run

Official Notice to the oppressors, abusers and perpetrators of emotional and psychological abuse;   ~ you were wrong about me. You ARE wrong about me.  I don’t need YOU to make me better. I am better than you know. I am stronger than you ever dreamed. I don’t need you to make me anything.  I am better without you. Watch me fly and wave good bye to you from my position of freedom high above the clouds.

“Sometimes our teachers teach us more than they themselves have learned” Darlene Ouimet

You smiled at me, nodding and tilting your head as though you really understood what I was telling you. You made it easy for me to talk about my pain.  I felt heard. I felt like finally someone understood.  No one had ever really understood me. Certainly no one had ever validated my pain. And since validation was what I needed, it was so easy for you to use that knowledge against me. You validated me yes, but in the end it was only so that you could get what YOU wanted. You were a predator but I was so starved for acknowledgement that I didn’t recognize you as one.

All the while you smiled and listened attentively you were thinking about how you could capture me for your own and take me for your own possession. But I didn’t see it.

I kept telling myself that you would never take advantage of me. I must be misunderstanding the tiny red flags coming up for me; I always misunderstood… all my life I had been told that I misunderstood. I thought that I must be

the road can be beautiful

I am important. And so are you.

I have just as much importance as any other human being on this planet and that includes the presidents, movie stars, doctors, lawyers, teachers, my parents, grandparents, geniuses, famous inventers, authors royalty and  all others. And so do you.

A job, a profession, or a gift or title does not make some people more valuable than other people.  

People are People.

I am special. I am the same amount of special as any other human being.  And so are you.

I am valuable. I am just as valuable as any other person on this earth. And so are you.

I have a choice. I had to learn this truth before I tried it out, but today I know that I have a choice about the way that I am treated. I have choices about where I go and who I hang out with. I am not obligated to love. I am not owned by anyone. I can choose to say yes, or to say no. And so can you.

I can think for myself. And so can you.  I had to learn this truth, and I had to learn HOW to do this

Darlene and Jim

My parents split up and eventually divorced when I was just turning 13 years old. After my mother went through her suicidal phase she started dating. She had not been separated from my father for very long when she started dating. Men and dating became her priority.

Through her behaviour she communicated to me that attracting men was the way to cope with low self esteem and pain. Looking back on what she taught me and how she impacted my belief system, she herself believed that men and having a man in her life was what she needed more than anything else.  She believed that she needed a man in order to survive. She needed a man in order for her to feel complete or even good about herself. Men defined her as worthy and good enough.  Her self esteem came from them. Their attraction to her identified her. Having a man meant that my mom was okay.

I had learned from my mother’s actions, words and teachings that men were the most important connection or relationship a woman can have. Because belief systems grow from layers of information, add to that teaching what I learned from the media (movies and books)  and from observing

unhelpful directives

People always told me things like “deal with it” and “get over it” and “put it behind you” They always seemed so impatient with me and even exasperated that I was still “there” and not over it.

Has anyone ever given you instructions on HOW to “deal with it”? Have you been giving information about HOW to get over it, that didn’t include statements to which you have to keep asking “how do I do that”?

Just get over it  (HOW?)  Just put it behind you. (HOW?) ~ “give it to God”. (HOW?) To which the answer was “Have faith” (HOW?) well you get the picture.

I was told to accept things with statements like “nothing happens by mistake” And while I totally love that expression when I was in the right place at just the right time and suddenly met the person who was going to change my life, what about when someone uses that expression “nothing happens by mistake” when you are trying to comprehend the leftover emotions from child abuse? That expression becomes a way to try to make you grateful for having been abused!

What about people who tell me that I would not be the person that I am today if I had not been abused; that the abuse made me a stronger person. (again that I should be grateful that I was abused) But the truth is that I will never know how I would have turned out. I don’t know how strong I would have been if I had never been abused.  Perhaps my brilliant mind would have been capable of

The Healing Power of Righteous Anger by Pam Witzemann

Righteous anger is the anger that Jesus used to clear the temple. It is the force behind the Civil Rights Movement and can be a powerful force for healing when employed by those who are victims of abuse.

As a child, I was emotionally and medically neglected. I was also emotionally and psychologically abused. This came by the hand of my parents. As a teenager, I was sexually abused and exploited by men. I spent most of my life thinking that I was the one at fault and my anger (which was enormous) was turned inward. I was angry with myself for all of the things that I suffered as a child and it led me into self-destructive habits and even, attempted suicide by age 18. I was angry enough to kill and I attempted to kill the one I viewed as my enemy, Me. At the time, I couldn’t even acknowledge what I felt as anger. I saw all anger as being wrong and I denied my own angry feelings. I, like many people, was taught that all anger was inappropriate and I hid my angry emotional responses by stuffing my anger and being mad at myself for being angry. By the age of 12, I was very depressed and I believe, my stuffed and misdirected anger (which was rage, a mindless and destructive anger) was

Something that I was really confused about, both in the past and during my process of emotional healing was that I mistakenly thought if someone was truly sorry for their behaviour I believed it should cancel the DAMAGE done by their behaviour. I thought that I should be OVER it as soon as someone expressed regret for their behaviour.  I felt guilty and ashamed that I still felt the effects of the damage that was caused to me. I am not talking about an isolated one time minor incident such as my mother losing her temper and calling me a brat. I am talking about being devalued, criticised, discounted, picked on, neglected and or abused over time.

I am familiar with both sides of this coin. My mother never said she was sorry for any of the damage that she had a hand in over my lifetime.  A few times she said “I’m sorry but…” and the BUT always had excuses tagged on to it like “I’m sorry but I never wanted to be a single mother” or “I’m sorry but

I had a tough time with anger. I had problems with feeling anger. I didn’t think I felt it. I denied to myself that I ever had it. I didn’t want to feel it.  I was proud that I wasn’t an angry person. 

And the truth is that I totally misunderstood anger in the first place. I had a different kind of anger problem.

I related anger to self pity. I thought that if I was angry with someone who treated me badly that I was just feeling sorry for myself. I detested self pity; I had been taught that self pity was the “worst” emotion, so I certainly was not going to engage in it. I believed that anger WAS a form of self pity; therefore I didn’t allow myself to feel anger.

Because of the way that I had been raised, my belief system was all wrong. I had love mixed up with obligation. I had respect mixed up with ownership and compliance and the list goes on from there. In the same way that I had the definitions of love and respect mixed up, I also misunderstood my own emotions, labelled them as “other emotions” and dismissed the real emotion.  That was part of how I survived. 

Labelling certain emotions as other emotions was how I dealt with many emotions, not just the emotion of anger. Like my definitions of words like “love”, “respect” and “relationship” I misunderstood emotions like anger and self pity and traded them for other emotions so that I could

I am pleased and excited today to welcome my friend Fi Macleod. Fi is a fellow blogger and an amazing survivor of horrific abuse. Fi has a passion for writing and the subject of spiritual abuse is close to her heart. Please help me welcome Fi and her debut post on Emerging from Broken! As always, please we invite you to post your comments and participate in the discussion. ~ Darlene Ouimet ~ founder of Emerging from Broken

SPIRITUAL ABUSE:- THE CONFUSION OF FALSE TEACHING By Fi MacLeod

There is no aspect of my life which has not been affected by religion, religious and spiritual abuse. I grew up in an abusive religious family full of unattainable expectations. I witnessed religion used to explain abuse of all kinds.

I went to a Catholic school from age 8-11 because my mother was a teacher there. During that time I was taught to be a good Catholic, say my prayers, kneel, genuflect, cross myself, do all the right things, say all the right things. I witnessed nuns slap, beat and mock kids in the name of religion. I was taught only Catholics were the true religion, the Catholic way was the only way. To me the Catholic church was cruel, controlling and about keeping people apart. I could not get my head round that. The abuse I witnessed taught me “no matter how religious you are, no matter how good you are, there will always be something which will mean you’ll never be good enough, there will always be something that will mitigate against your religious goodness“. It taught me God was a fierce old man with a big stick in his hand who looked for every opportunity to beat you. It told me

Nadia Ackerman

Today for the special Friday feature, I am excited to have recording artist Nadia Ackerman sharing about contacting her childhood sexual abuser on Facebook after 30 years had passed and the results of this meeting. Nadia has graciously offered my readers a complimentary download of the song she wrote about her experience of being abused so please make sure that you visit the link to the download at the end of this post. ~ Darlene

I contacted my Childhood Sexual Abuser on Facebook  by Nadia Ackerman

I had arrived home from a full day. I opened my computer and went online to read the news of the day that had just been. Scrolling down msnbc.com I stumbled across a video about a story of a letter in a bottle that had landed on the shore in Russia 24 years later after it had been thrown into the Baltic Sea.

A 13 year old boy Daniil found the bottle and inside there was a letter from Frank Uesback who was only 5 years old when he wrote the letter. “If you find this letter, please write back to me, and I will write back to you” the letter said.

Daniil made contact with Frank and they now chat online.

Whilst watching the video I was struck by the pureness of the little boy writing the letter and the bottle washing up on shore, still in tact and the connection they made. I finished up with reading the news and was struck with a sudden need to Google one of my abusers names

Darlene Ouimet CTACC

This past week I did an internet radio Broadcast on Blog Talk Radio with Susan Kingsley-Smith from Empowering Solutions.

It was a really good show and the feedback has been fantastic!  We talked for 40 minutes about emotional healing starting off with my “in a nut shell account” about where it all started, the history of my depressions and dissociative disorders which were diagnosed several different ways by several different doctors and mental health workers. Susan contributes some of her history as well.

The bulk of the conversation is about where the solutions actually came from and the process of how I took my life back. I talk about the commonality that I discovered between myself and the people that I was speaking to in mental health seminars, which made me realize ]]> http://emergingfrombroken.com/dealing-with-diagnosis-beyond-the-labels/feed/ 29