Tag Archives: abuse

Relationships Change…

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What do you love especially in a companion; friend; partner to enjoy their company for just a moment in time. Others decide to spend even more time than usual opting to move in together, get engaged and possibly look towards getting married.

All these changes occur in any relationship a person has to exchange thoughts, feelings, experiences as we communicate and share our daily life events. Life events seem to change our way of being in the world at times, when we can lose sight of each other and not know if we are going to meet our familiar partner we once knew from long ago or another person who has become more of a stranger as time goes on.

It does not matter if you are single or in a partnership; loneliness can challenge a lot of people with a busy life style. We can meet and live a person, but what happens when you wake up next to a stranger and yet still love them for who they were from your past. Do you still know them and if you do, could it be you just may not know yourself at this moment in time compared to who you once were ten or twenty years ago?

Time changes each of us. What would you like to do? I know looking at our self can be difficult, especially when you do not know what you are going find and whether we can accept; love or reject that part of us inside we find. Even more difficult, is when you see your partner struggling in their own dilemmas, it can be a number of issues related to work or home and yet you have your own problems too.

Are you able to communicate with each other or just share a space to feel connected instead in the hope issues will resolve themselves given a period of time change will happen…eventually? Then again they could get worse and where does it begin or even end?

These are the changes in any relationship. Is this team not working together? Or separately and maybe slowly drifting apart? It can be the elephant in the room or  even similar to a boa constrict silently strangling the relationship, but neither of you knows were to start, just because there is too much to deal with and so little time to deal with the problem. Time takes it toll on any relationship, with the daily pressures or work and family; no time to sit; think or time to talk…

The next item on your own agenda always seems to be more important than spending time together, to find out where the problems are and how to tackle each issue without regressing into a teenage argument, as to who is right or wrong. Again…nothing gets resolved as so it begins again, neither of you say anything until the next opportunity comes around again and attempt to do something differently in the hope something will change and the stranger slowly turns into your old familiar partner you still once loved as before the chaos and confusion. Until something else happens again, becomes an issue and it starts all over again like an emotional rollercoaster with enduring pain by working with the high’s and low’s.

That is life and yes, we all change in a relationship, but there comes a point when it really is time to stop going around in circles each time there is a problem and start looking at ourselves differently either as an individual or as a couple to create a successful future in life.

Let’s see if we can iron out the creases and deal with all the knots, which have led you here and attempt something healthier and different in therapy.

I look forward to seeing you, soon…

The case of “Bobbi” – Radio Disclosure about his experience of Childhood Sexual Abuse

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Its was Tuesday the 6th November – BBC Radio 4 at 2pm Jane Garvey was presenting the Jeremy Vine show covering the topic of the Welsh Orphanage, which is currently at the centre of abuse in the 70’s an 80’s. The discussion centred around victims/suvivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) who were emotionally and physically scarred for life. There were no words other than theirs that could describe the overall chilling account of what had taken place behind closed doors of silence.

One male listener was called “Bobbi”. Bobbi had grown up and was now in a relationship with his partner of many years. What he was able to do, which he had never done was openly speak about the silent abuse he had endured since early childhood at the orphanage. He gave a graphic detailed account of what it was like to be picked as an innocent child at the time, in his case because some children were allowed to visit family or parents during the weekend, there remained those children who had no one and it was on these occassions Bobbi feared the worst. In his account, Sunday he recalled as being the worst, sometimes taken to his abusers on site; at other times he they came to him. Silence did not befriend him into reasurrance that he would remain out of harms way, it was far from that, alone terrified watching the shadows being cast along the corridoors as people quietly walked past, in the hope and belief it would not be him tonight where the shadows might stand still with the door handle twisting quietly to open and hence his life was at the mercy of others once again. Bobbi described how when entered his room alone on these weekends there was no privacy just shame and humiliation, it was a playground for his abusers to do what they wanted to everyone in similar circumstances. He thought after night he might be overlooked as he went to bed, instead suddenly his bed is tipped upwards with two attackers appearing from underneath his bed and he was violently held down by both and raped.

Both the radio presenter and listerners were shocked in what they had heard from a victim who had never had the courage to disclose what had happened in childhood before. The effects of CSA on his life has left him a legacy of being unable to trust other people, emotional and psychological issues, which prevents him at times from working or engaging with others in his community, he leads a silent exsistence, which has overall damaged and destroyed him.

The feedback from listeners was overwhelming emotion mainly those expressing themselves that even as regular listeners, they were in tears at what they heard. We hear about CSA, but do people know what it is like to preyed on and be abused or is it easier to believe it does not happen in their community or social circle. CSA has no boundaries, one in four people have been abused and if Bobbi found the courage to finally speak we all should not turn a blind eye for this to continue to be more than one in four.

If this story sounds familiar to your own experiences or someone you know please get in touch as there are people out there who can help you.