anywhere in the world, we must all in some way collude in its presence. For it to end, anywhere in the world, It takes all of us co-creating a world free of abuse to make it stop.