” Other things may change us….but we start and end with family” Anthony Brandt
My childhood was as vicious as any battlegroud in the world.
I grew up hidden in the closets of a home filled with violence. I awoke to shattering glass and cursing insults, the muffled sounds of beatings and smothered screams for help.
I was a casualty of a cold war.
My mother died the kind of death no one likes to discuss, she was shot at point blank range in front of me by my stepfather, and afterwards I was left in a world that had never been motherly to me.
Adapting to her loss required a maturity most eleven-year-olds don’t have, and lacking in a mother figure to guide me I have had to piece together a female self-image on my own.
As I faced continuing difficulties – a violent foster home and sexual abuse – I learned that close relationships could be impermanent, security ephemeral, and family capable of being redefined. I developed an adult insight while still a child, yet had only juvenile resources to help me cope.
I learnt not to cringe away from the big, the unforeseen or the unexpected. I discovered that to be strong did not mean the flexing of muscles. It meant meeting my own numinosity without fleeing, learning to be able to endure and then thrive despite my pain.
My basic self was wounded long before my mother’s death. She was extremely abusive toward me, and as a result I believed I was weak, ugly and unacceptable and the pressure to be “adequate” set me wandering for along time, looking for a place of nourishment and peace. Yet, whenever my life wanted to burst forth someone was always there to salt the ground so nothing would grow.
There was a kind of pathology in my “not deserving” syndrome. I kept knocking on all the wrong doors even after I knew better, though it is hard to know which doors are the right ones when you’ve never know a right door to begin with.
All creatures must learn that there exist predators – shrewd trackers that sense the willing, the naive, the young and weak. Without my mother’s guidance I became a woman who was unable to navigate safely in my own forest without being devoured.
There were no bars on my windows and no barbed wire fence around my space, I was not chained or locked in a cell; my enslaving barriers were invisible. Nonetheless I suffered continual abuse for years, feeling totally powerless to escape. This sense of powerlessness continued into my adulthood, rendering me vulnerable to further predation. It would have been comforting if my predator had been easily recognisable – obviously deviant or disturbed – but he wasn’t. He seemed terribly and terrifyingly normal, and this normality was worse than all the atrocities put together.
Being able to say one is a survivor is an accomplishemnt. But once the threat or trauma is past there is a potential trap in labelling ourselves by the designation we bolsterd ourselve with during the most terrible times of our lives; it can create a mind-set that is potientially limiting.
For too long I just froze up. This coldness, which I thought an achievement , a detatchement from reality meant I was without feeling towards myself and even less for others – a self protective mechanism that ultimatley did more damage.
Choice defines us, but alas fear paralysed my freedom of choice. I packed whatever was the easiest and most available into my emptiness, thinking that if I could gather enough I could fill the void, recind the darkness and repair the loneliness and heartbreak within. I muddled through endless needy relationships, substituting heads hoping like hell I would find myself in one of them. I gave away my power, my identity, and my dignity, loving my partners too much and myself not enough.
Looking for love in all the wrong places became repetitive, compulsive behaviour that only caused more injury because my originoal wounded state was not being attended to and I incurred new wounds with each foray.
I didn’t realise that the moment I entrusted my happiness to a man in a search for self-worth, social status, and cash in my pocket I was in fact endangering the very possibilities of happiness by removing any sense of personal responsibility from the equation. Instead I was saying to the other person “It’s your job to make me feel whole, complete and wanted “
To begin my healing journey I had to stop kidding myself that a litte “feel good” of the wrong sort would take care of all the damage that had been done. I had to hold out for the right remedy that would strengthen my life rather than weaken me. After years of wandering I had to move from being a victim into a shrewd-minded, wiley eyed, sharp-eared woman.
It was time to tell the truth about my wounded self after many years of hide and seek, and in seeing my own truthful picture I could begin to make the changes needed to recover and thrive, not just survive.
It is not easy for any of us to transcend the past – or the pain – we might have suffered. Yet, there are gifts in those pains, and when we choose to let light into dark places. Then, we are not alone.
I have always loved to sew, and have spent a lot of time exploring different crafts. It was what intially kept my sanity and demons at bay.
I decided to start my own business, crating and designing woman’s lingerie, underwear from organic bamboo fabric, which was just entering the fashion world, and I loved the idea of it being sustainable and eco friendly with its many benefiting factors. It was a huge challenge for me, this was a big step up from hobby crafting to now designing and making lingerie for woman.
The “Imposter Syndrome” always lurked at the back of my mind with thoughts of “what if you’re not good enough, what if people don’t like what you make, what if you sewing sucks”
However, I found somthing delightfully soothing about lace and pretty trims, and in the softness and silkiness of the bamboo fabric. The exquisite feminism of the whole process spoke to the feminine within me. But…..when one has not worked through ones trauma we unconsiously sabotage the good in our lives. When one has lived in the “bad house” for so long we learn and develope coping mechanisms, we adjust to the climate around us. When we move out and into the “good house” so to speak we don’t know how to live without being hypervigilant or contineously in a state of fright or flight; so sadly we sabotage the good so that it becomes bad again so we know how to cope.
All it took was one trigger to hurl me into a syndrome called “collapsing” this is when someone gets angy with you or acts in a way that is quite negative, instead of remaining as an adult with adult responses, one goes into a psychic regression and gets hooked on very old feelings. Feelings or worthlessness, neglect, rejection and collapsing is where, instead of staying adult, in the moment, in the present, one goes on an instantaneous journey into the horrors of the past and reacts from that particular place”
I self sabataged again.
I became isolated, like a lone wolf. All this aloneness caused isolation and loneliness and when this isolation was brought to the extreme I risked becoming too withdrawn and shut off from the rest of the world, thus shutting out the love of others and keeping me from experiencing the true joy of friendship and close companionship.
My challange at this time of isolation in my life was to maintian my independence without feeling isloated or ineffectual, holding fast to my unique view on the world while at the same time being open to others and the knowledge they have to offer.
Creativity is a sensitive faculty that is often supressed in childhood. I was robbed of mine, and for a long time I lacked the confidence to pursue my ideas and diverted my abilities into a scattering of trival pursuits that again sabotaged our finances.
To oversome this I have had to make a choice by limiting my field of vision and the number of creative activites I engage in, and bundle my engeries into a single thrust. In order to focus my life I’ve had to choose the area that I love the most and commit to it…..and SoulSlips was born…for there I have found contentment and a great deal of happiness.
I hope this has given you some insight into the woman behind the business. If you were inspired by my story then keep following on my journey as I share snippets of my recovery and healing.
My story is proof that despite some of the bleakest turns in life, a detour can turn out to be a destination.
