Life After Pain (A Walk Everyday May Blog)

  Hi Dragonflies, Recently I have been reading Maya Angelou's poetry book And Still I Rise. She is truly an inspiring woman. Fierce and Inspirational she was not just a feminist poet but also a civil rights activist and a professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University of North Carolina. She read poetry at Bill Clintons inauguration and was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom from Obama. These are just some of her amazing accomplishments. She rose from a background of poverty, violence and racism to become a voice of a generation that still speaks in volumes. I thought it would be good to share one of her poems to help my dragonflies to feel validated and stronger in times of great pain. STILL I RISE By Maya Angelou You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my livi...

  Hi Dragonflies, Recently I spoke to my father because I wanted to know whether he caught my Grandmother's other cat and whilst speaking to him I thought I would try something that other people suggested I try; Asking him whether he is aware that he practices coercive control. It backfired. My father threw a tantrum saying "Oh I manipulated my mother and brother into loving me...etc." This made me angry because he did actually manipulate my grandmother. He pretends to not know what manipulation is. But you can actually manipulate someone into getting them to love you (It's called a trauma bond) more on that later though. My father actually used the fact that my Grandmother loves him to help him ambush me into getting me to talk to him. (more on that later too, although I may have written a post on this in the past anyway) My father then kept trying to pin all the blame on me (as to why I have to cut contact and gaslight me when I repeated every toxic thing my dad sai...

  Hi My Dragonflies, Something I was reminded of when I had my temporary truce with my father was how I felt being a victim of his abuse. As a society, we have a preconception of what a victim of abuse should look like and how they should feel but it is not a feeling of vulnerability and sadness for most. Some feel that way but most don't. When you're being raised by abusive parents you do not feel sad and helpless all the time. You are living in flight or fight mode and are always angry. As a teenager being abused fed my teen angst. As an adult who has been free from abuse for a lot of her adulthood, it's an anger that feels awful. I don't know how I survived this kind of anger but when you've gone from thriving to all of a sudden having to survive and grieve, the anger is overwhelming and you just want to run from it. When you're raised by abusive parents you are not taught how to deal with your anger healthily especially because all you see from your parents ...

  Hi  My Dragonflies, Since attending my Grannie’s funeral I learnt something important. I realised that the reason why I cut my entire fathers side out of my life was due to my father getting involved in all my family relationships. He would press them for information about me such as my phone number, my address etc and he would even try to get them to try and get me to make contact with him. When an abuser does this to a person, the person used in this way is usually referred to as  Flying Monkeys . But I feel like this is due to our overuse of the word narcissism. I think intergenerational trauma is more complicated and I now realise that my father has manipulated some family members to suit his agenda when it comes to me and I realise now that there are a lot of unwilling victims in my family that did not wholeheartedly side with my father. Now I am not going to mention names of biological family I am in contact with for their own protection. The only person I can men...

  Hi my Dragonflies 😊 In my last post, I wrote about how I have a temporary truce with my father and grandfather. Now as I write about this I want to make clear that my writing here is not designed to hurt them. This is to help me and others heal from Intergenerational Trauma caused by Family Violence. Initially I thought I would always be writing from the perspective of someone who was continuing with a family cut off and I didn't think there would be any temporary truces. In fact I have been in contact with my father very minimally over the years and for many of those year I held onto hope that he would change and we could heal. Sometimes when I got in contact with relatives I doubted whether the abuse occured because there were relatives who would tell me I was being dramatic or only seeing the negatives but a lot has changed in the past two years that has taught me not to doubt myself but still stay strong in my boundaries and to be prepared for this temporary truce to stay as...

  Hello My Dragonflies, 😊 Life has been serving me so many unexpected curveballs lately. I've been navigating a temporary truce with some members as we grieve whilst I have also been resolving my relationship with my Grannie in what you could say is long distance. The thing about multigenerational trauma and family estrangement is that it's not all black and white. I made decisions that were right for me and sometimes something unexpected and extremely unfair happens. My Grannie suddenly died. I don't want to say too much about the circumstances in which she died as I want to respect other family members' privacy and I suppose my own because it's irrelevant to this event and blog. I have always tried to write about multiple options people can take and family cut-offs. I also think there are a lot of other options people should try before they come to the decision of a cut-off. To be honest I wasn't sure if I wanted to write about what I am going through right n...