Trauma and Boundaries

In light of recent news headlines, it got me thinking about the eleven year old me. Sometimes the most dangerous predator is not a stranger on the street but someone we welcome into our home.?

If you asked me when was my first kiss and who was it. I consider it to be with my first boyfriend at the age of 25. It’s not actually true. I was actually eleven years old and he was about twenty years my senior. I had no idea what was going on or how wrong it was. I was groomed at the age of eleven. It took watching one of the ChildLine adverts and a word in church one day, both in the same week to show me it needed to stop. It never felt right anyway, I remember him having really bad breath. It was quite disgusting. But, you know, we're taught that we are supposed to do what elders tell us right?

The next time he came to the house and asked for a glass of water and followed me into the kitchen, as was his way. The skinny 11 year old me stood up to this big, stocky guy about four times my size. And I said NO, I looked him square in the eyes. And I said NO. And his response was you are all grown up now. So that in itself tells me he knew what he was doing was absolutely incorrect. I never told anyone until I was about nineteen. I had a close friend at University. That person is still one of my best friends to this day. That was twenty four years ago.?

What I learned from this is recovery takes time. If you don’t address it, the unresolved trauma and shame sits with you and you carry it around like a heavy suitcase. I'm always talking about off loading your baggage and unloading old hurts and pains. We have lots of little micro traumas, for me the molestation was the big trauma. One of the biggest ones in my life, but there have been lots of little ones along the way, which have made a difference to how I have been able to show up to others. The pain and the trauma manifests in different ways. I am always saying dis-ease in the mind manifests as disease in the body but also in our characteristics in our behaviours in our words that we speak and in how we speak, it manifests in certain behaviours. For me, it meant shutting people out and not asking for help when I have needed it, or asking for the much needed emotional support. And recently, I realised I was avoiding asking for help from someone because they actually resembled my abuser.

I'm someone who's pretty self aware. So, for me, it was a big revelation to realise that I was still being affected even though I have done so much work around the healing, around the trauma of what happened to me. I never told anyone in my family. And to this day, I've only ever discussed this with my little sister, and certainly not my brothers.?

I've even had therapy, which helped in terms of being more open to men in general and the idea of marriage and children. As much as I verbally said, I really wanted to have children, wanted to have a husband and be married and all the things that go with it, I realised that I hadn't actually seen myself married, I didn't see myself with children. I didn't actually believe that I would have children. That has now changed, I do believe that I will have a husband, God has already picked him out for me and I know how many children are coming my way. I am really grateful for that. . There's an old proverb that talks about anything hidden cannot remain so. All things done in the dark eventually get exposed by light. And I have since reached out to that particular person who resembles my abuser and it's quite a revelation. Because I realised I was keeping that person at arm's length. I kept him at arm's length for a long time, even though I wanted and needed his help. He is one of my favourite people now and there is no residual angst. God did some deep healing work on me.?

I manifested a lot of behaviours that I now know to be a result of the shame I felt around the abuse. I didn't really embrace my femininity, I shut it away in a box and packed it away and put it away. A box in a box in a box. It showed up in me not always being mindful about doing things that are considered feminine, like doing my hair and taking care of myself. And as much as I did do my hair or my nails. I think it was just a mechanical process because I do like to look good but feeling good is important too and deep down that was missing. I have a very good hairstylist and we are much better acquainted these days. I used to go to an amazing nail guy in Peckham. They looked so good, so amazing people thought they were fake, but I think it was just very much a surface thing, going through the motions.?

Whereas now when I think about my femininity, I actually feel feminine, whereas before I did it because it was just something that women do. But now I actually deep down in my everything feel feminine. I embrace my womanhood and all the authority that holds.? And I'm happy to embrace it, I'm happy to share it and be a feminine person.?

Deprivation was another big behavioural symptom. Because I didn't feel worthy, I deprived myself of so much. Which then resulted in me not really taking care of myself the way I deserve. If I had to wear makeup, I would literally do the bare minimum. Even though I really liked nice things and liked looking good. It went as deep as the food I ate and how I prepared it. I just was not fussed about what I ate. Now I have a nice growing collection of instagram worthy pictures of my meals, even if it is just for one.?

I tended to avoid men, and I would freak out if a black man in particular showed me any interest. My abuser was a black man, they come in all shapes, sizes, sexes and colours. The therapy really helped. I remember the first time I just simply smiled at a man as I walked past and I did not feel like hiding or running past swiftly with my head down. It was a good day.?

The rest of the work has been very much a spiritual journey. And it's been a long, hard road of clearing unwanted demons and coming to a place of peace. I was always searching for something, but I guess I stopped looking when God finally claimed me. I honestly don't know where I would be today without Him. Life was always so challenging and like an uphill battle, I felt incomplete. There is an innate yearning to find something greater than ourselves that is? inbuilt from the very beginning of our creation. Or perhap we are born feeling complete and life just throws a few curve balls at us and we start looking without instead of within.?

My life now feels like roller skating uphill. An easy glide up the slope, that’s God’s doing. In my weakness and surrender I found my strength.

I no longer stress about money, or Covid or anything else. I retired my PhD in fear. I remain calm in the face of all things, knowing my God is my truth, the facts are just a distraction. I know that everything is working out for me.

When we are processing trauma we process it in layers. A very good friend of mine who happens to be a therapist told me it's like an onion and we peel away layer by layer. I remember not really believing him, however he is very correct. I see that with my clients where we delve into one layer. We clear that and it's a big emotional breakthrough and then, another and another as we peel away the layers. As a person gets physically stronger,? add more challenging movements you see the build up of strength and flexibility. I see them start from not being able to do very much to being able to hold themselves up on their arms; to being able to stay in a particular position for an extended period of time in an absolutely relaxed state. And then as I start adding more movement, more tricks. You notice that even this brings another layer of complexity of how do I get into that particular position physically? How do I get into it mentally? How do I trust my body to do that? And then you know they might be in the middle of doing something and then all of a sudden an emotion will pop up or a thought or memory. And then we have to work through that and it's really interesting and exciting for a person because its the next layer of healing.

I was mute for years, so I wrote it down. I wrote about the abuse I experienced in the past. And one of the things that I would keep coming back to was, why is it important, why is it important that I speak up now? I even forced myself to share my story on stage at an open mic night and promptly hyperventilated off stage. But the most powerful thing was how freeing it was and people came to me afterwards and told me my story was their story. There are too many of us with these stories!?

I realised the reason I need to speak now is because I was mute for so many years. I wasn't communicating, I had a veil over me so I was obscured and no one saw the real me.

There was a barrier or a boundary break a boundary breach. As children, we're growing, we're learning what boundaries are, we're learning how to interact with people, how to communicate effectively. And so there's this element. If your child says no to something and you try to force that child to do it. You're actually not allowing that child to enact their free will of boundary setting, and it's that learning that help with healthy relationships for them to know what is right and wrong for them.?

I recently found an amazing book called Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud, Ph.D. and honestly it was such an eye opener. I realised for me, the issue was that there were a lot of boundaries that are broken throughout my life. One of the things I took on board was guilt and shame, because I had those two elements that were really bringing me down to a place of self condemnation. And until I was able to one let go of that and understand that it wasn't my fault and I was not to blame. It wasn't me, it wasn't my shame. It wasn't my guilt to hold on to, because it was my abuser's shame. It means that I just feel free and I have found my voice. I can actually articulate what I need now, and you find that a lot of people in relationships, because they've got this breakdown in their boundaries, they're not able to actually interact with people in the right way to be able to ask for what they want on one hand. On the other perhaps they're overstepping their boundaries. Either way it's not healthy. A lot of adults are actually recovering from their upbringing.

I think it's important to create adults who are fully healed and strong, and moving through this life with ease. Create a childhood children don’t have to recover from. Those same adults when they have their children, they now start to raise children who become adults who are fully functioning fully capable, fully understanding what boundaries mean; fully understand what it means to have that free will, to make the choice to choose and be able to speak into what it is they want in their lives, rather than staying mute in order to not rock the boat; rather than just going with the status quo; rather than accepting what other people tell them. The boat was meant to be rocked. Let's stop them ending up in wrong relationships, picking the wrong people because they think that's normal behaviour.

The gut is the seat of boundaries, it's where they are created, but it's also the seat of your identity, your roots, your core. And at eleven I was still developing and growing, and actually just becoming an adult, just about to hit puberty as a teenager, things were about to start changing for me. Having that experience meant my identity did not form as it should have done. It made me who I am today. What the enemy meant for evil, God has made for good.?

During my mBit coaching certification training I learned about that whole idea of sitting with myself and taking space to allow further growth and development. As a coach, as a healer, I am always giving, but I allowed myself to receive from others this time. My identity was something I really needed to understand. My identity as a business woman seemed to be centred around the idea that to do good business you have to be a man, wrong. My identity in Christ Jesus as a new Chrsitian is something I have been developing and have found my absolute strength in my belief in God, having seen what wonders He has wrought in my life.?

Moral of the story, just like the phoenix I rise again, stronger than ever and ready to serve all those souls that need to embrace their authority. The beauty of God's healing is it is eternal. It would be my pleasure to help you embrace your divine healing. [email protected]