February 2023 – PLC Blog

9 Ways in Which Children (and Adults) Display Anxiety

Unless you have studied child development, it is likely you will interpret your child’s behaviour according to the way you react to things.

But children’s brains have not yet developed enough to allow them to behave in adult ways.

Children have to learn to understand their feelings. This makes it hard for them to understand what they are feeling. If they can’t understand, they can’t tell you.

As a parent, you have a role in helping your child to understand their feelings and learn how to process them in a healthy way.

To do that, you need to be able to identify what is happening for your child.

This list is of ways in which children are know to display anxiety. Adults can display anxiety in the same way if they never learned as children how to understand their own feelings.

Here are 9 ways that children display anxiety:

ANGER

Anxiety can be produced by the feeling of danger or feeling overwhelmed, which is perceived as danger. Danger triggers the fight or flight response. Part of that response is anger. To have the energy to fight or run from danger, your body produces anger. As adults we often react the same way to anxiety, so it is not surprising when your child reacts the same way.

When the fight or flight response is activated, the thinking part of the brain shuts down. This means your child will be angry but can’t tell you why. Later, when they are feeling less anxious they may be able to tell you. Remember, pushing them to tell you what is wrong will just make them more anxious.

SLEEPING DIFFICULTIES

Anxiety can cause worrying thoughts that will keep an adult from falling asleep, or if they wake up during the night, from falling back to sleep.

It is the same with children. If your child has difficulty falling asleep or wakes up and can’t get back to sleep, it would be a good idea to ask them if there is anything worrying them.

AVOIDANCE

You may notice your child avoids completing a task, or going to a place or seeing a particular person.

Adults often do the same thing. Do you find you do this? If so, then you can understand how hard it is for your child to do the things or see the people and places that cause anxiety.

It is really important in a situation such as this to sit with your child and allow them to tell you what they are anxious about. Together you can work out a solution. It may be that your child just needs your to accompany them so they can feel safe. There are other solutions too.

It is important to remember that when children are told to do things that they feel anxious about, things their fight or flight response is saying are dangerous, that you don’t tell them they are being silly, or there is nothing to be worried about, and force them to do those things. Doing this teaches your child to ignore their intuition. Intuition is vital for their healthy functioning in life.

NEGATIVE THOUGHTS

Is your child responding negatively to suggestions or outcomes. Are they saying their homework is horrible and will be marked wrong by the teacher? Are they expressing negativity around attending an activity? Negative thoughts are more often experienced when a person is anxious.

DEFIANT BEHAVIOURS

You ask your child to do something and they refuse. They may throw things, or yell and scream. They are not being “naughty”. Often it is because they are feeling anxious. Often if a child is asked to do something they feel unable to do, the anxiety they feel at not being able to do the task can be expressed as defiance. Again, it is unlikely your children, having activated their fight or flight mechanism, will be able to tell you what is wrong. Give them space and time to calm down. Sit with them in a non judgemental way and offer support and understanding. When they feel calmer, then they may be able to tell you what is wrong.

Alternately, sometimes defiance can be due to the anxiety of not being in control, which feels unsafe, and it is expressed in defiance as your child tries to get some control (and therefore safety) in the situation.

THE STRAW THAT BREAKS THE CAMEL’S BACK

Adults do this too. Something minor happens and your child explodes with anger. This happens when hurt and anxious feelings are suppressed for quite some time. There is a limit to what can be suppressed. Eventually something will happen that will be too much to suppress and everything will come out. It may seem your child is overreacting, but if you allow them to calm down and you then ask them they will be able to tell you about what has been troubling them.

LACK OF CONCENTRATION

Your child is not paying attention to what you are telling them, to things that are happening around them, or to anyone or thing. If your child is anxious, those thoughts may be so overwhelming they aren’t noticing anything around them, including you asking them to do something.

MICROMANAGING

Some children will express their anxiety by trying to micromanage everything. They overplan what should be simple. It is easy in this situation to get angry at their obsession with everything being done “properly”. But your child is most likely trying to calm their anxiety and unsafe feelings by controlling things.

I HAVE A TUMMY ACHE

Feelings are not just things we experience in our heads. We also experience feelings in our bodies. It is very common for anxiety to be felt in the abdomen. Adults experience this too. Children don’t know that these things they feel in their body are associated with the thoughts and emotions they experience. Your child may experience a tummy ache and not know it is part of anxiety. So the tummy ache is genuine.

WHAT NEXT

You have noticed your child exhibiting one of the above behaviours and you have stopped and considered they may be anxious. Instead of reacting angrily or with frustration, you respond with understanding.

Now you want to understand what the problem is.

If you rush them to tell you what is happening, it is unlikely they will be able to tell you.

Sit with them. Be relaxed so they can sense your calm and not feel rushed. Maybe you can say: “You seem to be upset about something. Let’s sit for a while.”

When you observe your child seems calmer, you can try asking them what is happening for them. Listen. Let them talk. Don’t interrupt. Offer comfort and understanding. Acknowledge what they are feeling and how that is hard to feel that. It may be that telling you is all your child needs. But there may be a problem you can problem solve together.

A REMINDER

Remember, adults exhibit the same behaviours and often can’t express what is happening until they are feeling calmer. We live in a society that punishes rather then understands anxious behaviours. Many adults have never had the opportunity to learn to understand their own feelings and change their responses to them.

Understanding for your child is vital, and also for adults.

SOMETIMES HELP IS NEEDED

Sometimes your child may need professional help to untangle the anxiety they are experiencing. And sometimes adults also need that help too.

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you or your child with anxiety, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with interesting information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz

An exercise to explore grief

If you are grieving, you know that there is no magic bullet to make you feel better. You want the world to stop but sadly it doesn’t. Sooner or later you have to get out there in the world and live, even when you just want to sit in your grief and never emerge.

In this blackness of grief it can seem unbelievable that you may one day experience happiness, even joy. Every aspect of your life is impacted by the overwhelming nature of grief and life seems to be muted, shrouded in darkness.

REMAIN CONNECTED IN SOME WAY TO LIFE

The one thing you need to do is to not lock yourself away from the world forever. Yes, you may have days where you just want to be alone with your grief, but don’t make it every day. Hard as it may seem, you are not alone and there are other people out there who are grieving too and can maybe offer understanding.

Never forget that we all suffer loss. Sometimes it is the loss of a loved one, other times it is a relationship, job, house, country, possession, body part and so on. It may seem you are the only one, but there will be others out there too.

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO GRIEVE

Your grief is real and you have every right to grieve. Grief is a natural process that people have been experiencing as long as there have been people in this world.

I was reading a book by Donald Altman, a psychotherapist and expert in mindfulness. In this book he spoke about the way grief changes us. He describes grief as being a growth experience that opens new ways for us to understand grief.

AN EXERCISE TO TRY

He suggested a reflection exercise as a way to work with your grief.

This involves contemplating some questions. This can be on a daily basis or every other day, whenever you feel works for you.

To do this exercise you need to find somewhere peaceful and comforting. Somewhere you won’t be disturbed.

Decide how long you will spend on the exercise. That may be 15 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour or longer.

As you sit in this place set the intention to be:

 compassionate to yourself,

 open to what may come and

 curious about what you may discover.

This exercise may give you insights or it may just open the way for you to start healing and learning to live with your loss.

As you contemplate the questions, consciously breathe in peace and compassion for yourself.

Read each question and contemplate it before moving on to the next question. You may find you are only able to contemplate 1 or 2 questions each practice. That is fine. Work through them, repeat them, do whatever you need to as you seek answers.

Below are the questions:

• How is my grief like a love letter for my beloved?

• What is my “love letter” saying to my beloved?

• How has grief changed me?

• How can my grief serve to enrich my appreciation for the precious, impermanent things of life?

• What does this grief teach me about loving myself?

• How does grief make my heart more tender and open to all others who have also lost someone?

To finish off these questions remember you need to embrace life. Grief also reminds you what it means to love. When you love, then you live fully.

DO YOU NEED TO TALK TO SOMEONE WHO WILL LISTEN?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief journey, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

4 ways to feel so you can heal

When people come to see me about the difficulties in their lives I teach them to be more aware of their own thoughts, emotions, reactions and body sensations that occur when they encounter difficulties.

There is a reason for this.

Many years ago, John Bradshaw wrote that you cannot heal what you cannot feel.

Many have sought to debunk this statement, but the reality is that pushing the difficult feelings down so you think you aren’t aware of feeling them, does not allow healing.

The difficult feelings are still there, even when you can’t consciously feel them. And those difficult feelings have a massive impact on your behaviour and reaction to things.

DO YOU WANT TO BE FREE OF THESE REACTIONS TO THINGS THAT YOU CAN’T CONTROL?

Here is what I teach you to do. It is based on the RAIN meditation as taught by Tara Brach.

Recognise or become aware of your emotions. This includes being aware of what is happening in your body. a. What sensations can you feel? b. Where do you feel them? c. What do they feel like? d. What are the thoughts in your mind?
Acknowledge and name what you are feeling. This is important as you cannot address the emotions if you aren’t able to identify them. Also, naming your emotions helps you to separate them from you personally.
Investigate or explore those feelings. This is important to understand where they come from. It is helpful to consider how old the one expressing the thoughts is. Reactions to things come from past events when a difficult incident has become embedded unresolved in your memory. When incidents occur that are similar to the original incident you react according to that unresolved memory.
Nurture yourself. Offer yourself compassion and kind words of comfort.

Let me share this in a more expanded form.

PROTEST OR TRANSFORM?

Becoming aware of your emotions is important. So often you may feel upset, uncomfortable, angry and not know why. Your rational brain may be telling yourself you are being silly. You may feel alarm because in the past these feelings have led you to behave in ways that have damaged relationships.

I have been taught that when I face difficulties in life there are two choices:

• Protest and push through

• Transform and stop to explore what I am feeling.

Protesting means you just push forward and push the emotions down. You may react in ways you wish you hadn’t. You just push forward and keep going. And this situation repeats and repeats until you do something to get help.

RAIN

Transforming means you stop. You allow yourself time to explore what is happening for you.

You follow the path of RAIN.

RECOGNISE WHAT YOU ARE FEELING

You seek to become aware of what you are feeling. You become aware of the sensations in your body, their location, the type of sensation they are, the words or phrases running through your mind. All these are valuable for you to understand what is happening.

If you take the time, you will realise what you are actually feeling.

Don’t be afraid of those feelings. All feelings are okay. They are vital clues to what is happening for you. They are clues to unresolved issues from the past. Issues that continue to influence the way you react to things.

ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR FEELINGS

Now you have taken the time to identify your feelings you can name them.

This naming is not a shameful or condemning thing to do. It is about recognising without judgement that perfectly understandable feelings you are experiencing.

You may be feeling angry, hurt, confused, shame, fear and so on.

INVESTIGATE YOUR FEELINGS

You have named your feelings, now you are going to investigate them further.

• Where did those feelings come from?

• Are there any memories that come to mind when you investigate those feelings?

• What do those phrases in your head say?

You have found a memory – now it is time to go deeper and explore more of that memory.

• How old were you?

• What was happening for you?

• What were you feeling then?

• Is it reasonable to judge yourself at that age, circumstance?

AN EXPLORATION INTO THE PAST

Often when you explore the source of feelings you find their source is an incident from your childhood.

Looking back now you can realise the child’s feelings and experience were normal for a child of that age and developmental stage. You can see the child you were as a small child who needed support and understanding. You can see that you can’t judge them from an adult perspective, because they were a child. You can recognise that the thoughts the child had are based on the child’s limited understanding of the world. As an adult you can give a different interpretation to the situation and not judge the child for what happened.

NOW YOU UNDERSTAND YOU CAN COMFORT

The natural thing to do now is the offer comfort to that small child. You are the adult looking back at an incident in your childhood. You can recognise that truth of the situation and that the child needed an adult to offer support and love.

You are the adult. It is time for you to comfort the child.

So offer them words of love and support.

“My darling that was so scary.”

“you were so confused.”

“it’s okay now. I am here. I’ve got this.”

THERE ARE MANY WAYS YOU CAN CALM YOURSELF

Comforting yourself as I described above is a really great way to calm yourself.

Mediation can really help to. Guided ones are great ways to start.

Learning Mindfulness is important to help you be able to recognise what is going on in your body. You can also meditate using Mindfulness. At the end of this post I have a link to sign up for my newsletter. Signing up gives you access to a quick mindfulness meditation you may like to try.

You can also try painting. I don’t mean painting some masterpiece. I just mean putting your feelings on to paper. You can swirl paint around. You can paint lines, dots, circles, squiggles, cover the page with paint, mix it all together into a muddy clump. You can use your fingers. Just allow yourself to put on the page what you need to let go of. Remember, if you feel like painting figures, stick figures are fantastic.

Journalling can be another outlet as well.

EXERCISE AND FUN ARE IMPORTANT TOO

You may find taking a walk calming, especially if you walk amongst the trees or on a beach.

Swimming, any form of exercise, yoga, stretches. There are myriad ways you can move.

Remember the importance of just having fun. Laughing with friends or family, throwing a ball around, trying to ride a unicycle!, anything that is fun. Just being able to forget your worries and responsibilities and have fun with others.

WATCHING YOUR DIET

Making sure you eat foods low in sugar is important. As is avoiding too many take aways. Add lots of vegetables into your diet. The healthier your diet, the better you feel.

Restricting sugary drinks and not drinking excessive amounts of alcohol are also helpful.

When your body is trying to cope with excess amount of sugar, too much alcohol for your liver to comfortably process and foods that your body struggles to process and dispose of the waste from, you will not feel well.

Increasingly research is demonstrating a link between your bowel and your brain. The quality of your diet has a massive impact on how you are feeling emotionally.

HOW COUNSELLING CAN HELP

When things in your life have been overwhelming and leave you struggling, it can be hard to recover without specialised help.

Seeing a counsellor specialised in treating these difficulties, which are all referred to as trauma, is important. Do check that the person you want to see is trained in treating trauma. You can’t just repeat sentences every day and hope the trauma can go away.

You don’t have faulty schemas in your head that need correcting. You have painful memories that need to be allowed to be expressed and healed. This does not mean you have to revisit painful memories, just that you need to be able to access the memories stored in your body and release them.

A properly trained counsellor can help you to learn how to calm yourself and feel safe.

When you are able to feel safe you can then learn how to safely heal those difficult memories.

BLUE KNOT FOUNDATION

The Blue Knot Foundation in Australia is the peak body on childhood trauma and runs training for mental health practitioners. Their training and the practice guidelines they have written are internationally renowned.

I have completed many years of Blue Knot Training and follow their practice guidelines in my work.

CAN I HELP?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your trauma, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

Grief is a love letter to those who have died

Radical thought isn’t it?

In my years of witnessing the grief of others. Of walking alongside those who have lost someone they deeply love. Of helping people find a way to keep living. In all those years I have found the same thoughts expressed.

The deep love for the one who has passed. And the continuing love with which their passing is honoured and held close, even years after they have gone.

This really is a beautiful expression of love. A continuing expression of love for the one you love.

It is beautiful and dignified to grieve the one you loved.

Even when your eyes are red with tears and your nose runs from all the crying. Your love for the person you have lost is so deep.

It is okay for your heart to hurt with the pain of their physical absence from your life.

It is written that the healing power of grief is found in the realisation that every moment is precious.

Grief teaches you to feel gratitude for what you had, especially now it is gone.

Grief demonstrates the beauty of life, realised when the life of the one you loved has been extinguished.

Yes, that realisation hurts so much. It is a realisation you never want to make, but here you are having to make it.

Gratitude for what you had is not what you want. You want gratitude for what you have. But can you ever fully appreciate what you have until you no longer have it?

Through all the disorientation, devastation and despair of grief there will be an ever after. There will be a life after the one you love is gone. You may not want it, but it will happen.

You might need help to get there, but you will.

If you would like my help finding the love letter, the beauty of life and gratitude for life in the one you loved, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

When Pollyanna Makes Things Worse

In my work I often talk with people about gratitude.

The idea of gratitude is not always well received.

There are a lot of wrong ideas about gratitude.

Maybe you hold those wrong ideas too? I used to.

GRATITUDE IS NOT ABOUT IGNORING THE BAD THINGS

Do you think gratitude is all about being ultra-positive? About ignoring the bad things in life? Much like Pollyanna in the books?

Do you think expressing gratitude means you have to be thankful for the awful things that happen in life? (As if you could).

That is not what gratitude is.

WHAT IS GRATITUDE, REALLY?

Gratitude means you sit with what has happened in your day. In all the stresses and disappointments.

It means you acknowledge the bad things.

It means you acknowledge “that hurts”.

It means you honour the things that happen to you. You don’t push the bad things away. You sit with them and allow them to be. You allow yourself to feel the pain and disappointment. You allow yourself to hold and integrate the pain.

HEALING THE PAIN

Did you know that allowing yourself to feel emotional pain. To feel the pain without fighting it. That once you feel that pain you can actually heal it.

That is not going to happen in a few seconds. It takes time for hurt to heal. As long as you are hurt, you are in pain. Allowing the hurt to take its time to heal will heal it faster. It will allow the pain to resolve sooner too.

It is possible to be hurt and learn to live with it, no longer being bound in the pain of the hurt.

HEALING THE PAIN OF THE PAST

You can do the same thing with things that have hurt you in the past. Those hurts you shoved down and tried to ignore. It is always possible to heal.

Hurt binds you. The pain traps you into patterns of behaviour designed to protect you. But allowing the hurt to be experienced and the pain to resolve will help.

BE CURIOUS

Be curious about the hurts you feel. Don’t run from them. Don’t fight them. Give them your caring love and attention. Just as you would sit with a friend who is hurting, do the same for yourself.

As you visit those hurts, allow yourself to feel the pain. Allow yourself to be curious. Breathe into the hurt, just as you may have learned to breathe into physical pain to relieve it. Breathe calmly. Don’t turn or run away. There is nothing to fear in old hurts.

LEARN TO HOLD YOURSELF WITH LOVE

Sometimes it can be helpful to see a counsellor who can help you hold the space while you heal. You can learn to hold yourself lovingly and with compassion. You can learn to give love to the parts of you that are hurting.

When those hurts are no longer binding you into protective behaviours you make room to be the real you. To experience all the wonder and joy of life.

To feel better able to express gratitude.

WHAT ABOUT GRATITUDE?

And as for gratitude. Don’t ignore the bad things that happen. Maybe you ended a relationship but found a friend who comforted you. Be grateful for the friend who cared enough to offer comfort.

Maybe your car broke down, and you were running late for an appointment. But the roadside assistance came in the form of a man who acknowledged how hard this was for you. You can be grateful that he wasn’t rude and he was helpful and caring. That is something to be grateful for.

Maybe in all the stresses and worries of the day, in all the worries about finances, relationships, and work, you looked up and noticed the most spectacular clouds in the sky. And for a moment you stopped and admired their beauty. Be grateful for that.

GRATITUDE MEANS FINDING THOSE SMALL GEMS OF GOOD AMONGST THE BAD

Being grateful doesn’t mean you ignore the bad things. It is always a good idea when express gratitude to also express why. If you are stressed about life and see the clouds in the sky. You can be grateful that despite your worries there is still beauty.

If you are grateful for the caring mechanic who helped you when your car was broken down. Be grateful that in the midst of a stressful situation someone was helpful and caring.

Bad things happen and they hurt. But there is always something to be grateful for, no matter how insignificant. It is how you maintain hope in the bleakest circumstances.

DO YOU NEED HELP?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with healing from life’s hurts and learning to express gratitude, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

Grief. Your Life’s Journey

One thing that strikes me about grief is that our society has taken grief away from being a normal part of life and turned into something pathological.

But grief is a natural, normal process. It is not something we avoid, run from or race to get over.

The reality is your life is changed by loss. That is unavoidable.

I HAVE EXPERIENCED GRIEF AND ITS AFTERMATH

I write as one who has experienced multiple losses in my life and has grieved. I have experienced the way this world tries to turn a natural process into something wrong. I have experienced being told what is normal to experience after a loss. I have been helped by healthy people who helped me understand that I wasn’t mad, but perfectly normal.

I know what it is to cry at times when it is not socially acceptable, when other people feel uncomfortable.

I know what it is to find myself totally unable to manage simple tasks and to just want to crawl into bed, close the door and tell the world to go away.

I know what it is to lose my sense of self, to feel life is out of control, to feel inexplicably depressed, to question the very meaning of life, to wonder who I am now because I just can’t work it out.

I know what it is to want to tell this person about something that just happened and then remember that I can’t because they are no longer alive.

I know what it is like to have my experience ignored by others, to be told by people when I summon the courage to tell them I miss the dead person (who died only a month ago) that I need to see someone because that is not normal.

I know what it is like to grieve for a person that no one around me knew so no one else can understand who the person I have lost was.

I know what it is like to never hear the person I loved mentioned by anyone, even people who knew them, as though they never existed.

I get it, but that is my journey, and I am talking about yours.

THERE IS NO SOLUTION TO GRIEF

I hate that many people, including some mental health practitioners will tell you that you need to “move on”. That you need to “buck up”. That they have the solution.

I do know you need to be seen, that your grief needs to be acknowledged. That you need support and empathy.

I know that you need to learn how to carry this burden and that you can develop the mental and emotional muscles to carry it for the rest of your life.

DEATH HURTS

Death out of order is devastating.

Death is life altering.

When you know someone is dying it is not the same as when they actually die. But the pain of knowing it is coming is a completely different experience.

Death changes everything.

Your life and trajectory, the future you anticipated evaporates.

Your world disintegrates and you are left with a crumbled mess that doesn’t make sense.

UNHELPFUL RESPONSES HAPPEN

People will offer all manner of platitudes and shut downs.

Others will tell you the story of their grief, not realising they have taken away the thing that is most important for you now, your current reality. And that reality is important. People will often share their grief story because they want to connect and let you know they get it. Sadly it often becomes a competition to learn whose grief was worse.

Of course others have been bereaved and experienced grief. But their grief is not yours. The circumstances, the relationships, the personalities are different. It is better for others to acknowledge they have experienced grief and leave it at that.

Of course at some time you may want to know how they handled something, or coped with another issue. It is okay then for them to answer that question.

EVENTUALLY YOU MAY WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THE GRIEF OF OTHERS

At another time you may want to join a group of people who share their grief stories. It can feel less lonely. It can help to feel like your experience is more usual and you are not mad. But this is something to do when you are ready, not to be forced on you when you are first grieving.

GRIEF IS A LIFE EXPERIENCE THAT CHANGES YOU

It is most important to remember grief is not a problem to be solved or fixed. It is not an illness. It is a life experience.

Here is a fact. All life experiences change you.

GOOD AND BAD PAIN

Sometimes people feel pain and will describe it as “good” pain. It is worth remembering that. Not all pain is awful, although some certainly is.

As a society we are taught that pain is bad. Because grief hurts, we believe it is bad. So there is a belief, held by some in the mental health field as well, that grief is something you get over as soon as possible. That there is something wrong and not normal about grief and it needs to be healed.

AT THE “END” OF GRIEF THERE IS A NEW YOU

Grief is normal. We love and we grieve when what we love is gone.

You integrate loss into a life that has become a walk each day next to and with your loss. So the old you ceases to exist. Don’t forget to grieve that too.

Grief is life altering. Grief throws your reality into chaos.

DODGING THE MESSAGES UNTIL THE NEW YOU SURVIVES

You will be bombarded with messages. Some helpful and loving. Others unhelpful and unaffirming. You will feel embarrassed at not coping in public. You will find it hard to function. You will have good moments and bad moments.

In the end you will survive. You will be a new you. You will always carry that grief. But you will survive.

DO YOU NEED HELP WITH YOUR JOURNEY?

If on that journey you need to talk to someone who will not shut you down, or tell you that you are defective, I am available.

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

I am available for face to face sessions on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland or via zoom.

How to Speak Your Truth When Your Abuser Has Died

So many people come to see me come after the death of their abuser.

They feel anger at the way this person was spoken about at the funeral.

That can be really hard. It can feel very disempowering, as though your voice is silenced and your experience doesn’t matter.

There seems to be a reluctance to be honest about people at their funerals. At some funerals I have attended it would seem the person who died was a saint when I knew they weren’t.

ABUSERS CAN PRESENT AS LOVELY TO OTHER PEOPLE

It is a sad fact of life that the person who abused you, who was awful to you, may well have been charming and seemingly wonderful to others.

So often you can feel you aren’t able to speak up about the way your abuser treated you in life.

I can relate to that. I sat through my mother’s funeral wondering if I was at the right funeral. The person being described was not the person I knew. It was not the abuser I knew.

HOW DO I MOVE FORWARD?

In learning to live after my mother’s death I had to accept that to other people she probably was a wonderful person.

Her inability to be a loving, caring supportive mother. Her inability to protect me from my abusive father. Her inability to attune to me or love me. These were all things that existed in the relationship she formed with me. They did not exist in the relationship she had with other people, even my siblings.

It can be hard to speak up at your abuser’s funeral. You may find you are removed from the funeral if you speak up. Or you may find others refute what you have said. Or you may not yet feel empowered enough to speak up.

Sometimes you need to find other ways to express what you want to say.

SPEAKING YOUR TRUTH

When I spoke to a counsellor I was able to tell her the things I wanted to say at my mother’s funeral but couldn’t. In counselling I often act as the witness to the story people want to tell about their past. And that is one way you can express what you want to say.

I wrote a letter to my siblings about my experience with my mother and they totally rejected it. Some people do the same thing and it is helpful. But it is important to bear in mind that others may not be willing to accept your story and may reject it.

I have had conversations with my mother, imagining she is standing in front of me, telling her how angry and hurt I was at her behaviour. I found that helpful. Others report the same experience. Again it can be helpful to have that conversation in a counselling session where it can be witnessed. I often guide people through doing this and then assist with letting the words go.

Another approach is to write a letter to your abuser, telling them everything you want to say to them. After writing the letter you can post it. Alternatively you can tear the letter up. Another approach is to burn the letter. I burned the letter I wrote to my mother.

Other people like to hold small ceremonies to express what they need to say about their abuser and letting them go.

Drawing or painting can be a way to let go of that person and express what you need to about them. Again I painted my feelings towards my mother and then burned what I had painted.

WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO EXPRESS YOUR TRUTH

It is important to express what you need to express to your abuser. This allows you to move on in life and live without their energy impacting on you. You deserve to be free.

WHERE YOU CAN GO FOR HELP

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with speaking your truth about your abuser and living a life free of their energy, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au