You ask yourself, what’s it all for? and even though you know, you still ask. It’s the question left at the end of all the fighting to get safe, to become free. When life has shown you that speaking out to protect yourself and your child, from the organised child abuse your family were involved with, has taken just about everything your previous life was . It’s more a joke than a question, because you know the answer in all its irony, the hypocrisy that’s out there, but you ask it to yourself to get a laugh. It’s that laughter that helps you in your darkest times. Your ability to laugh at the insanity, the sheer ludicrousness of how society, the criminal justice system and the organisations set up to protect children from abuse and harm, not only fail us, but more often than not put us at more risk for speaking out, trying to break the status quo in our attempts to become safe. There’s an exhaustion lying beneath the question, for all that time spent fighting for your right to be safe. You’re battle weary on top of being battle weary from the trauma itself, but still you fight on because that’s what you had to do as a child to survive. Your tolerance to discomfort is epic. But because of this you can create a life that is beautiful, as resistance to the violence and suffering, where the smallest, most fragile things move you and bring you joy. Flowers, birds, animals, books and what you can make in your imagination. Pretty things, gentle things. Passionate, stirring life with music and love.
I have been asking this question a lot recently, since I accepted my career in social work is over, because of discrimination. I fought a long, hard battle to return to it, but after over 3 years I have finally accepted I will not be able to earn money as I did. I’ve laughed a lot about it, I’ve cried a lot. My diagnosis of Complex PTSD made me the ‘other’ in the eyes of prospective social work employers. It is a fear and blindness, impossible to fight. Just a wall I couldn’t scale. It’s an odd feeling when you know who you are and what you are capable of, to be seen, viewed in this way. During my 7 years of treatment doing EMDR for PTSD , I had to spend a lot of time at home. I became very ill, physically and was not able to work. I became disabled because of the nature of the injuries I had suffered, and how the therapy impacted on my body remembering the abuse. I could accept this at the time, it felt to me as if this work would be worth it to become free from my trauma, that this was the price I had to pay for feeling and knowing the truth. Always, at the back of my mind I had these thoughts that after I had completed the therapy, I could work again and rejoin life, as I had lived it. Being able to afford to go out , just for a coffee, or shopping, or a trip out to somewhere lovely. A holiday, good food, a massage, to buy flowers. I was at home a long time, on benefits , it was boring at times, but I wrote, I ran, I have my daughter and my animals and my love of nature and most of all my imagination that keeps me going. I used the same skills I created when I was small, to survive the childhood I did. Because not being able to work in this country due to sickness and disability, eventually becomes a deprivation situation. You run out of your savings. You are left to live on money that barely covers your outgoings. The last part of my recovery was to work again and so I tried to change my life, as I have before, but this time I was dealing with other people’s attitudes and prejudices towards my diagnosis. All the fighting I have done was no match for societal discrimination toward a woman with a mental health diagnosis, due to sexual violence. And so I am still at home. No wage, no rebuilding, but now an acceptance which has come through horrendous depression and grief of this loss, that my identity is something else, other than all the years I excelled in my career.
I think I’m beginning to feel relieved. The injustice of this will never leave me though. I have a roof over my head, I can pay my bills so far, I can just about afford food and all the other items we need. But I’ve no social life, some weeks I can’t even afford a £2.60 bus fare. So many disabled people describe this situation, almost being institutionalised in your home, because of a lack of money. So for a long time now I HAVE to practise gratitude. I’ve got very good at it. It’s a survival skill for me born out of being deprived of the things in life I could once have, and have the potential to have. If I’m not grateful, then where do I go in my mind ? It’s not been easy to do this, especially recently but still I fight, telling myself as I have for years, they will not beat me. I’m a survivor I know how to survive, but what about thriving ? Being allowed to thrive if you have been sick and are disabled. Is that a possibility ? I have to create this for myself now. I am going to keep campaigning for survivors like me, that’s my passion. I’m going to follow my passion. When I ask what’s it all for ? I’ll let my passion show me, I’ll jump off the cliff of not knowing, of having no control and I’ll trust, because all the rest is gone now So if the back’s against the wall, I’ll come out fighting again. I guess that’s what I’ve learned, that’s the only way I know how to live. I can’t give up now I’ve come too far, I can’t accept the deprivation I live with, (and yes I acknowledge so many people have it way worse than me) is the rest of my life.
What’s it all for ? Love, safety, freedom, my daughter. Life. I have life, I have food, I have love, so I’m blessed. I keep it in the day and I keep laughing, and I keep laughing. And I’ll keep laughing. I can loose the lot, but if I loose my sense of humour I’m screwed.