5/18/2017 0 Comments Labels that heal.....I have worn many labels in my life. I have been the daughter of a criminal, a champion runner, a victim of sexual abuse, an abandoned wife, a solo mother, a co-dependant...... I have learned that labels can be healing. They can help us identify things about ourselves and can help us to understand and accept things in our lives and experience but they can also be limiting and prevent us growing by suppressing and limiting our expectations. When I first walked into the rooms of the twelve-step recovery program called Co-Dependants Anonymous I was lost and confused. I had gone to the meeting hoping to find out some information about what Co-Dependancy was, and if in that understanding I might find explanations and answers for things I struggled with. When the meeting began it was not about information but about people. People sharing their lives. I sat in rapt admiration and fascination, listening to person after person speaking about things that were happening in their every-day lives that touched my soul. People spoke of ordinary things; relationship loss, feelings, conflicts, every day struggles, but as they spoke I felt something stirring within me, a connection so strong, like nothing I had ever known before. These people understood my life in ways I never had. These people had identified themselves as Co-dependant and as I felt that connection with them I knew that I had found what had been missing in my own self-awareness. I introduced myself then and said words that we so incredibly healing, I'm Sue and I am Co-dependant. I began to understand myself. The label was enlightening. The label helped me to grasp how the ways I had found to deal with things in the past had helped back then, but no longer served me well anymore and instead were like chains that kept me from growing. Week after week I slowly processed and pealed back the layers I had built up over the years, I cried, I laughed, I began to emerge. But over the period of time I spent in those rooms, those many wonderful years, I began to feel restricted by the label, like a piece of clothing I had outgrown. It began to feel tight and restrictive and like I had no where else to go. I began to understand then that I was a recovering Co-dependant and I altered my view of myself. A label can wield a great deal of power - we must choose them well. And we must be willing to change them when they no longer fit. I outgrew even the recovering Co-Dependant and began to appreciate that it is possible to recover and began describing myself at recovered. I no longer did things I had done before, I no longer functioned in the same old ways - it was a new day and I was a new me. I still wear labels today but they are very different to the ones I have worn in the past and in part this is because they are of my own choosing. I am a recovered survivor of child sexual abuse, I am a writer, a counselor informed by Narrative Ideas, a cruising sailor, and a Facebook Page Owner. I feel less controlled by my labels and more like I contribute to them. I have over the course of the last ten to fifteen years of my life, completely re-invented myself and it's an amazing gift. When you think about the words you might use to describe yourself, are they words that liberate you, that free you, that help you to understand yourself.....or are they words that restrict you? Is it time to change how you think about yourself? Are you a strong survivor when you used to think of yourself as a victim? Do you see yourself as a brave and courageous woman (or man) when you used to think of yourself as helpless in your circumstances? A label can simply be so powerful. It can heal or it can harm. Choose wisely and change as you need to. ♥ ~ Sue © 2017 Susan Parry-Jones
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5/9/2017 3 Comments Is Recovery Possible?Imagine being in a serious accident and thinking you could just walk away from it, and be okay! It’s crazy really isn’t it! Of course after an accident most of us wouldn’t hesitate to get checked out – to go to hospital and let a Doctor examine us – check us over for broken bones and bruised ligaments and muscles. X-rays might be taken and blood tests done to make sure that there are no hidden injuries that if left untended might lead to complications. And that’s just the beginning! Anyone who has ever suffered injury following an accident would know that there might be an initial assessment but after that the path of recovery can be anything but smooth. There can be the need to reset breakages that have not healed right, there may need to be physiotherapy, hydro therapy and in the case of any kind of brain injury, all sorts of occupational therapy as well. The work involved in recovery can feel endless and quite overwhelming – and yet, the alternative – not doing anything – is not even to be considered. Recovery – when compared to the accident which might have happened in a moment – can take years. I think it really helps to picture this when we are thinking about the recovery necessary following abuse. It is so easy to put unrealistic expectations on ourselves about what we might need to do to recover. We can get exasperated with ourselves that we aren’t over it yet, that it’s taking so long, that others seem to be progressing faster than us, that it’s all so hard. Add to that the suggestions others – who have had nothing to recover from – might impose – and what you end up with is a sense of failure or of being less-than, even in doing our recovery work. Here is the truth about recovery – it takes time and work. And lots of both. I did most of my recovery work using the 12 Step program, Co-Dependants Anonymous. I got a sponsor, worked the steps, and attended every meeting offered. For me that was twice weekly. It was important to me to not waste the opportunity, to make sure that I got out of the program what I wanted – which was to be more than a victim, to be able to live life as abundantly as possible. Prior to that I had also attended counseling and read books and talked to other survivors. I picture the different things I have done as being like the different elements of a house – walls, windows, doors, roof. For me the 12 Step group was like the walls that held everything else together and helped everything else become connected. Each aspect of my recovery journey was useful in its own way, but without a doubt, the 12 step program provided a framework that helped me to make sense of all the other elements and a means to understand everything else that I had benefited from in a holistic way. My encouragement to you in your own healing journey is simply to do something! You have been in a wreck, and it’s time, if you haven’t already taken yourself off to get some help, to do exactly that! Find someone you can trust who is qualified to help you, a counselor with some understanding of the issues you have faced. Or find a recovery meeting near you so that you can make yourself accountable for your recovery work, and go to the meetings – every one of them! Read. Pray. Ask your pastor for help. Find a group on line if you are in a small rural community or isolated in other ways. Whatever you do, stop thinking that you can walk away from this unscathed. But remember too that the sooner you begin the healing journey the sooner you will begin to reap the benefits! Love and hugs ~ Sue |
AuthorSue Parry-Jones is a trained counsellor, a social worker and survivor of abuse. The content of the blog is both personal and sound. The words are relate-able and widely appealing to those struggling with survival from abuse in their own lives. More and more we are appreciating in our society that abuse affects a number of people’s lives and as more people are beginning to openly discuss what they have endured, so there is a huge need for encouragement and hope in the form of texts that deliver clear and concise yet real input. THe words shared here are honest, real and heart-felt. Archives
February 2018
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