Remember To Live Before You Die

Life is for the living - So many people spend their time worrying about life after death but forget to actually live before they die.

Many would say that I should shut up and listen to my own advice. I had a "rebirth" four years ago. My life crumbled and turned to ashes, and yes, like the fabled Phoenix, I emerged. I did not fly however, I stumbled around, getting my bearings. Now I'm ready to test those wings. 

Those that know me well understand that there is much in this life I want to achieve but circumstances do not currently permit this. I am, however, a patient man. 

I don't worry about what will happen when I die, as die I most certainly will. The promise of the afterlife or suchlike has no hold over me. Today is now. Tomorrow is something I cannot plan for, or change. Yesterday is gone. I live for today and hope that tomorrow will be kind.

The choices I make, and will make, might not be to everyones liking. They will be MY choices. In this one life I have been given, I will do my utmost to help others, to help myself, be happy. To be free. 

There are people who would silence me, control me. I say this to them.. 

I must do what I think is the right thing. I am no longer afraid of what others might think of me. Their opinion is theirs alone. If I make mistakes, then they are MY mistakes to make.

Richness of spirit does not depend on whether we are "religious" or not. As long as what we do in life harms nobody, then what we do is our own concern. Being a good person is not dependent on whether we worship a deity, attend church or call ourselves religious - Being a good person comes from within. It's something we do, not something we claim to be.

Many claim that forgiveness of others that have committed a crime against our person is the only way to find peace. I refuse to forgive those that assaulted my body and my innocence when I was a child. They committed a crime, a vile, disgusting, perverted crime that corroded almost my entire adult life to date. Forgive that? NO. I am free of the past and I did not forgive. If forgiveness is what it takes for you to move on, then so be it. Please do not be persuaded that it is a necessary stage. Another bizarre claim is that such people could be treated, rehabilitated and returned to society with no risk or danger to others. Again I strongly disagree.

My beliefs and opinions may not be yours, and I am not forcing you to adopt my way of thinking. I simply want my opinions to be a matter of record.

Another point I would like to clarify is this. I campaign for victims of abuse to step forward and disclose what happened to them. I actively encourage it because it is the only way that the true extent of these crimes can be made public. Disclosure in itself can lift a massive weight from the shoulders of the victims. However, If someone is not able to disclose, for whatever reason I do not think it right that they should be forced or cajoled to do so. Personal safety first and foremost. Always ensure that your well being will not be compromised. If your circumstances are such that you are no longer at risk, then please do not try and face the disclosure and your "healing" journey alone. 

I am not a therapist, I have no qualifications in any field relating to counselling or mental health. I do however have a great deal of first hand experience. I have studied a great deal on these topics. My purpose, my plan, is to educate, to be a voice, to stand up and be counted for both myself and for those who are unable to use their own voice. We are all uniquely individual. I do not have a quick fix, or even a generalised fix. I share with you what works for me and I invite others to this blog to do the same. I hope that from our experiences that others can find a path that works for them. 

Recovery from trauma is not easy. Sorry to be so blunt. Recovery and the ability to live your life free from the chains that bound you in the past is more than possible. It is very doable. The process can itself be very painful, but you are in control of that. Control is the key. You are the master or mistress of your own future. By taking the decision to disclose and free yourself from the past YOU are in charge. Take big strides or baby steps, you decide what works for you. Do not allow yourself to be pushed into doing things that make you feel unsafe. Ease yourself into it, take a deep breath, and stay in control.

This post has covered a few things that have been playing on my mind recently. It's from the heart, so forgive me if it's a little jumbled... 

Life is a gift and we must live in the present. 

Reactive Abuse: When Survival is Turned Against You

 Reactive Abuse: When Survival is Turned Against You

There’s a term I didn’t know back then, not when the house fell silent, not when my hands trembled in shame, not even when I was called something I had spent a lifetime surviving.

Reactive abuse.

It sounds clinical, almost distant. But it isn’t. It’s intimate. It's what happens when someone pushes and pushes until you finally crack, and then uses that very crack to claim you were the monster all along.

In 2021, I ended a pseudo relationship that hadn’t brought me happiness in a long time. I told them. I said it gently, then firmly. I asked them to leave. They refused. For five days, they remained in my home, waking me in the night, twisting old grief into new accusations, gaslighting me in the place where I was supposed to be safest.

I tried to hold the line. I tried to keep my calm. But there came a couple of moments when I snapped. Not with violence, but with desperation. I threw a crumpled piece of paper, nothing more, and I dared to raised my voice.

That was all they needed.

I was suddenly the abuser.

They left, eventually. But not without leaving damage in their wake, emotional, financial, physical. I lost money I would never recover. I lost weeks of sleep. I lost my grip on what was true.

For months afterward, I questioned myself. Was I really cruel? Had I gone too far? Why did I feel like the guilty one when all I ever asked for was peace?

It was only through conversation,, with my doctor, with therapists, with survivors who had been through the same, that I learned the truth. I had been a victim of Domestic Abuse.

Reactive abuse is what happens when a victim finally fights back.
Not to harm, but to survive.
Not out of malice, but out of exhaustion, fear, fury.

When a person is ignored, provoked, denied, disrespected, again and again, they may react. And in toxic or abusive relationships, that reaction is often seized upon as proof that they were the problem all along.

Let me be clear: I am not perfect. I said things I regret. But I am not what they called me.

I was pushed. I was cornered. I was provoked until I broke — and then punished for breaking.

That is reactive abuse. And it is real.

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Reactive Abuse – Legal & Psychological Context

1. Psychological Definition
Reactive abuse is a defensive response to prolonged mistreatment, typically impulsive and out-of-character. It can include yelling, pushing, throwing items, or other defensive actions. These reactions do not make the victim an abuser.
Source: Modern Law

2. Abuse vs. Reactive Defense

• True abuse is premeditated, controlling, and part of a repeated pattern.

• Reactive abuse occurs after you've been consistently provoked or cornered, a defense mechanism, not a choice for power.
  Source: The Mend Project

3. Common Tactics Used Against Survivors

• Abusers bait victims to react, then weaponise that response as evidence of mutual abuse.

• They may collect “proof” — recordings, witnesses — to reinforce the false narrative.
  Source: National Legal Service

4. Legal Standing

• There is no formal legal category for "reactive abuse"; courts assess behaviour by its present actions, not its history.

• If a reactive response is proportionate and in self-defence, it may be considered within legal bounds, but this is judged case by case.
  Source: Modern Law

5. Why This Matters
Understanding the psychological and legal underpinnings helps survivors reframe guilt, challenge wrongful accusations, and prepare to safeguard themselves legally and emotionally.

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If you’re reading this and it feels familiar,if you’ve ever felt ashamed for the way you defended yourself, please know: you are not alone. You are not broken. You were trying to survive.

There is a way back. There is a way through.
And your voice still matters.

Mine does too.

Jan

Another Boy Who Lived

 

Another Boy Who Lived

Some stories don’t fade, they live in the marrow. This one is mine. It’s not for pity. It’s for truth. For clarity. For survival.

The grandfather was a paedophile, alcoholic, thief and thoroughly unpleasant man.

My mother was born in 1941 and was the only child of her parents. After her birth, my grandmother told me she never allowed him near her again. Grandfather used to take the wartime rations and sell them in exchange for alcohol.

I recall him telling me that he wanted to be a soldier and a train driver. He had almost lost an eye as a child and wasn't able to be a serviceman or train driver. He did join the home guard apparently. He was a bitter, nasty little man. When he began teaching me about the "birds and bees" (I was about seven years old) he told me that he played "naughty" games with others in the home guard.

Grandfather wanted a son. He didn't get one. He had a grandson instead. Before me, my mother gave birth to a daughter. Unfortunately she and I didn't get on.

He had disgusting habits. He cleared his sinuses without using tissues, coughed up globular, yellow sputum and spat in on his plate. He urinated in the washing up bowl. He also contaminated my food and drink with the same, and worse. He would go months without a bath, waiting for holiday times when I visited so that I would have to bathe with him "to save on hot water". He was disgusting.

My Mum died when I was nine. Her last Christmas was special, she bought so many wonderful things. I left many new toys at the grandfather's house. Almost all got sold for whiskey. My mother's last gift to me went the same way.

He phoned my father once to say that I was expensive to keep. He complained that I drunk too much fizzy pop. He asked for more money. My father knew that he wanted whiskey and was using me as an excuse. The grandparents dressed me in very old fashioned clothes. I didn't get a pair of jeans until I was fourteen. My underpants were big, baggy and down to my knees. They were about thirty years out of date.

He also sold my "services" in exchange for alcohol. I think, but cannot prove, that some of those he sold me to were also ex home guard.

My grandmother did threaten to leave him twice that I recall. She didn’t tell me why. I don't know how he persuaded her to stay, but her bags and mine were unpacked and there was no escape.

He was slimy, sleazy, a loser. It sickens me to think that I carry his genes.

Those ten years have affected my entire life. It has permeated almost every aspect, every emotion.

I know that there are a couple of people out in the world that call me an attention-seeking liar. They chose to attack me on this, and other blogs, several years ago.

Yes, I acted up and was a pain in the backside when growing up, and later in adult life. I am not the evil liar I was accused of being. I'm not delusional. The events I have written about happened. The effects of the decade of abuse that I have written about did happen.

I have done things that I am ashamed of as an adult. I have suffered emotionally, physically, and psychologically, but I am still here. I fell to pieces. I crawled in the sewers. I survived however I could.

I speak my truth and I stand by it. I fight for others and have learnt to fight for myself (most of the time). I've made mistakes, many of them. I am almost human though, so I suppose mistakes are permissible.

The past has lost its power to silence me. It is now a foreign country to which I have thrown away the visitor's visa. As I said, the scars are there, and they do itch occasionally. I will never be, and have no wish to be, "ordinary or normal".

I am me, and that's good enough.

As regular readers of this blog may have surmised, I have been going through a challenging time recently. My "rut" had been ploughed up. Change is happening. I have embraced and fought it. I feared I was going crazy for a short time. For someone who was once sectioned under the mental health act, that is a big fear.

It turns out that I have been responding in an almost normal way (scary as that may be) and was not losing my mind. Contrary to what I was conditioned to believe, I am worthy. I deserve happiness. I am not a worthless freak.

I am okay. I need to chill out more though. Life has good and bad in it. Not everyone has a hidden agenda or wants to cause pain or chaos.

Thank you for showing me that it is safe to trust again.

As for grandfather and his cronies... They are dead. Their bodies rotten and consumed by the Earth. I will never see justice for what was done to me, but I will see inner peace. Releasing my story within my latest book, Phoenix Warriors, is a big step forward..

I am almost there.

I am.

Another boy who lived.

My grandmother’s story — one of survival, secrecy, and impossible choices — is the subject of my upcoming book, The Times and Trials of Hettie Morgan.

Finding My Way Back

 I have been quiet for quite a while. 

Not because I had nothing to say, but because I needed to hear myself again.
To grow. To heal. To rage. To question whether I was still sane after what happened in 2021. 

I ended a pseudo relationship that had not brought joy for a long time. I spoke that truth, not once, but twice before I asked them to leave. What followed was bitterness, gaslighting, accusation. For five days, I was kept from peace in my own home. They wouldn’t leave. They woke me in the night, gaslighting me, taunting me, . They accused me of cruelty toward my late wife. They twisted my silence into guilt, and when I cracked, when I threw a torn sheet of crumpled paper in frustration, when I met anger with anger, I was labelled the abuser.

They left, eventually.

But not without taking a part of my future, money I never saw again. Money that could have changed the shape of my disabled life. A new stairlift. A proper mobility vehicle, a mobility scooter. Adaptations to make my home kinder to my body.

It took me over a year to accept I’d never recover those funds, that I had been the victim of Domestic Abuse (confirmed by my Doctor and two therapists).

In that year though, something began to return, something more valuable than anything else they stole.

My voice.

I have been biding my time, keeping as busy as this damaged body allows, collecting evidence and statements. I have been busy in other ways too.

On June 29th, I posted again. And I meant every word.

Older. Wiser. Stronger than I’ve ever been. And far, far more determined.

What I’ve Done Since

Not only have I completed Book 2 of the Beyond Survivor trilogy, I’ve also reclaimed the rights to Book 1 (Beyond Survivor – Rising from the Ashes of Childhood Sexual Abuse). Both books have now been released in:

• Ebook

• Paperback

• Hardcover

• Audiobook

Book 1 has been slightly revised with new content. Book 2, Phoenix Warriors (co-authored with Donna Bailey), goes further, not just in testimony but in offering solidarity, strength and therapeutic advice to other survivors.

And there's more.

Over the past few years I’ve written four other books — not on trauma, but still deeply personal. They will be released by autumn. And I have begun work on Book 3 of the Beyond Survivor trilogy.

No, I won’t be returning to the constant energy of blogging and online presence. That pace, that exposure, it took too much from me. I write about that in Phoenix Warriors. But I will speak again, from time to time. When I have something that matters.

You will see me less on X (Twitter), more often here, and increasingly present on Facebook, where I’m building new pages to carry this work forward.

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For Now

Thank you, to those still walking with me.
My voice will not be silenced again.
And I promise you this:

One day, I will tell it all.

Jan