Left / Write // Hook E-Book

• Herausgeber: Loving Healing Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 331

Beschreibung

Left / Write // Hook shows that sexual abuse survivors are everywhere, that trauma lives in the body, and it needs to be expressed.
"By no choice of their own, survivors of childhood sexual abuse spend the entirety of their lives 'in the ring', fighting. Left / Write // Hook offers visceral insight into survivors' fierce, compelling and ultimately triumphant stories."
-- Dr Joy Townsend, Learning Consent
"Donna Lyon has the ability to get women to open up and reveal all, and in the process begin the journey to healing. Boxing is a violent sport, but projects like Left / Write // Hook take the violence out of it, so that it becomes therapeutic and gives you power".
-- Tommy Hopkins, Fitlife Boxing Club, Melbourne Australia.
"In 25+ years of working with people who have experienced childhood sexual abuse, I have come to understand the need to assist people to physically move through, as well as speak about, the trauma in order to lessen the hold that the impacts that the abuse can have on one's life - Left / Write // Hook does both with powerful effectiveness."
-- Maria Vucko, (BA BSW MSW AMHSW)
Fueled with the voices and lived experiences of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, whose lives and work have been positively impacted by the combination of writing and boxing, readers will experience:

• a profound understanding of the complexity and depth of trauma through the lived experiences of survivors
• insights into the tenacious long-term impacts of abuse and trauma on the mind, body, and spirit
• personalised and collective accounts of how trauma manifests in the experiences of survivors and their sense of self
• hope and courage as to the resilience and strength of survivors who live with the daily effects of their trauma
• new insight into how the combination of physical, mental, and creative programs of expression are vital to healing
• dozens of powerful writing prompts that unearth hidden feelings, thoughts, and beliefs to recover your true self.

Leseprobe

Left / Write // Hook: Survivor Stories from a Creative Arts Boxing and Writing Project

Copyright (c) 2021 by Donna Lyon.

All Rights Reserved.

Published by:Loving Healing Press 5145 Pontiac Trail Ann Arbor, MI [email protected]

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names:Lyon, Donna, 1980 — editor.

Title:Left/Write//Hook: Survivor Stories from a Creative Arts Boxing and Writing Project [edited by] Donna Lyon.

Other titles:Left Write Hook

Identifiers:LCCN 2021026340 (print) LCCN 2021026341 (ebook)

ISBN 978-1-61599-580-6 paperback

ISBN 978-1-61599-581-3 hardcover

ISBN 978-1-61599-582-0 eBook

Subjects:LCSH: Adult child sexual abuse victims. Creative writing — Therapeutic use. Boxing — Therapeutic use

Classification:LCC RC569.5.A28 L44 2021 (print) LCC RC569.5.A28 (ebook) DDC 362.76/4--dc23

LC record available at: lccn.loc.gov/2021026340

LC ebook record available at: lccn.loc.gov/202102634

Cover design by Nuttshell Graphics

Use of Sting Logo approved by Sting International Pty Ltd

Punch Boxing Gloves used with the permission of Punch Equipment

Individual stories copyright retained by the authors, who assert their rights to be known as the authors of the work.

‘Common Terms Used in the Book’ is used with the express permission of Sidran Traumatic Stress Institute (c) 2021

www.sidran.org/glossary/ and www.sidran.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/What-is-a-dissociative-disorder.pdf

Acknowledgements

This book was made possible through the funding and support of the:

Creativity and Wellbeing Hallmark Research Initiative and Research Development Grant of University of Melbourne, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music

Thank you’s

Thank you to the following contributors and supporters of this project:

Mischa’s Boxing Central and Mischa Merz

University of Melbourne research team:

Shannon Owen, Ella Sowinska, Dr. Margaret Osborne, Dr. Khandis Blake, Bruna Andrades, Dr Steve Thomas

University of Melbourne Faculty of Fine Arts and Music VCA Film and Television

Tommy Hopkins and Fitlife Boxing Gym

Amir Attalla

Shannon Anderson

Acknowledgment of Country

We acknowledge the people of the Kulin nation, the traditional custodians of the lands that this book was developed and produced on. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and future. We recognise that sovereignty has never been ceded.

As we share our experiences of trauma, we recognise the traumatic histories of dispossession and colonisation of Australia’s First Peoples. We believe it is untenable to talk about issues of abuse and trauma in Australia without acknowledging these histories and their ongoing impacts.

Trigger Warning

This book is written by adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse who are openly declaring the effects, feelings, ramifications and manifestations of their abuse. Our writing is honest, brutal and raw and at times we use profanity. Nothing was censored in these workshops and so you might find what we share is triggering. If you do, we encourage you to take a break, practice self-care or seek the relevant support that you might need.

Sexual abuse is disgusting. Talking about it can cause discomfort from others and often from within ourselves. If you are a survivor and have not yet shared your story, we hope that our writings and thoughts might resonate with you and provide you with some hope and comfort that you are not alone.

Contents

Introduction

The Project

Group positioning statement

A note about our writings

A note about our temporal (temporary) self

Common terms used in this book

The experience of Left/Write//Hook (LWH) from the workshop participants

Before

During

After

ROUND 1

About Round 1

Round 1 Writing Prompts

I am here because | Being here

I connected and… | To punch is to… Hand to cheek, I step, I punch, I…

There is no wonder | If it hadn’t happened | Now that

The virus | My mother is a foot

Isolation | Madness

Vulnerability | Disgust | Shame

Mind | Body

I Remember | Being Believed Means

Recovery | Healing | Things I Like

Power | Fighting Back | Compassion

The last eight weeks

ROUND 2

About Round 2

Round 2 Writing Prompts

I am back here because | I begin again | Today

Being a Survivor | Denial

Trusting the process | Being on Guard | Relaxation

When I listen | I listened | Two feet on the ground Being present

Write a conversation between you and your nervous system Write a love letter to a part of your body Write all the things you hate and all the things you love

Reclaiming me | Self-esteem

He / She / They / I pushed… | I turned…

I thought I was going to It’s hard to speak out because | What it takes

Intimacy | Effects of my abuse Write a letter to your inner child | What is meaningful?

Trauma

Silence

ROUND 3

About Round 3

Round 3 Writing Prompts

I return | This time | I feel | Developing a practice

My commitment to self is Trusting myself | Trusting others

I was told | Ways I was trained to be powerless Ways I have reclaimed myself | Feeling powerful

Things I’ve felt responsible for My reality | The way I see things

I see you | When you see me | I hear you

Rage | I am angry

Being there for others | In its place | On the way

I pretend | I was tricked | Don’t disturb

Preferred ways of being | Prescribed ways of being

The Unknown | The Atmosphere

I say goodbye to | The last eight weeks

What has the group given to you that you would like other survivors to know about?

Epilogue

Contributor Bios

Introduction

The first time I got punched in the face in a training session, I cried afterwards in my car.

It wasn’t so much that it hurt, it was the shock. I froze, but I was encouraged to punch back. Boxing brought up buried emotion deep inside of me. As much as it didn’t seem very tough to shed tears, the process felt part of my healing journey.

I started boxing in my mid-thirties. I was angry and I knew it was directly related to my childhood sexual abuse and trauma. Secretly I felt drawn to boxing, its visceral nature. The prospect of hitting someone in the face and maybe even knocking them out excited me. Little did I know that within a few months of signing up to a boxing gym, I would be training for my first fight. I went on an 18-month beginners’ journey into the world of master’s boxing, an amateur division for those aged 35 and older.

My first fight was my most memorable. I fought a woman in her fifties who had a gold tooth. She was tough with a mean look in her eye and I loved every bit of the experience. The brilliance of naivete! It was a split decision, but the final point went to her. I lost, but I didn’t care. I felt elated. The feeling was short lived, as I fought another three times and lost.

The more I took fighting into the competitive space, the more disempowered I became. Lack of experience was a key factor, but performance anxiety overtook me. I practiced mindfulness (a difficult task for someone who had experienced dissociation her whole life). I tried to visualise winning and work with my inner children to quell the fear and voices, but to no avail. I dissociated in the ring. As I lost fights, louder came the chant of negative voices within me. The unconscious beliefs I had about being a failure, a loser and worthless started to overtake me. I kept powering on, fighting hard to battle through the negativity. Fighting became a metaphor for recovering from my abuse.

The training motivated me; I trained five times a week. I started running to increase my cardio. I got a trainer and we spoke daily about my routine and mental health. I remember driving to a sparring session with him one day. He said, “You are the most difficult person I have ever trained.” I looked confused. He went on; “Most people when they get hit, punch straight back. When you get hit, you just freeze.” I responded that it was instinctual. I would dissociate. Boxing triggered the feeling of the loss of control and anxiety associated with my past trauma. But I kept returning to it, determined to crack the code to release me from the bind and break through to the other side. Yet my trauma continued to undermine my boxing. I struggled to think logically and stay calm, let alone be present. I loved how boxing challenged me to try and overcome these fears, but the self-criticism, judgement, disappointment, and confusion connected to trying to win became harder to reconcile. After my final loss, I ended up having a win, in a small interclub fight. The stakes weren’t as high as the other fights and I didn’t even know it was a win/ lose fight. I took home a medal and it felt bittersweet. At least I could say I won one, I guess.

I loved being a fighter, even if I wasn’t very good at it. I have mostly been determined to fight my way through life and work through things, rather than running from them. After a period of reflection, I knew that what I enjoyed about boxing hadn’t changed. Hitting a bag hard, training, sweating, focusing on my body and breath, movement, and speed; toying with being relaxed and calm, yet sharp and on point. Boxing is a delicate interplay between the physical and the mental. It is both art and skill. It is these elements that have kept me coming back to this sport.

Although my fighting career was over, I began to wonder if there were other women like me; survivors, who could use boxing as a recovery tool, a mode of empowerment to express their trauma. I wanted to not only box with survivors, I wanted to hear their stories and share my experiences of trauma. My background is as an educator, a filmmaker, and an arts practitioner, so the juxtaposition of writing and boxing, although contradictory, felt right to me. I wanted to know what would happen if you put a bunch of survivors in a gym to firstly write about their trauma and then learn the basics of boxing to channel the feelings. And so, in 2018, I set up Left/Write//Hook and ran the project independently. In 2019, I became a level one boxing coach and in 2020, I took the project into the research space at University of Melbourne, where I lecture in Producing for Film and Television.

Left/Write//Hook is not about becoming a writer, or a fighter. I believe survivors need to give their trauma expression. I believe survivors are already fighters. I knew what it was like to fight through shame, negative thinking, addiction, toxic beliefs and even for the will to want to survive and live life. I knew that other survivors felt the same. Journal writing had helped me in the past, but I found it hard to do. I felt sleepy after I wrote, as though expressing the trauma and then just leaving it there on paper was only one part of the process. I needed to give the words emotion, the memories a purpose. I needed to move the trauma through my mind, then into and out of my body.

I set up Left/Write//Hook for me and I was grateful when others joined. I am even more thankful to be growing this project in tandem with others, particularly the survivors whose work is featured in this book, all of whom have boldly stepped into the ring to share their trauma. This project has a life of its own. It has given me a purpose and I feel supported and accountable. My heart breaks when I hear each person share their writings. I connect to the heartache of my dissociated and repressed trauma through the words of those in the group. I develop compassion and empathy for my selves and others. The pain I have been carrying all these years is shared and it suddenly develops perspective and is given new context. I can reveal all of me and the fragments of my identity, yet I am gently encouraged to stay strong and keep going. It’s an understanding that life is not easy, but a reminder that joy is still to be found.

Donna Lyon

The Project

Left/Write//Hook is an evidence-based project that aims to support and amplify the voice and agency of female and gender diverse survivors of childhood sexual abuse and trauma through writing and boxing. It is founded and led by boxer, academic, researcher, producer and survivor of extreme sexual and mental abuse, Donna Lyon.

This book is a co-curation of writings from the participants who came together in 2020 to form part of a creative arts research project into the Left/Write//Hook program. The project was funded through a grant from University of Melbourne Creativity and Wellbeing Research Institute, situated within the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. This iteration of Left/Write//Hook brought together an interdisciplinary research team and mixed methods research design to explore the impact of the program on the participant’s wellbeing and sense of agency. This included a documentary filmmaker who, with a small team, filmed the program, with the intent of producing a long form documentary film. Allowing a camera into the space to document the process was very confronting for most of the people in the room. It meant essentially ‘coming out’ as a survivor and claiming this label in a public manner.

At the end of week two of Round One, Covid-19 hit. The group were situated in Melbourne, Australia and quickly went into lockdown. Ranked as one of the longest and toughest lockdowns in the world, the group were to spend approximately seven months in domestic and online environments. After consulting with the research team, in week three, the project moved online to zoom. The research component ran officially for eight weeks, however Lyon continued to run Left/Write//Hook over three rounds with the participants, throughout 2020.

As of the time of writing, the filmmaking research team and survivors are continuing to work on the documentary and capture aspects of our journey, including the many book meetings we have had to formulate this selection of our writings. A journal article has been released to report the research findings and the Left/Write//Hook program continues to develop and take shape to reach more survivors.

Group positioning statement

We are a group of people with lived experience of childhood sexual abuse, this is the context in which we came together. Our experiences are different, but the effects of our abuse have been resoundingly similar.

We offer insight into what it means to live as a survivor. The adverse effects of childhood sexual abuse are long term. Trauma lives in the body, and it needs to be expressed.

We are a group of white, female and gender diverse survivors, whose ages range from 28 to 55. Our abuse ranges from incest, attacks from people in our social circles, to assaults by complete strangers, through to organisational, institutional, and ritual abuse. We do not speak for or represent all survivors.

We came together in 2020 as part of a creative arts research project combining boxing and writing. Our trauma responses include depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, body dysmorphia, addiction, suicide attempts and difficulties forming and maintaining interpersonal relationships.

Some of us have been institutionalised, some have not. Many of us have experienced stigma, and financial hardship. Some of us even have PhDs. Many of us are professionals, others cannot work due to the struggles of dealing with the daily effects of our abuse. Some of us have children. Others are in heterosexual or same-sex relationships, or have difficulty being in a relationship. Some of us are still in close contact with our families, others have had to sever all ties.

Some of us have faith in God. Some of us have a personal spirituality. Some of us find the concept of God difficult to embrace. Others have completely rejected organised religion due to the part it has played in our lifelong trauma.

We have co-curated and created this book together. We have taken responsibility for what writings we were comfortable sharing and how we wanted to be named and identified.

We acknowledge that there are many parts to each of us, within the group and as a whole.

Any allegations made against any individual in this book have not been admitted to by the alleged wrongdoer/s.

A note about our writings

The writings in this book were written as a free form response to a writing prompt. No structural format was assigned. This style may be referred to as prose poetry, allowing for the combination of the poetic and prose form to reveal itself through creative writing. Each writer was encouraged to express themselves in whatever way they liked, and each writing was considered a form of artistic expression. All writing was seen as being instinctively right. At times the writing is from deep within the writer’s subconscious and does not follow the bounds of language and expression. Punctuation may not exist, tense may change, and words may be spontaneous, creative, and broad. The process of writing may sometimes contain a pattern, other times, it is purely about bypassing the censoring parts of our minds.

A note about our temporal (temporary) self

Every workshop began with a check-in. We sat together and were asked one at a time how we were going. This is simple and like a lot of simple things it is very profound. It is an invitation to check-in not check-out and take on a role or abandon self to be there for others. I was listened to; the others were there for me and I listened to them. It was like checking into a hotel, but this hotel was not a holiday it was an opportunity to reside in my authentic self, not a self in recovery not a self that had to play a role as a professional or friend or mother, lover, daughter, sister, but an authentic self, there to tell the truth of my experiences. This was a place I could be honest and not be shut down or silenced. I would not be judged, doubted, interrogated, discredited, dismissed, and disbelieved. Here was a place I could talk about what I could not talk about in any other setting. Some people can talk about their life openly without fear of causing other people vicarious trauma, I cannot.

In this context of trust, we were given writing prompts. I wrote without editing myself, I wrote freely. I wrote about how I felt at the time. I do not need to identify with what I wrote as definitive; I do not have to identify with it at all. My writings represent what I was thinking and feeling at specific moments in time, not what I think and feel at all times. My writing does not represent all that I am, it is writing, it is thinking and feeling, it is not me. It represents a temporary self at best. Once it is written I have already changed. I am never finished, complete or containable. I am forever in becoming, I am irreducible.

Claire Gaskin

Common terms used in this book1

Dissociation

The separation of ideas, feelings, information, identity, or memories that would normally go together. Dissociation exists on a continuum: At one end are mild dissociative experiences common to most people (such as daydreaming or highway hypnosis) and at the other extreme is severe chronic dissociation, such as Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder) and other dissociative disorders. Dissociation appears to be a normal process used to handle trauma that over time becomes reinforced and develops into maladaptive coping.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

Tragically, ongoing traumatic conditions such as abuse, community violence, war, or painful medical procedures are not one-time events. For people repeatedly exposed to these experiences, especially in childhood, dissociation is an extremely effective coping “skill.” However, it can become a double-edged sword. It can protect them from awareness of the pain in the short-run, but a person who dissociates often may find in the long-run his or her sense of personal history and identity is affected. For some people, dissociation is so frequent it results in serious pathology, relationship difficulties, and inability to function, especially when under stress.

Fragment (often expressed by the writers as selves or parts or inner child or children)

Within the personality system of a person who has a dissociative disorder, a fragment is a dissociated part of that person which has limited function and is less distinct or developed than a personality state. Usually, a fragment has a consistent emotional and behavioral response to specific situations. For example, a fragment may handle the expression of feelings through drawing.

Ritual abuse

While not necessarily satanic, ritual abuse generally involves cult-like or religious rituals and mind control in addition to sexual, physical and/or psychological abuse. “…repeated abuse over an extended period of time. The physical abuse is severe, sometimes including torture and killing. The sexual abuse is usually painful, humiliating, intended as a means of gaining dominance over the victim. The psychological abuse is devastating and involves the use of ritual indoctrination. It includes mind control techniques which convey to the victim a profound terror of the cult members…most victims are in a state of terror, mind control and dissociation.” Report of the Ritual Abuse Task Force, Los Angeles County Commission for Women, 1991, p. 1.

System

A descriptive term for all the aspects or parts of the mind in an individual with DID (MPD). This includes personality states, memories, feelings, ego states, entities, and any other way of describing dissociated aspects of an individual. Understanding the parts as a system rather than as separate personality states provides an important frame of reference for treatment. Also called internal system or personality system.

1Used with the express permission of Sidran Traumatic Stress Institute (C) 2021www.sidran.org/glossary/ andwww.sidran.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/What-is-a-dissociative-disorder.pdf

The experience of Left / Write // Hook (LWH) from the workshop participants

Before

Claire speaks…

Before the workshops I felt isolated

After the workshops I feel a sense of community and conviction

Before the workshops I felt enormous fear of memories

After the workshops I feel memories are breakthroughs into coherence

Before the workshops I felt shame I felt sick of having the worst story in any given room

After the workshops I feel less shame and more solidarity

Before the workshops I felt stuck in pretending to be alright

After the workshops I feel more ground underneath me

Before the workshops I felt on the verge of realisation

After the workshops I feel more certain of the life I have made

Before the workshops I felt remaining hidden was the most important occupation

After the workshops I feel I can look without looking away

Before the workshops I felt flinchy and reactive in public

After the workshops I feel I can occupy the space I take up and be still

Julie speaks…

Before I started at LWH my life was turbulent. My mental health was all over the place. I didn’t see myself as a survivor or a victim, just somebody who endured horrific child sexual abuse at the hands of some horrible men and boys. I thought it was normal and that it happened to most people. How very wrong I was!

I was staying at a place called PARC (Prevention and Recovery Care) and my partner called me and told me about Donna’s article in the paper. I really didn’t think it was for me, but I thought about it and said FUCK IT I will give it a try. I am very overweight and very unfit and of course was very scared. That was two years ago. Before my first session I was filled with anxiety and really wanted to cancel. But I plucked up the courage to go and I am so glad I did. Donna was the nicest person and put me at ease. I was introduced to seven other women and pretty much straight away I was as comfortable as I could be. The process of writing then boxing seemed weird, but as it turned out it was a perfect fit. I remember being so totally drained and exhausted after the group but eager to go back. And two years on I have no regrets.

Khale speaks…

Before these workshops, I had hardly ever spoken to anyone about the things that had happened to me. They seemed unspeakable. People don’t like hearing these things. I had been silenced. Don’t upset people. But mostly I was just so, so ashamed.

I still struggle with shame. It’s not that simple. But there is a bigger feeling rising inside me, pushing my shame aside. I am angry. I am so furious at every sick fuck who ever dared to lay a hand on me or the people in this workshop or the millions of other people around the world who have been abused. I am angry, and I will not be silenced any more. I am speaking out. I don’t care if it makes people uncomfortable. People need to hear this. You need to know that this is SO MANY PEOPLE’S story. These issues are RIFE in our communities, they are in our religious institutions, they are in our government, our schools, our families. It has GOT TO STOP. I will not be silent anymore.

Nikki speaks…

Before attending Left / Write // Hook, I’d already been in therapy of one form or another for 16 years. Each therapist and approach had been right at the time, but I’d increasingly been moving towards addressing my mind-body disconnection, and the fact that I held the trauma in ways I couldn’t release through talking alone. I was constantly afraid. I knew that my default would be to freeze should I be threatened — but I had learnt to hide that behind smiles and humour. I felt the need not to burden those around me. I was taught that to be a burden was reprehensible.

Dove speaks…

Prior to Left / Write // Hook I had never attended any sort of group for survivors. I found the idea of speaking about my trauma in front of a group terrifying. I was overwhelmed by shame and feelings of disgust and isolation. I was sure it would just be another situation that would confirm I was an unlikeable freak.

Fortunately, this was not the case. I felt a great sense of pride at overcoming my fear and sharing openly and honestly, even though it was extremely terrifying and hard. I worked through some very heavy stuff during the workshops and felt relieved that I did not have to pretend to be fine. It was ok to be a wreck. The ongoing battles for me are deep feelings of shame and disgust (as it is for most survivors). Speaking out and being accepted really helped me. I am now able to be more open and honest about myself and my background in life and with friends. I can tell a diluted version of the truth now instead of desperately trying to think of lies to make myself look normal which often backfired as I’m a really bad liar.

The workshops helped me to feel less isolated and alone. Hearing the other women’s stories made me realise what I feel, and experience is normal and common to many survivors. It helped me feel more accepting of myself. I now use writing more regularly as therapy and find it an effective way to communicate with my parts and give them a voice. I already used exercise as a strategy to cope with powerlessness, brokenness, anger, and rage. The workshops taught me to be better able to sit with pain, accept it and work through it. Boxing also makes me feel empowered and more able to protect myself in everyday life. Recovery is ongoing, I will never be well, but LWH has been a positive part of my healing.

Lauren speaks…

Before Left / Write // Hook I felt isolated. I lived a fragmented existence. I was able to present to myself and others as living a normal and functional life. My daily existence ebbed and flowed on a depressive spectrum, oscillating between feelings of total meaninglessness and a persistent sense of cynicism. I struggled to let go and worked incredibly hard, reaching for unattainable standards of perfection, and rarely letting myself rest. I had memories of what had happened, but they felt remote, disconnected. I’d come across stories from other survivors who looked and sounded like me, and I was starting to learn about trauma and its effect on the body. After close to 15 years of therapy I felt disillusioned and beaten down by the mental health system. I’d had a lot of fresh starts in my life, each time searching for an answer. I’d settle on something, only for problems to re-emerge or manifest in new ways. I now see that I was trying to find a new way of being that didn’t feel so hard, while not feeling able to accept or admit just how hard I found life. It was a reality that caused me a lot of shame.

During

Julie speaks…

During Left / Write // Hook I wanted to give up so many times, but we had started the process of filming for a documentary. I didn’t think twice about doing it as I wanted my story to be heard and to help other women out there who had also been silenced for so long. During this whole process with some help and support from my partner, my counsellor and LWH, I decided to report the crimes and finally let someone in authority know. This didn’t happen overnight; it was something that had churned me up for such a long time. Once again, I was at PARC and with support, I made that phone call. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Anyway, I did it. I really believe I could not have done this if it wasn’t for LWH. It gave me some power back. When Covid hit, we had just started filming and then it all stopped. We did our sessions via zoom and that felt totally weird. I felt disconnected from the group but still turned up each week. Finally, we went back at the end of the year. The other women are so supportive and kind. And without this process I don’t think I would have achieved what I have today.

Claire speaks…

I felt held in the workshop space. I felt a sense of community and safety. I felt encouraged and supported emotionally, physically, mentally, and psychologically. This was because I knew I would not be judged or belittled. I felt safe to speak and write freely.

As I pushed myself physically, I felt strong, I sweated freely and felt free to go hard and exhaust myself. I vocalised as I hit the bag and accessed deep buried anger and felt safe to do so.

I had body memories and although it was terrible it also felt good to be real and be unmasking what had been hidden by decades of repression and societal silencing.

When I became emotional it increasingly felt more like release than overwhelm, it felt more manageable and real. When I had insights and realisations it felt strengthening and clarifying and less confusing or shameful. My mental and emotional state became one of focus and intention to be more truthful. I felt the environment of the workshop instigated and supported a strong sense of purpose and conviction. This sense of purpose and conviction has solidified in me to take into the rest of my life, the determination to support and encourage real and lasting change.

Lauren speaks…

In the first workshop, I felt very nervous and a deep sense of imposter syndrome, like I wasn’t a real trauma survivor. I was overcome with emotion. It felt as if the extent of my suffering was recognised for the first time; a powerful affirmation that it wasn’t all in my head. The weekly workshops became a container where I could exhale completely. If I felt shame, I said it. If I felt everyone in the group hated me, I said it. I challenged these feelings. The group held each other in a radical space of acceptance, love and understanding. We reminded each other of our resilience. We made space for each other. We wrote to prompts and learnt to trust the process. Hearing everyone’s writing each week often triggered feelings of rage, disgust, hopelessness, hopefulness, shame, and sadness. These feelings rested in a powerful context of solidarity. This felt, and continues to feel, deeply political to me.

The physical practice that followed our writing challenged me every week. Boxing is hard. Every time I felt my body being pushed to its limit, I felt the bubbling up of shame and panic, the traumatised parts of me coming out to remind me I was weak, pathetic, that I didn’t belong in the group, that my abuse wasn’t bad enough to ‘count.’ But I kept going. Emerging from the other side of the boxing practice, I always experienced a shift. My experience varied from week to week, but through movement something always happened. It grounded me, and in a profound way it showed me that I can influence my experience by connecting with my body.

Dove speaks…

My experience of the workshops depended on what I was working through and what was happening in my life at the time. It was often an emotional rollercoaster; I was often surprised by what came up. At other times I was too shut down to connect with the workshop.

I always felt very anxious and exposed going into workshops. I felt I was outing myself as a survivor, even though I knew everyone was in the same boat, I found that very confronting. I had not had great experiences speaking out before and this was the first time I had attended any sort of group for survivors.

In time I learnt to let go during writing and allow my parts to express what they needed to; I was often surprised by what I wrote. The writing gave my parts a voice and a chance to be heard outside of a therapy setting. I was always nervous about sharing what I had written and worried about how others would react, but I was determined to do it and always glad I did. I struggled most when I was emotional. I hate showing weakness and vulnerability, even in a safe environment as it was never safe for me to do so in the past. After sharing I would feel relieved, no-one ever judged me. The other women would regularly express emotions, experiences and beliefs about themselves and the world like mine.

I have used exercise and boxing for years to cope with my trauma so was more comfortable with the boxing/workout part of the workshop. I did find it hard to let go during boxing and connect with my emotions be it deep pain, anger, or rage. I find it difficult to show these sides of myself as I have always had to keep them hidden. I had to make a concerted effort to sit with the emotions that had come up during the week/workshop and then focus them into the workout. Over time I became much better at this (though not always) and used it during my own workouts to work through everything from rage to feeling weak and powerless. I loved boxing with the other women. After sharing such personal writing, it made me feel like we were really connected and healing together. I really missed this connection during the online workshops. I found by the end of the workshops I always felt exhausted but also relaxed and grounded and proud of what I had achieved.

Khale speaks…

Before I attended these workshops, if you had asked me about anger, I would have said that I am not an angry person. I never get angry. It’s just not part of who I am.

Every week I turned up, I wrote, I got deep into my own trauma, and I listened while other people shared. I heard so many heartbreaking stories week after week of the incredible evil that people are willing to inflict upon others. I so often felt so deeply sad and ashamed, sometimes to the point of tears, as we shared what we had been through. It was all just so completely unfair.

Once we transitioned into boxing, I found that something had been awakened in me. As we puffed, and grunted, and PUNCHED, I got angry. I was completely enraged. From the very first time I punched the bag, it was as though something snapped inside me that had been coiled tight for my whole life. I AM SO ANGRY. I punched and punched and punched, every week, getting angrier with every story we shared. I cannot believe how much anger I’ve been carrying around my whole life, never addressing. But now I know. And now I box. I get angry, I swear, I cry, and I punch until I am exhausted. It feels good to be this angry. We SHOULD be angry.

As I went through each workshop, I began supplementing the weekly workout regimen by doing my own exercise at home during lockdown. Throughout 2020 I went from a couch potato to a strong and fit person. I could run, I could do push ups, I could punch, I could lift weights. Slowly my body began to feel strong and hard. I was fast. I was strong. As someone who has spent so much of their life hiding inside afraid of the world, I can’t tell you how different it was to navigate the world in this new body. I feel so much less afraid because I feel so capable. I know I can fight; I know I can run away. I have spent my life hating my body, but now I treasure it because I know it can protect me. I can protect myself. I didn’t know it was possible to go for a walk outside without feeling terrified. I have been transformed.

Nikki speaks…

I do not think I will ever forget the visceral emotional and physical experience of the first workshop. It was the first time I had spoken to more than one person at a time about my abuse. Even in therapy I had been using euphemisms like “childhood trauma,” I was never explicit. But in that first workshop I wrote about it. And it was so challenging to put the words to paper, and then to say them out loud. My throat was constricting, the tears were running, I could feel myself shaking. I had NAMED my abuser in public, and part of me was screaming that bad things would happen, that even though he’s been dead for over a decade, that he was going to get me. To get us. And then… nothing happened. He didn’t get us, and nothing bad happened.

I remember getting up and hitting the bag and feeling the emotions flow through me — I could see his face and I was hitting and screaming and vocalising everything I’ve kept inside for so, so long. And then my arms felt weak, and I heard the voices inside my head growing louder, reminding me that it was bad to fight back. The voices started to rise and try to make me be quiet again. I was shaking and crying, curling over on the floor, sobbing like I had never been able to before. And then there were arms around me, and someone whispering to me. Not to stop crying, or saying it was all going to be ok. I don’t even think it was with words, but just knowing that for the first time, I felt like it was ok to feel this way, to react and to grieve. That the person holding me knew exactly what it was I was feeling, and that they were there with me, not taking it on themselves, but just holding me while I felt what I needed to. They weren’t taking my load, my burden — they were just letting me put it down.