Healing HERstory the Podcast

About Healing HERstory the Podcast

Healing HERstory is a (very) low tech podcast all about trauma and healing and vulnerability and bravery and finding joy, hosted by. Michelle Robertson (me!). It’s a one woman show. In the first season, Things Unspoken, I speak from my own experience, exploring the aspects of childhood abuse and sexual violence that are often bushed over and not addressed. CONTENT WARNING: Take care of YOU! Switch off and step away if you need to. healingherstory.substack.com (https://healingherstory.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

with Michelle Robertson

Category

education · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

12 Nov 2022

Latest episode

4 Mar 2023

Latest episodes

12 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   4 Mar 2023

   S1: E11 - Talking About Suicide

   In this, the final episode of the season, I talk about one of the biggest “Things Unspoken”. Please take extra care and make sure that you’re in a safe space when you listen. I committed to 10 episodes for this first season and I did it, plus 1, despite a few weeks hiatus in between. I’ve really enjoyed this medium and plan to be back with more in the near future. Thanks so much for listening to this Season. I really appreciate your support. Subscribe for free to be the first to know when Season 2 begins. . TRANSCRIPTION Hi, everyone, and welcome back. This is the final episode of this season of healing her story. Today we're going to be talking about suicide, which is not an easy thing to talk about, and something that is still not openly discussed in any real sense. So I think it fits very well and the theme of Things Unspoken. And yeah, it's something that's really been on my mind. So let's get into it. There has been a fair bit of peer reviewed research around the correlation between suicide and child abuse, and very briefly, the conclusions are that Children who experience physical, sexual, and emotional abuse or neglect are at least two to three times more likely to attempt suicide in later life. Of the different types of abuse experienced, only childhood sexual abuse directly predicted suicidal ideation. All other types of abuse indirectly predicted suicidal ideation through their association with anxiety. Overall, Children who experience physical, sexual, and emotional abuse or neglect are at least two to three times more likely to attempt suicide in later life. People don't like talking about suicide in public. No, not even those who post on their feeds. I'm here if you want to talk. In fact, these copy and paste posts, really get my hackles up. Leave this on your profile for so many minutes or hours, or whatever, to show that you support. It does nothing. Most people who are seriously contemplating suicide are not able to reach out. Talk of suicide makes people uncomfortable, or sanctimonious. They don't know what to say, and they don't know how to respond. In the company of other people's pain and helplessness, people withdraw. They spout platitudes rather than engaging in real conversation about the reasons and circumstances that lead to thoughts of leaving this world. Conversations around death by suicide need to be more than telling people, I'm here, you have so much to live for, this will pass, don't give up. You're not alone. Let's face it, when you're stuck in the hopelessness and the agony of having to take each next breath, when you're at that point of feeling, that death is the easiest, most painless way out of the place that you find yourself in now. When you're at the point where you have spoken yourself out of all the reasons you have to stay attached to this world. Those things that people say are empty. There is very little acknowledgement of despair. And there's very little acknowledgement or understanding that death can seem like a relief, like a solution, like a way out, like the only avenue open, like the only reasonable choice. Often if we're in that space of suicidal ideation, we don't share our thoughts with others, or we talk about it in the abstract. It is widely believed and taught that connection is the antidote to despair. However, in order to feel connected, we need to feel heard and understood. And that includes being understood in our helplessness and hopelessness, and pain. Part of being heard and understood means that we have to be able to say, and to hear, and to see the words. I do not want to live anymore, without having somebody come back with a band aid. You're not alone. I'm here for you. How exactly does that work? What does being here for me mean? What is it that we really need in these moments? Do we even know ourselves? I have personally contemplated suicide pretty often. Many, many times over the years. In fact, I've come very close to acting on those thoughts. But the thing that always pulled me back was the thought of what it would do to my children. I've also experienced people I love acting on those feelings. It's beyond devastating for those of us left behind. I lost one of my very closest friends to suicide several years ago, and it was crippling. But in that all encompassing grief, I also understood the motivation. He was not outwardly depressed, he had everything going for him, his career was really taking off. He just bought a new home. We'd been discussing a business venture we were planning together. I'd seen him two days before, and everything had seemed the way it always was. When I got the word that he had died, I lost myself in the devastation of his absence from my life, and a part of me shattered, never to be mended. And while the reactions of our mutual friends and close family went through the gamut of responses to grief, including anger, how could he do this? I never felt that anger. As much of a shock as it was, it was also not unexpected to me. And it wasn't un-understandable to me. Because I really did understand, intimately, the draw of death as a solution. This episode is not to offer answers. But to highlight that for some of us, death always lurks on the edges. Even when we're happy, even when we're dealing with life and coping. And this is another thing that is not spoken. Not in any real sense. Not with any authenticity or transparency. You're not alone. I'm here for you. None of those words or sentiments, really cut it. This first series of the podcast has been about Things Unspoken. And it feels right that suicide should be the final episode of the series. It remains the great unspoken. I hope that you found the series to be illuminating. And that at the very least, it has helped you feel less of an albatross in the things that you are going through, thinking about, and experiencing. Just because society is beginning to talk about trauma doesn't mean that people are ready for the real, raw experiences to be put into language, and put into the public domain. But these conversations need to be had without the sugarcoating and the platitudes I'll be back in a month or two with a second series. I'm not sure yet how that will pan out. But I'll keep you updated. Until then, take care of yourself. And please share this podcast with anybody that you think might find it useful. Thanks for your support, and for listening over the last several weeks and months. And I really look forward to being back shortly. Thank you for listening. This podcast is public so feel free to share it if there’s someone you think will benefit. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healingherstory.substack.com (https://healingherstory.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

2. 

   17 Feb 2023

   S1: E10 - Trauma Fractures Our Identity

   In this week’s episode I talk about trauma and identity. There is so much to say on this topic and, in fact, it is the basis for much of my work. If it resonates, let me know, I’d love to hear from you. TRANSCRIPT Hi everyone and welcome to another episode. Over the last few weeks, and possibly even months, I have taken a bit of a step back from the trauma work that I do with others. I have stepped back from my social media pages and I have spent time concentrating on this podcast. In retrospect. This has been extremely draining for me. Speaking the unspeakable is always difficult and many of the things I have spoken about in the podcast, I think that I have never spoken in public. I had to take a short break which leads me to this week’s topic: Trauma and Identity. Growing into who we are and developing our identity is a journey from birth all the way through our lives, until we take our last breath. Yes, I believe that the purpose of life is getting to know who we are intimately and deeply. When we experience trauma, along our life’s journey, it affects us on an identity level. If we’ve experienced trauma in early childhood, it has a profound effect on our identity and our journey towards self. I would love to be able to tell you that I have it all figured out and that I can point you to a checklist, so that you can come out the other side knowing exactly who you are, what you want, how to deal with life, but there is no quick fix for life, and certainly not for trauma. I have found many tools along the way that have helped me.  They’ve taken me a lifetime to accumulate and assimilate, and the journey has not been an easy, it has, however, been extremely worthwhile.  This forms the basis of my trauma work with others. It is important to understand that the tools we use through our lives will be different at the different stages during our healing process. We likely used unhealthy tools in order to survive when we were children and young women, but as we begin an active path toward healing we experiment with more healthy approaches. Some of these work and some of them don’t, some of them work for some people and not for others, some of them and will work for a while and then not work again. What worked at the beginning of our healing process may not work later on. Something else that I have discovered, is that there are times in our lives that new tools are required. Growing into who we are takes a lifetime, even without the trauma foundation, so when we have begun with a difficult foundation, it is important to understand that this is a journey to self is a journey for everyone, and the destination is not final. We will need new coping tools at the different times and stages of our lives and we will discover new things about ourselves at these different stages. When we experience key moments in our lives birth, death, love career changes, illness and, of course menopause. We my also find ourselves experiencing further traumas, and these will require healing too. All of these and more, can throw us off kilter, can derail our healing, and yes we can experience a resurgence of trauma responses that we thought we had overcome. Trauma can affect the way that we view ourselves in relation to the world. Everyone talks about the effects of trauma, in childhood and through life, but what they don’t talk much about is that it fractures you on an identity level. There’s so much emphasis on survivorship and healing, that little is voiced in terms of that fracture. Identity formation is an important part of normal development, and takes place across our lifespan from birth, through childhood and adolescence, into adulthood, and old age. When I speak about identity I’m talking about our sense of self, of feeling enough, the integrations of emotion and intellect, awareness of our own emotional state as we feel it in our hearts and minds and bodies, how secure we feel in ourselves and within the world, how we experience ourselves. Identity is disrupted by developmental trauma because basic survival takes precedence over, and uses resources ordinarily allocated for, normal development of the self. Childhood trauma changes the trajectory of the brain’s development, because an environment characterised by fear and neglect, for example, causes different adaptations of brain circuitry than one of safety, security, and love. The earlier the distress, on average, the more profound the effect. This is contrasted by distinct before and after with traumatic events in adulthood. Who you were before the traumatic event, whatever that may be - the loss of a loved one, an accident, a medical diagnosis, an attack, an abusive relationship, and who you are now, in the aftermath. With childhood trauma it’s more complex, it’s layered. Your development of identity is intertwined with the trauma. Trauma becomes the foundation upon which you develop your identity. The question of Who Am I, Really?  Is one that takes time to answer. It takes work, and most of all it takes the willingness to do the work. What that work entails will differ from person to person, and depend on the modality that works for them. Again, it is not a quick fix, it is an ongoing journey. We need to learn to trust ourselves and trust the other (whomever we choose to work with), The process we follow involves observing, feeling, accepting, and integrating. A part of this process is also grieving. Grieving isn’t only the terrain of death. What we need to do is reclaim our Selves! It’s not about finding ourselves again, it’s about excavating, exploring and discovering who we are at each step of the journey. I’m really excited to be starting a project that I’ve called the Self-Dicovery Lab. It’ll be a place where we can journey together on this path of self-discovery. I look forward to sharing more with you in the weeks to come. Thank you for listening! If there’s someone you think may enjoy the podcast, feel free to share. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healingherstory.substack.com (https://healingherstory.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

3. 

   20 Jan 2023

   S1: E9 - Promiscuity, Hypersexuality and Risky Sexual Behaviour

   I guess this week’s topic is self explanatory. I encourage you to take special care as I speak about sexual violence, child abuse and rape. Take care of YOU! Switch off and step away if you need to. TRANSCRIPT Sex is such a difficult and complex topic, and one that is naturally shied away from. Yes, even today, when so much is considered acceptable in conversation, and women are so much more empowered than ever before. There is still a lot of subterfuge around the subject, so many lies we tell ourselves and others, so many ways in which the world, and by the world, I mean society, imposes it’s standards upon us. Truthfully, this topic requires more than just a short podcast, but it’s certainly one of the “Things Unspoken” and so I have to include it here. Promiscuity is also an extremely loaded word: The original meaning of the word in the 1500s was to describe something random or disordered, by the 1600s it was used to describe someone who was undiscerning in their choices. By the 1800s it was used to describe sexual behaviour, particularly the sexual behaviour, or perceived behaviour of women. While the word is being reclaimed and the meaning once again opening up, there are still some negative overtones in many sectors of society. The word “hypersexuality” is used to describe compulsive sexual behaviour, and risky sexual behaviour speaks for itself. I have experienced all of these. There’s quite a bit of research around these behaviours and choices as they relate to abuse, and even more speculation. I’m not going to talk about that, the research is available for anyone who want to explore more. What I want to talk about is my own experience and the lived experiences of hundreds of survivors of childhood sexual abuse that I have spoken with over the years. It’s something seldom discussed outside of support groups, and often not even in the sanctitude of therapy. It seems counterintuitive at first that sexual abuse in childhood, or sexual violence in adulthood would lead to promiscuous and even risky sexual behaviour. People often think that the natural response would be to shy away from physically intimate contact. While this is certainly true for many women, it is not the case for a multitude of others…and it’s really not that simple or that binary. Our responses and attitudes toward sex can vary over time, and even in the short term. We can sleep with a stranger one night and be filled with self-loathing, or feel nothing at all, and then not want to have intimate physical contact at all for a long time. We can obsess over sex and even turn to pornography, yes, women too, as a trauma response. The fact that this is not spoken about further isolates survivors and exacerbates our feelings of self loathing and shame. I have spoken with women who are so wracked with guilt and shame over their physical, emotional and cognitive responses to sex, that they are convinced that everything that happened to them is punishment for their own thoughts and feelings. When I was a young girl, around twelve I think, I fell with a bottle in my hand and sliced open the ball of my thumb, exposing the muscle. It required a lot of stitches, and I was convinced that it was punishment for using my hand to masturbate. I didn’t know the word ‘masturbate’, this was in the mid seventies, and NOTHING was spoken about. Sex, politics and religion were taboo topics, at least they were where I lived. All I knew was that I had sinned and this was my punishment. It may be useful to break down what happens when we are sexually traumatised. Trauma, especially in childhood, but also later in life, shatters us on the level of identity. If the trauma occurred in childhood, we had not yet developed a sense of self. A lot of what I cover in my various courses and programmes, revolves around identity. Our sense of identity lies at the core of our trauma. My identity and worthiness (or lack of worth) was built primarily around sex, around the way in which men responded to me. As I’ve mentioned before, the abuse began before the age of three, I had no identity outside of the abuse. This is an enormously complex issue. I’ve also mentioned in an earlier episode that I was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. This compounded things enormously. No explanation can do justice to my experience of life, but to simplify things, the different parts of me took on different roles. I was both drawn to sexual encounters and repulsed by them. I found both validation in sexual encounters and self-loathing. As much as my self worth was upheld by being desired sexually, it was immediately shattered in the fulfilment of that desire. I’d come to learn years later, that it was very much like addiction, it was something I both craved and hated about myself. Sex and love were so messed up in my head, as soon as I had feelings for someone, I could no longer maintain a sexual relationship. My body and my mind were completely separate, and I had no idea which way I would respond. Sex was both an escape and a wound. The first season of this podcast is called “Things Unspoken” and our relationship to sex in the aftermath of sexual violence is definitely one of those unspoken things. As much as we are shining a light on sexual abuse and violence, there is still so much that is hidden, that we keep from the world and each other because of the foundational shame around our experiences and, as we begin to try and heal, around our trauma responses. Keeping silent about what we experience in the aftermath of abuse and sexual violence is as isolating and damaging as the silence around the actual abuse. It really is time to break the silence. About all of it. It’s also important to acknowledge that the same way in which each of our experiences are different, our trauma responses and our healing will be different too. It’s my hope that we can destigmatise it ALL, so that we can make the transition from shame to healing without the added judgement from society. Shame is a residue of trauma that separates us from ourselves and from others. Before I end this, I want to say something about sexuality and promiscuity. There is nothing wrong with having different sexual partners. There’s nothing wrong with sexual experimentation and exploration. Sex with different partners can be a way of reclaiming your sexuality. There are both healthy and unhealthy ways of doing this. However and with whomever you engage in sexual activity, it should leave you feeling empowered and affirmed and good about yourself, it should be an embodied experience, not a dissociative one, and should not leave you filled with guilt and shame and questioning your self worth. Unfortunately we are fighting both ourselves and society on this front, I just hope that the world will continue to change so that young women are able to grow up without the societal stigma around women and sex. As always I welcome your thoughts and comments. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healingherstory.substack.com (https://healingherstory.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

4. 

   13 Jan 2023

   S1: E8 - The Liberation of NOT Needing to Forgive

   This week I’m talking about forgiveness and sharing my thoughts on why I think it’s too much to ask and that it’s not a prerequisite for healing. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healingherstory.substack.com (https://healingherstory.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

5. 

   6 Jan 2023

   S1: E7 - When We Are the Cause of Trauma

   This week I’m talking about how we can be the cause of trauma through our healing process. I ask whether we can avoid causing trauma, and share from my own experience. I hope that this encourages conversation on a topic that isn’t often discussed in public and that it helps you feel less alone. CONTENT WARNING: Besides the general warning for this podcast, in this episode I talk about suicide and suicidal ideation. Please ensure that you take care of YOU! Switch off and step away if you need to. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healingherstory.substack.com (https://healingherstory.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

6. 

   23 Dec 2022

   S1: E6 - The Unspoken “feels” of the Holidays

   In this brief episode I talk about the difficult feelings around the holidays, how life doesn’t pause in December, that we don’t need to feel shame for not feeling joy during the season of jolliness and that change is a process, one choice at a time. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healingherstory.substack.com (https://healingherstory.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

7. 

   16 Dec 2022

   S1: E5 - Child Abuse Affects Our Work and Career

   This week I’m talking about how abuse in childhood affects our work and career, I touch on the lockdown experience and share a little about my feelings of not being good enough at school. Full transcript at: https://healingherstory.substack.com/ (https://healingherstory.substack.com/) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healingherstory.substack.com (https://healingherstory.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

8. 

   9 Dec 2022

   S1: E4 - Vulnerability Was Dangerous

   This week I’m talking about vulnerability and courage (thanks Brené Brown!) and the irony of vulnerability being necessary to facilitate healing, how courage can seem like foolishness, connecting to our emotions and finding joy. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healingherstory.substack.com (https://healingherstory.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

9. 

   2 Dec 2022

   S1: E3 Child Abuse Robs Us of “First Times”

   This week I’m talking about rights of passage and how first times are not really first times when you’ve been sexually abused. I speak from my own context and experiences with abuse and rape. It was an especially tough episode to record, and so I imagine it may be especially tough to listen to, so be cognizant of that. The blog post I refer to is: First Times (https://healingherstory.com/my-journey/first-times/). It’s positive and uplifting and not as heavy as this podcast episode, so give it a read. **Content Warning: Sexual Violence, CSA** Take care of YOU! Switch off and step away if you need to. TRANSCRIPT Hi and welcome to todays episode of Healing HERstory, Things Unspoken. I’m Michelle Robertson and today I’m talking about first times and rights of passage. I wrote a blog post about this a few years ago, it was more of a personal story of how I came to the realisation of just how impossible it is for us, and by us, I mean those of us who have experienced sexual abuse during childhood, to share in so many of the the conversations about rights of passage that are taken for granted for those in our peer groups over the years. I’ll drop a link to that post in the show notes, in case you’re interested. This one may may be especially difficult to listen to, so please take special care and step away if you need to. If you stick with me, I hope that it makes you feel less alone and that it validates your own experiences in some way. One of the things about childhood trauma is that it strips us of many rights of passage. There are no real “first times”. First kiss, first touch, first tentative sexual explorations… It’s yet another thing that  no one really talks about, not that I’ve heard. Except once, which is what the blog post was about. And looking back at that post now, it doesn’t really address what I’m actually trying to say now, it’s more a story of an evening shared by friends. A very uplifting and empowering evening, but it was about that specific experience. I’m still struggling to wrap this in words, but I know that there are so many of you out there that will relate to this. During my mid teen years, I had a small group of friends, both male and female. They were smart kids, and I don’t really remember what brought us together as a group. I was not popular, I was quiet and insular, I felt “different” as I always had and I always felt a little dull, intellectually challenged. Not smart enough. I muddled through by being quiet, never raising my hand in class. It was really the first time I had had friends at school, and some of us went on to forge stronger bonds after high school. I count myself lucky to still have some of those friends, even though we are scattered across the globe now. Adolescence is that period when we transition from childhood to adulthood. It involves physical, psychological and emotional changes. Girls conversations during these first year of adolescence revolve around boys, at least they did when I was a teenager. Its a time when we begin to explore our sexuality within the safe confines of our peer group. For those who have been sexually abused at an early age, these first explorations are not really the first, and the conflicting thoughts and feelings of shame and confusion can be excruciating. A simple, innocent question or throwaway comment, like “I wish he’d hold my hand,” is weighted. Getting my period for the first time was terrifying. I thought I’d was dying. That I was being punished. I had no idea what it meant, no one had told me, and I was certainly not going to ask anyone and have them find out what an evil person I was. When I was a young girl, sex was the ultimate sin that a woman could commit. There were so many labels for “cheap” girls and women, as they were called in polite society. When no one was around to impress, the words became harsher, trollop, tramp, slut, whore. I knew I fit in there somewhere, that those words belonged to me somehow, but I wasn’t sure how or exactly why. I felt that I was living a lie. The abuse had stopped around the age of twelve. For a long time I thought it was because we moved house, but the timeline didn’t quite fit and it’s only in retrospect and through therapy that I realised that it was because I had become to old to be of interest to the men who were using me. It was also a long time before I connected what had been happening to me all through my childhood with sex. My first kiss, which was not a first, happened when I was thirteen. I was too young and the boy was too old, but I didn’t know that. I had no context. The first time I had consensual sex, I was nineteen. I was in a long term relationship, it was planned and I was in love. A first time that wasn’t a first time. I don’t know when I “lost” my virginity, only that the abuse began before my third birthday. I don’t know how many men there were, only that there were many. When my mother found out I was having sex with my boyfriend, she called me a slut and a whore. There was no polite society to overhear. When conversations with girl friends inevitably turned to first times, I reminded silent. I never shared anything. I didn’t know what to say. I was labelled a dark horse. I counted my first times by consent although I didn’t know the word consent at the time. When I was 21 I experienced a violent rape by a stranger. That was also not a first time. I’d been raped all through my childhood. When I was 22 I was engaged in a year long relationship with another woman. I loved her and we were happy for the time we were together, but that too, was not a first time. The abuse I experienced in later childhood, from about the age of seven or eight, involved another little girl. I loved her too. The school dances, the furtive kisses, the fumbled petting, the first flutters of attraction, all of these are tainted, are overlayed with a film of confused shame, sometimes fear, and often self loathing. It’s another thing that isn’t discussed in the ever more open discourse of child abuse and sexual assault. It has taken me decades to process this, to even articulate it. It is one more thing that abuse strips from us. The innocence, the wonder and the discovery of all those first times. This has been a difficult episode for me, more so than I’d thought it would be, it sounded a lot more articulate in my head than it does while I’m speaking. I feel that there’s a lot more I want to say about this, but I’m not able to find the words right now. This season of the podcast is titled Things Unspoken, The purpose is to bring to light those things that are still left unspoken in the festering dark aftermath of sexual abuse, the topics that people still don’t dare to address in public spaces and so make us feel that we are alone. and this is not something I’ve heard spoken of before. If you’re listening to this and you’d like to extend the conversation, please feel free to comment or message me privately via email, I would welcome hearing from you. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healingherstory.substack.com (https://healingherstory.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

10. 

    25 Nov 2022

    S1: E2 - Loving the Men Who Abused Us

    In this episode I talk a bit about some of my own experiences with abuse, how much I loved the great uncle who first abused me and how abuse can look a lot like love. I mention my diagnoses of Dissociative Identity Disorder (which I never meant to do) and ask what we do with the love we feel for our abuser… love doesn’t just end when we begin to process the abuse. **Content Warning: Sexual Violence, CSA** Take care of YOU! Switch off and step away if you need to. TRANSCRIPT We need to have a conversation about the men in our lives. Those who have harmed us. Being an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse is a complex tangle of emotion. What we learned as children was that, at worst, love is equated with abuse and at best, love co-exists with abuse. We need to talk about what that abuse looked like, and we need to dispel the myth that abuse is always violent. It is ALWAYS a violation; but it can look gentle, it can look caring, and it can look a lot like love… This is what’s so confusing, and why so many women forge adult relationships that involve abuse. Yes, there are many many children who are neglected, abandoned and beaten. Who endure horrific circumstances and violence. But there are others who, as I spoke about last time, are ordinary. They live seemingly ordinary lives, except for the fact that daddy, or granddad or big brother or uncle Fred is coming into their room at night to ‘play’. What do you do when you love your abuser? As a child it’s impossible to process what’s happening. My abuse began before the age of three. I hadn’t really known anything different. I knew it was a secret, I knew something was not right and that my mom would be really angry with me if she knew - she was often disapproving of me. I knew that I was bad, that there was something wrong with me, but I didn’t connect it to my great uncle and our ‘games’. I loved him. Oh, how I loved him. He was larger than life. A big, bear of a man, and he made me laugh. He made me feel as though I was the most special being on the planet and that the world revolved around me. I can picture him, still, all these years later, sitting on the sofa in my grandmother’s living room, the window behind him, me, perched on his knee as I sang to him. Singing was my thing. It was the thing that made me special, at least in my child mind. I guess that identity carried over because years later, after a hysterectomy and hormonal problems, my voice broke, like a teenage boy’s and I was devastated to find that I had lost a sense of myself. Again. But that’s a story for another day. He doted on me, and I on him. Now, years later, I am able to see the two of us through the eyes of the family, and understand how they called it a beautiful bond. As an adult, processing the reality, what do we do with those feelings of love? How do we cleave the love from the abuse when it’s all an impossible tangle. These are the things that no one talks about in public. The double edged sword of childhood abuse. This is one of the reasons why speaking out is so fucking hard. The men who harm us, are also ordinary. They’re sons and fathers and uncles and husbands and cousins and brothers. They are the men that we love. Often, they are not creepy people who behave lecherously and are overtly inappropriate. Of course there are many like that too. As a pre-teen and teenager, I encountered my fair share of these. Haven’t we all? There was the family friend who would stick his tongue in my mouth whenever I was unable to avoid kissing him in greeting - a really stupid thing that family members insisted on in the 60’s and 70’s; and a number of others over the years, including bosses, colleagues and the husbands of women I knew. These are the men we learn to avoid. We dodge the greetings by hiding out in the bathroom, or make sure that we don’t pass too closely to their chairs for fear of a surreptitious hand reaching out to squeeze or pinch or grope. But it’s the ordinary ones, those who are a part of the fabric of our lives, that don’t stand out in any particular way, that no one suspects, who are causing the real damage. These beloved, trusted pillars of our lives, are the real monsters. And yes, oftentimes we love them. When that first violation of trust occurred, I was far too young to understand, only a baby at almost three. I had no sense that there was something wrong, I believed that I was special and this was love. It was formative to me, a part of how I evolved my identity. It fractured me in a very tangible way. In adulthood I was diagnosed by three different mental health professionals with Dissociative Identity Disorder. I may or may not speak more about this in the future. It took me a complete breakdown and many, many years in therapy to get to where I am now. Sitting here, talking to you. Love isn’t something that stops overnight. Love is an emotional connection and it’s complex. I’m speaking here from my personal perspective of childhood sexual abuse. But there are many women in abusive relationships who love their partners. It’s too easy for people to negate those feelings as attachment issues. That’s far too glib. It is possible to love someone and, at the same time, understand that they aren’t a safe or healthy person to be around. When dealing with abusive situations, love can be a coping mechanism too. We detach from the pain and the harm by subconsciously looking at things from the abusers perspective. In many cases, gaslighting solidifies this perspective. We learn to appease the abusive person, Appeasement is a survival response along with Fight Flight and Freeze . Today’s colloquial term is fawn. Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn - Fight, Flight, Freeze, Appease. Survival is a strong instinct and it’s just that, instinct. The job of your nervous system is to keep you safe, in whatever way it can. When we are out of the abusive situation, we don’t just turn off our love. I want you to know that it’s okay. It’s okay to love the man who hurt you. It doesn’t make you complicit, it doesn’t make you responsible, it doesn’t make you hypocritical, or a liar, it doesn’t mean you’re overreacting to the abuse. It doesn’t not make what happened to you “not so bad”. It doesn’t negate your experience in any way. Loving the men who hurt us, is perfectly understandable. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healingherstory.substack.com (https://healingherstory.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

11. 

    18 Nov 2022

    S1: E1 - I Am an Ordinary Woman

    This is Healing HERstory, the Podcast, my low tech podcast about healing from childhood trauma and sexual violence. I’m Michelle Robertson, I also write Support Notes that you can receive in your inbox every Sunday. **Content Warning: Sexual Violence, CSA** Take care of YOU! Switch off and step away if you need to. TRANSCRIPT I am an ordinary woman. Most of us are. People like to use labels like “extraordinary” about others and sometimes, even about themselves - depending on which self help guru they’re listening to. And yes, it can be useful for our confidence and our self esteem to think of ourselves as extraordinary, but really, we’re not. We’re imperfect human beings trying to do the best that we can. Just like everyone else. As an aside, I want to differentiate between the meanings of ordinary and unique. When I speak about being ordinary I take it to mean “what is commonplace or standard” And the sheer volume of the population makes us commonplace and standard. Unique on the other hand means one of a kind. And yes, we are unique as human beings, each of us, the fact that we are also ordinary is an antinomy of sorts. Why am I talking about being ordinary? Well, I was lying awake the other night, as I often do, and thinking about the women in my circle. My personal circle, not my extended business circle, and I was struck by the commonality of our experiences. In particular, our experiences with sexual violence. Of the women I have been friends with over the years, a large number of them have experienced sexual abuse in childhood. I thought about these women and the stories they had shared with me over the years. I am part of that circle. There is nothing unusual about us, we come from a variety of backgrounds, different family dynamics, different cultures. There is nothing to set us apart and label us as “at risk”. But for the fact that we have shared our stories, there is no way of “knowing”. I extended my thought process to include the women in my life who had been raped and had shared those painful memories with me. The circle widened considerably. Again, I am a part of this circle.  Again, there is nothing unusual, or “different” about us. We are just women. If we then include domestic violence (which all too often includes sexual violence), it’s bigger still. What about sexual harassment and inappropriate advances. As I lay there in the darkeness… pondering…The circle now encompassed over 90% of the women I have called friends over the course of my 58 years. It was a long night, and yes, I did the calculations. The conclusion I am forced to draw, is that sexual violence is commonplace. But we knew that already, didn’t we? When the #metoo hashtag went viral on social media, we couldn’t help but know that, surely? I am so deeply disturbed by this because I know that these statistics extend to our daughters’ generation. I haven’t heard all the stories about our daughters, because, well, it’s hard enough to share our own stories, but I’ve heard enough to want to scream ENOUGH! Where does it end? How does it end? When I first began my journey of healing, my life imploded. I already had two children. I was an extremely damaged young woman who had no idea just how damaged I was. I wish I had had the opportunity to begin healing before I committed to “adulting”. It’s only in retrospect that I can see how completely unprepared I was. Sometimes I want to reach back in time and call out to that lonely, frightened woman who was so much in denial and living so fully in survival mode that she thought she had it all together, and warn her. I digress. Back to my sleepless night. I’ve had this podcast on the back burner for a while, and life and work spilled over and I kept it there. Now, I thought. This. I thought. Healing has to be about more than just the individual, and as we know, healing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It takes community. It takes connection. That’s why over the course of so many years I’ve volunteered to work with women in some of the most dire of circumstances and helped to facilitate the telling of their stories in some small way. It’s why I started doing this more formally in an online setting three years ago. On some level I always understood that healing ourSELVES, tending to our own woundedness, and bringing our experiences into the open with our words would impact more than just those of us in the circle, it would spill out into the world and reach into the void to connect us in our healing. But what I’ve just now come to realise, is that it’s even more than that. Our ever widening circles, our ever strengthening voices, our collective stories and journeys of pain and loss and brokenness will do more than heal us. It’s really the ONLY way to begin to heal the world. I’m not one to think of pain and suffering as transformative. Yes, it can be, for some. But to prescribe that something beautiful should come out of something abhorrent, is to turn the focus back onto the victims of these crimes. And yes, there is no doubt that these are crimes, and we are victims. Before I was a survivor , I was a victim. Let’s not forget that, because in skipping out the part of our stories where we are victims of injustice, we skip over the fact that there is a perpetrator. Someone, a real, live, fellow human being, who did the unthinkable to us. Who committed an act of terror upon another. Let us remember that as survivors are also victims of these acts. There is damage. Untold damage. There are secondary victims, and changing the language of sexual violence and abuse to speak up as survivors, while ignoring the fact that we were victims, changes the focus somewhat. It’s nuanced, and that’s why words are so important. Sexual violence is commonplace. It’s a reality for ordinary women. Every day.  It’s almost become a right of passage for women. I feel sick to my stomach just saying those words… but there’s an undeniable truth there. The world is in as much need of healing as we are. Our wider societies need to learn to care about what is happening to their women and children. Society needs to do more than pay lip service to the atrocities that are taking place under their noses.  Society needs to heal, and the ONLY way to do so is by using our voices, sharing our stories, showing our tender wounds and letting the world know that this is not okay. That we will not be silenced. That we will speak our truth. I don’t know exactly how that will work yet, but I do know the power of shared stories. I’ll end this first broadcast with this quote by Margaret Mead: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. I find that very powerful, because we are not a small group, Those of us who have been victims of violence, those of us who have experience abuse, we are not a small group, we’re a large circle, and together, we CAN change the world. EDIT: I recorded this episode a few weeks ago, and in the interim, at the beginning of this month if fact, the United Nations declared November 18th, which is today, the World Day for the Prevention of and Healing from Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Violence. The road isn’t easy, and the time frames for creating change are far too long, but this is a start and I hope that you will join me in raising your voice to make known what is happening to women and children around the world and that sexual violence and child sexual abuse is a real problem in ALL societies. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healingherstory.substack.com (https://healingherstory.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

12. 

    12 Nov 2022

    S1 - Introduction, Who I am, Why this podcast

    (**Content Warning, CSA, sexual violence**) You’re listening to Healing HERstory, the Podcast. This is my low tech podcast about healing from childhood trauma and sexual violence. I’m Michelle Robertson, I also write Support Notes that you can receive in your inbox every Sunday. TRANSCRIPT This is really an introduction to this podcast and a little bit about who I am, why I’m doing this podcast and yeah, I guess we’ll take it from there. I’ve worn many different hats over the course of my lifetime so far, both professionally and personally, sometimes at the same time. Now that I live in Ireland, they’re mostly beanies, but no doubt there’ll be many, many more hats to wear. I’ve been an entrepreneur for most of my life. I’ve founded several, successful businesses over the yeas, across different industries including leaning and development, property investment, digital media, marketing and communications and web development. But throughout my entrepreneurial journey, I’ve volunteered as a lay counsellor, working with women in some of the worst and most dire circumstances. Women who have experienced trauma on a scale that is incomprehensible to most people. The bulk of my experience was gained back in South Africa, where I ran story telling workshops with women in the townships who had experienced sexual violence. I was a trauma counsellor with my local police department, counselling victims of crime, most often very violent crime; as well as a volunteer at an HIV AIDS Hospice. Besides all of that I am also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and sexual violence in adulthood, among many other traumatic experiences. I founded Healing HERstory after moving to Ireland about five and a half years or so ago and I run that alongside my role as a digital communications professional. I’ve opted for the podcast option because I am so unbearably uncomfortable on video, which I guess stems back to my own childhood. It took me a little while to link this back to my childhood abuse experiences, probably far longer than it should have, given all the work I’ve done over the years on this. I will be sharing more about my story as these episodes continue. This first season of the podcast will be about 10 episodes. I’ve capped it at 10 in order to keep myself accountable and so that I can have a goal to work towards. I find I work much better when I have something that I can pin as an end point. What I’ve realised despite all my discomfort around speaking online and on camera and sharing my story, I’ve realised that in order to do the work that I do, which is really my passion, I have to bring my full truth, my full authentic self, even though the word authentic I feel has really been overused in recent times. For someone who’s entire life and, survival as a child certainly, relied on misdirection and lying and hiding, my thoughts, my feelings, my SELF, this is an excruciatingly difficult endeavour. You see, I've been there. In the darkest corners of your mind, the most secret places where you hate the world and hate yourself. The basement of secrets where you cringe at your lovers touch, yet welcome the anonymous touch of a stranger. Where you curl up in a corner and cry because you are so far removed, so far disconnected from your life, the dark and damp walls of your mind feel tangible, a rock solid prison that you exist within. I feel the scream that's trapped inside you, like some heavy balloon that steals away your breath, unable to be released. I know the tightrope you walk between love and hate, between rage and terror, I know the relief of sinking into numbness. Whatever your experience, whatever your trauma, I understand the confusion, the bewilderment of not knowing who you are; the self loathing at not being able to appropriately appreciate and immerse yourself in the love of those around you; the conviction that there must be something wrong with you because surely you should be better by now, shouldn’t you? I know how you have given up on or distanced yourself from close friendships, how you feel that you're always on the outside, that no one understands you or your experiences, how you feel. You don't even understand yourself, how could they? I'm with you when you close your eyes at the end of the day feeling what you think is sad, but is really just empty, unable to remember the last time you felt joy. I know you. My pain is your pain. But what I also know that there's a way through. That all the clichés are clichés for a reason, and that the reason we think they don't work is because we want it to be easy. We've done hard. We're tired of hard. We want the sweet solace of normality. Whatever that may be. Talking your way through countless therapy sessions only moved you so far, the truth is that you need more than just talk. Words are good and powerful and healing, but a lot of our trauma is stuck in our body. So while we dance with the language of healing, we need some practical strategies to keep us accountable and to help us deal with the daily struggle of anxiety, panic attacks, fear... when the nervous system kicks into overdrive, we need the tools to bring us back to calm. I’ll be sharing a lot of different things on this podcast. To be honest, I’m not 100% sure how it will take shape. A lot of the women I’ve worked with over the last two years since the pandemic are business women. Many of them are older and have been through therapy. They believed they’d dealt with their trauma, that they were doing well…. And then the wheels got wobbly. The truth is, healing is ongoing and we need to fine tune our coping tools from time to time. I’ll explore a lot of different things here, at least I hope to, and if there’s anything you’d like me to address, let me know. I’m also planning on doing an interview series, but I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let me end by saying welcome. I’m glad you’re along for the ride, and i look forward to connecting, exploring and growing with you. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healingherstory.substack.com (https://healingherstory.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

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