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I was going to post this on another post somewhere else but I can’t remember which one, so I’m sorry for starting yet another new thread but maybe it’ll help someone.
Have you ever seen that film Shine with Geoffrey Rush based on the life of pianist David Helfgott, who suffered a mental breakdown and spent years in institutions. At the start of this, when I was trying to understand what I was going through, what this was, how I got here, and how I was going to get out of here, a friend offered to help talk things through…but we didn’t get anywhere. I couldn’t explain very well. I didn’t know what I was experiencing, I didn’t know what I wanted. What I needed. It was like a maze in my head. As the abuse was ongoing and I was also trying to live life with kids, it was like taking a really complex degree in another language and explaining nuclear physics to my deaf auntie. It was hard. Really tough. So she suggested a Life Coach…
So I contacted one and had a chat on the phone. Unfortunately the same thing happened, I wasn’t making any sense, she recoiled at the words ‘domestic abuse’ – I think she thought she was going to be sorting out the laundry, suggesting date nights and feng shui’ing my shoe rack….
So I spoke to my friend again and she asked “What do YOU need to do to understand this?” And I thought and thought and sat and sat and then realised. What I needed was a room, with blank walls, silence and a felt tip pen… I needed to write it all out, on the walls so I could see and examine it, join it up, see what mattered, see what didn’t, work it out, work out what was important to me, cross things out, underline things, I needed arrows, and I needed to think about consequences, the future, plans, results … Just like Geoffrey Rush did in his shed in his garden. To me that is what my mind looked like, a complete mess and mix of information, thoughts, emotions, numbers, ramifications, it was all swirling around. That is what this experience is like, it’s like having schizophrenia, your brain not being yours, its like being made to put on virtual reality goggles, and being told to act normal in your normal life. Its like Geoffrey Rush in his shed, he got there in the end. For him the workings out in the shed were a process, but it was also a complex mind unravelling, but the concept was sound. The difference being for us is we aren’t crazy, we don’t have mental health problems (well we might as a result of this but not the cause).
So, I did that, not exactly on the walls, but in books, on paper, whenever I safely could. Endless lists, pros and cons.. asking questions, of myself, of professionals, reading, watching YouTube videos. Doing diagrams, flow charts, if I did this, what would the result be, if I didn’t what would the result be?
For me, it helped, it really helped in working it out. It might not be for some but it might help others.
It’s a good film anyway. Worth a watch.
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I’ll have to watch that!! I am very familiar with the term – war room (used by the military). That’s where whatever text, schematics, drawings go up for something. You have a rolling ladder and stuff is from floor to ceiling, going up, coming down, constantly changing and evolving. People attach stickie notes to things etc. Mostly done on computers these days.
There is another word for this, escapes me… It’s actually a tool for learning and is used mostly by some private schools where critical thinking is taught as well. One form of it is called – Graffiti Board strategy. Students write their thoughts about something on a wall covered by paper. They can draw pictures, draw lines from this to that, etc. I call it – visual brainstorming. I have used this professionally and otherwise and it’s extremely helpful. I think a large number of detectives do this as part of their job.
It also depends on what your learning style is. Speaking from a professional standpoint it was always necessary for me to find out asap what someone’s learning style was so I could gear what I needed to get across to them in this way because that was really their language and I needed to speak it. Here’s the different styles –
Visual (Spatial)
Aural (Auditory-Musical)
Verbal (Linguistic)
Physical (Kinesthetic)
Logical (Mathematical)
Social (Interpersonal)
Solitary (Intrapersonal)When someone has been through abuse, their brain is pretty scrambled because of it and quite bruised. So things don’t necessarily fire off right in there. Kind of like you have a short in the electricity and since we are electrical human beings then that makes sense, right? The connect-a-dot thingie doesn’t work that well. Memory is messed up, etc.
So especially afterwards, when you get out of your abuse and not around the abuser anymore because you can’t really do that on a wall while around them, LOL!, but after it’s extremely helpful to do this. Kinda like talking and being verbal is important as well because you are getting it OUT of you so you can hear it, on the wall so you can see it.
Alot of people with very high I.Q.’s put everything on the wall like this, or on a big table, and they just get all crazy and messy and move stuff around, change this, change that, draw this, draw that, step back and look at it, do it all over again.
If you have the wall where you can see it alot, like in your bedroom across from your bed, you can sit and look at it, study it, see it all the time and it gets those wheels turning. I am what you call middle-brained or whole-brained. Just means I use both sides of my brain at once and things get really really messy in my head sometimes because I get info dumped from both sides at once. Creative and analytical. I take test after test to see if I’m right or left brained (just for kicks and giggles to see what it will say) and it’s always smack dab in the middle. But putting things on the wall is extremely helpful for me sometimes. Very much so.
It helps with confusion and getting your mojo back, finding center again, and hooking up your wires right. I highly recommend it! Abuse is just horrific what it does to our brain, our heart, our body, our soul. Pretty much just shatters everything into pieces. So it’s good to start from ground zero and say – I’m just going to take down the structure because it’s not working for me. Sometimes you can redo a house and sometimes you just have to tear it down and start over again and build what you want! Most Excellent subject matter, thank you!
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@iliketea I’ve never heard of that film but it sounds interesting, just had a look to see if it’s on Netflix but it’s not 🙁
@braelynn It’s interesting to see the different learning types you have described. I have no idea what I am, but I do know that simple little drawings that are used to put something in to context really help me. I also like analogies and how I can adapt them to my situation. One of those was something called The Modelling of the Clay, which is a biblical story. I’m not religious in any way, but it did strike something with me and helped me change the way I dealt with something.
The story goes a bit like this…
One day a potter was trying to make a clay pot. He had his clay on his wheel and was adding water and trying to get the pot in to a shape he wanted but it just wasn’t working out right. He kept trying over and over again, smashing the clay back down to a lump and bring it back up again, but all to no avail. He was getting really angry and frustrated and took it all out on the clay. Jesus came along and asked him what he was doing. “I’m trying to make a pot” the potter replied, “but this clay is just rubbish, it won’t do what I want and there’s nothing I can do to get the right result.”
Jesus took a look at the clay. “There’s nothing wrong with the clay” Jesus said. “You just don’t have the mix right, you need to add some more water and make a few changes, it’s not the clay that is the problem, it’s what you’re doing with it.”
At the time I heard this story I had left my abuser and was struggling alone with a toddler. I hadn’t got a job, I hadn’t got an income, I was living in DA accommodation, I was dealing with solicitors, courts, gathering evidence for the court case, dealing with depression and anxiety, dealing with handovers to my ex for child contact that were hostile, going to GP appointments, DA Counselling Sessions, and all of this was taking its toll on how much time and energy I had left for my son. I had become aware that my son was becoming a bit ‘problematic’ in that he was clingy, wanting extra attention, not settling down to bed at night like he used to. But after hearing the story, I realised it wasn’t my son that was the problem. My son was the clay. How I handled him was the problem. The story put everything in to context for me. So I changed the way I dealt with him. I devised a routine that was the same every evening so that it started to give him some security. I made sure I had time for him with no distractions. I realised I’d let his bedtime slip by up to an hour, so I went back to the set time each night. Within a week there was a huge improvement in my son’s behaviour. I’m so glad I heard that story.
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Good story and analogy! Like it! Consistency is huge with kids. I’ve observed a few decades now of parents and what they do and don’t do. One thing that a child absolutely has to have is – boundaries that do not move. And swift consequences if they do. Reason being is that if boundaries change or aren’t there, the fence is up, now it’s down, there’s a hole over here, etc., then that makes the child feel like they are in charge but they are too little to be charge so it makes them feel very insecure and angry actually. I see parents who give in to things, pacify their kids, buy them things, have little time for them, etc. and the child just gets angrier. They want those boundaries. The world is too big and scary for them so if they can knock down the boundary then that makes them feel very very insecure. They act like they want it but then they know deep down it’s not good for them. I like watching mother elephants on youtube and how they parent their little ones. Sooo attentive. Hyenas are great mothers, too. Now there is a sisterhood that’s a force of nature let me tell you! They allow males in to mate with and then kick them out. LOL!
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Love that story about the clay.
I’m not sure I’ve seen the film it I’ve seen something similar. I certainly find it best to write everything down when my heads a muddle, I have loads of bits of paper with memories and questions written down. It helps clear my head of the rubbish and begin to see patterns.
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Regarding the movie Shine Iliketea was talking about – here’s a tip about Netflix…
With a few simple steps you can change your Netflix region to a country like Japan and start watching Japanese Netflix, which includes Shine.
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Going to post this a few places because it was a lightbulb moment for me… Sometimes finding the words for things, how you can you say blah, blah….
Something just hit me here, was watching a movie about a manipulative, very charming guy in this woman’s life, who turned out to be a total snake….but, people who aren’t empathy based, who have none, I think we so believe that they do because of the pleasure they get conning us and lovebombing us in the beginning. We do see pleasure and I do think that’s very real, so it confuses us, but what we we don’t know it’s true orientation. What is it rooted in? We assume that they are like us and it’s because they love us, too and all that but what if the joy is related to a job/con well done? What if all that total loveliness that we see from them stems from that and that alone? Good question. We mistake it for something it’s not. Then later when things get ugly we get all confused about what we saw as real and we defend it. Well, it was real but “why” they felt all that may be a totally different reason than we assumed it was.
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@Braelynn exactly!! Its the thing Ive wondered about the most I think. How an earth can this person be so different to the one I met. Truth is he’s not, I’m just seeing him in his true light. At the start, when he smiled and did nice things I thought it was because he liked me but it wasn’t, it was about getting his way, winning, winning me I think, getting his own way, massaging his ego. I’ve never ever seen him lose control, in a happy way, whether in the throes of a passionate first **** or laughing until he wets himself (is that just a female thing?! Um? anyway, you know what I mean). Its only with his anger I’ve seen him lose control.
You’ve really hit the nail on this one. And it explains a lot. I hope you’ve written a handbook on DA? “DA for Dummies” maybe?
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I just kept thinking and mulling it over and over what’s the catch 22 here, what’s that one thing that really dangles on the end of that hook and to me this one is huge. it’s one thing to say well, all of it was fake and largely it is But – their joy and happiness and glee over conning us – is actually very real. So we’re not wrong in saying that we see the emotion and feel that it’s real. It is. And that’s what makes it so hard for us. It’s like saying someone is so so happy and fun to be with because they are on a drug. Yes, yes, the emotion is real but the “why” of it, is another thing.
I think as long as they are in the parameters “of” being high on conning us, then you’ll see all kinds of happy happy out of them. But like you say, not the kind of happy that we do. it just helps explain that while we are in the throws of it all and remember back, too, we will say but but – he was just so this and that! And I know those feelings were genuine! Yes, yes, I think they were but for very very different reasons. Reasons you knew absolutely nothing about at the time. So all you had to go on was how this was all registering with your happy meter. He was really happy……..that he had you hooked. That all his hard work at charming – actually worked. He was very proud of himself.
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Bumping @seaglass
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This is such an interesting thread. I still feel like people see me as crazy. No not crazy when we get abused in which ever form it knocks us for six. It’s such a gradual process we don’t realise it’s happening until we are stuck in the situation. abit like a bee in a jar getting shaken then opening the lid and letting it out. A train wreck I was ! Lots of learning got me their and talking to lots of women on here actually xx once we understand the dynamics we slowly piece it back together more importantly we realise this wasn’t our fault and we did not deserve any of this xx it’s a huge learning curve x
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Bumping @Buddy
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