Whole Minds stories: My story
Content warning - please note this story deals with themes of sexual violence and may be hard to read for some. It is a story of finding redemption and hope in the darkest of places, we hope it blesses you.
My life until the age of 57 was characterised by abuse and trauma which for the most part left me in dark place, feeling hopeless and unlovable. In 2017 I thought that had finally changed when through a chance meeting of a work colleague I was befriended by a man with whom I embarked upon a close friendship over a period of two years. It was a challenge for sure as I had such a lot of difficulties with trust and vulnerability but nevertheless, I felt like he was kind, considerate and genuinely interested in building a relationship. I felt encouraged. In January 2018 all that changed when I discovered that he was a con man. Everything, absolutely everything he told me was a lie and was to gain my trust before he defrauded me out of £ 270,000.
‘THE SPIRITUAL JOURNEY IS THE UNLEARNING OF FEAR AND THE ACCEPTANCE OF LOVE’
As a child I experienced sexual abuse within the family home from the age of 4 until my teenage years. This experience shaped my life and my adulthood was dominated by feelings such as, “I AM not good enough, I AM worthless, I AM not OK”. It led me to be unable to form any trusting relationships or have any concept of unconditional love.
Despite this, I was able to embark upon a long career in nursing and subsequently social work and I felt these roles made me feel of some value when nothing, or nobody else did. I lived a bit of a double life - at work I could function reasonably well, at home I was completely isolated and struggled with my mental health. I felt worthless and a waste of space. The only thing that validated me as a worthwhile person was if I was able to achieve something at work or help someone else out.
In my late 20’s I started to engage in therapy and this gave me some confidence to try a relationship – my first one. It lasted about a year but throughout the relationship I felt repeatedly re-traumatised and was not able to tolerate it…more therapy and back to a life that felt bleak and dark. During my 30’s through the therapy I did feel more able to cope with myself and had a sense of some recovery happening in my life. This sadly was short lived as two things then happened which brought me completely to the end of myself. On New Year’s Eve 1999, at the age of 38, I was abducted by someone professing to be a taxi driver, and was the victim of a violent rape which lasted a number of hours. My world collapsed and I developed a significant PTSD for which I was hospitalised for three months. My only thought at that time was to end my life, I very nearly succeeded. I was over-whelmed by feelings that had haunted me since childhood, my internal narrative always…” I AM dirty, I AM loathsome”. My assailant was arrested a number of months after the rape and was sentenced to 7 years in prison. Not long after this the second event happened, I became a victim of stalking. This was to last nearly ten years and pushed me to the brink over and over again. It is hard to describe how dark my life became. Whilst outwardly successful at work my personal life felt like a disaster and my internal world in complete turmoil.
It was very difficult to recover from the rape and I had lots of therapy in all sorts of different guises. I am unsure exactly what therapy had the most impact but gradually I began to shift from feeling not infrequently suicidal to a place of some emotional quieter times. I thought at the time this was real progress but now realise that it was nothing close to peace or lightness. It was the emotional quiet times that gave me the impetus to try again to see if I could build a relationship but as I said at the start of my story that didn’t’t really go well!
I cannot find words to express what losing so much money at the age of 57 is like. A whole lifetime of work – gone, security - gone, family inheritance - gone. Emotionally too, my internal narrative was constantly confirmed: “I AM a complete failure, I AM on this earth to be abused “. It was a haunting resonance of my previous life; I was in a really dark place and wanted it all to end. But then something, I now am starting to believe, extraordinary happened.
Something extraordinary happened
I was at work in a meeting and after the meeting my colleague, who I had known for a number of years but didn’t really know that well, asked me how I was?
About a month after the discovery of the fraud I was at work in a meeting and after the meeting my colleague, who I had known for a number of years but didn’t really know that well, asked me how I was? She was aware of what had happened. In honesty, I was distraught and after some chat and practical considerations she asked if she could pray for me. I knew nothing of faith, had not been engaged in church or faith at any point in my life and didn’t know anything about prayer. I was neither believing or skeptical and figured no harm could be done. She said she had never done this at work before but felt compelled. Well, I didn’t understand this compulsion until now and what a revelation this has been some two years later.
My work colleague became a close friend. About 6 months after this prayer at work she and I attended an Alpha course (a course in the basics of Christianity) at her church.
In all honesty I don’t really remember much about the course as I was distracted and preoccupied by flashbacks and suicidal thoughts. However, towards the end of the course I attended a session called the ‘Holy Spirit’ day. There I received a prayer that was so relevant to my personal circumstances from someone who didn’t know me. I believe now I was seen by God but at that time I wasn’t a follower of Jesus or sure whether I believed in God and it blew my mind as an ‘uncanny co-incidence’.
Others began to notice a difference in me after this
Others began to notice a difference in me after this but I remained defended and struggled to allow myself any vulnerability, even to God. A number of other ‘coincidences’, as I called them then, began to happen over the ensuing months and then a year after the fraud, something truly remarkable happened. I had made a complaint to the financial Ombudsman about the fraud and I was informed that all my money was going to be reimbursed to me. It was exceptional in many ways, not least because the sum reimbursed was more than twice any bank protocol or rulings at that time allowed for. I was given financial freedom and began to believe maybe somebody was working for my good. Others described this as a miracle. Not long after I was blessed with more freedom when the situation with my stalker finally came to an end and I finished my working career. With this freedom came an overwhelming sense of peace, quiet and lightness.
I would never have imagined that over a period of 18 months such changes could happen. I felt thankful and began to feel that something, or someone was finally offering me a different life. I felt that God was pursuing me and wasn’t going to give up even though I found it difficult at times to respond to his invitation. He is unfailingly persistent that’s for sure and with this persistence I am building faith and an understanding that it is possible to receive unconditional love. I now believe I AM seen. I AM lovable. God has taken 60 years to show himself to me, I AM grateful.
Over the next year I continued to learn about having a relationship with God. I attended the Wholeness Course at Woodlands Church and explored God’s love and healing power, and have been encouraged and taught by several Christian friends from church along the way. I am still defended in my heart at times, unsure at other times, but what I do know is that I am a different person to the one that I have been the whole of my life and this is joyful.
My journey continues….
If you would like to know more about the Alpha Course or Wholeness Course you can find more information about both of these on the Woodlands Church website.