I Will Not Go Gentle.. #childabuse #csa #cse #recovery #

Recently I was told that I put myself "out there" too much, that I obviously wasn't over the effects of the years of abuse. Apparently I was weakening my position by sharing so much of myself and devoting so much of my time to raising awareness and fighting for those who are unable to speak out.

My response was to laugh at the ignorance of the person who said this to me. 

If men and women who have found their chains broken and have the strength to speak up, do not do so, then who will! 

I am proud to call myself a survivor. I have become far more than that in the last few years though. I am a thriver. I have cast aside the shackles and the gags and I speak out. I tell it as it is. I do not do this to bring glory upon myself, far from it. I do it to spread knowledge and in so doing I hope to create a better understanding of not only how childhood sexual abuse effects the victim, but also what signs to look out for and how to help the victims "heal".

Ignorance and silence are the friends of the abusers along with fear and shame. 

My voice is only a small one. I can only ever hope to reach a very tiny percentage of the population. If I can help one person to recover, if I can stop one more child being used, I will. 

Knowledge is power. We all need to learn the signs of abuse, and its effects on the innocent. 

Will I stop spreading this knowledge because it offends some people? No, I will most certainly not.  If what I write makes you uncomfortable you have two choices. 

1 - Read, learn, be aware, be proactive. Understand and try to empathise. Take the knowledge and spread it to help others. 

2 - Turn your backs, if your conscience allows it. Pretend it doesn't and couldn't affect you. Be ignorant, be an accomplice to child abuse by your inaction. 

There is NO EXCUSE not to support victims of childhood sexual abuse, whatever their sex, their colour, their religious views, or social standing. To do anything else, to turn your backs or deny them justice is tantamount to collusion with the perpetrators of sexual crimes. 

Sheltering or protecting a Paedophile means you may as well have been holding the innocent child down yourselves.  

Fear is not an excuse, neither is family pride. A child is NEVER to blame for being the victim of sexual crimes. NEVER.

No... I will not shut up and go and hide back in the shadows. The past had a devastating effect on my life, but it is indeed past. It has changed me, as has the therapy to get to where I am today. I have taken away its power to control my present and my future. So can you. The past no longer defines who I am and where I am going. 

The idolatry of the mindless #poetry

Clear like water the tears flow into a silver flask,
tarnished by the indifference of the masses.
Tarnished by seeking to be more,
gaining no more than the idolatry of the mindless,
and losing no less than the soul.

A silver flask among other silver flasks abandoned.
Lost in a sea without value,
and seen as the value of the lost.
Warming my bed with snow and frost...

The darkness that surrounds me kills.
Living for love, and kindness,
and that view of children playing on grassy hills...
Dying for compassion, for attention,
for a voice to hear my screams, which to most
seem to exist in that other dimension
which some seem to name the void.

Rescue me from this place, this prison, this life.
This play for the gods in the stage of man,
and me playing the grain of sand on the beach,
waiting to be blessed by the touch of a wave of hope.

Give me peace. Give me justice.
Give me a pair of eyes to be lost in, a pair of legs to be wrapped in.
Give me a hint to the life I never had, and seem unable to obtain.

Take away the masks for the play, and the tarnish.
Let me keep the tears, but give me the sparkle of a smile.
Replace the frost with that landscape of a pair of eyes.
Open the doors to that lost dimension and let me be heard.
Take away the pain. Take away the sorrow.

For today is yesterday is tomorrow...
Life just seems to want to stay the same.

I Am ME - That IS Enough. #mindfulness

Moving Forwards in a Backwards Direction. 

That doesn't really sound very positive or encouraging a start at first read. Please bear with me for a while and I shall I explain. 

I haven't properly blogged for a few years. There are many reasons for this, some of which I am not at liberty to discuss. Others I have mentioned in another short blog about grief. On top of this I have been taking a very long, hard look at my life. I started this blog ten years ago. The url and original blog name is "What Is Love?"  That is another subject I have previously discussed at length and have written countless poetry on the subject. Good, bad and indifferent.

I had a birthday in lockdown a few days ago (I turned 53, though still, in my head, I am thirty something), and I am also classed as shielded. For those not in the UK that means I have certain medical problems that would seriously complicate my situation should I catch Coronavirus. It was a strange, but lovely day.

These ten weeks in lockdown have given me much time to think.  I also shaved my hair off!! 

Last year I was diagnosed with Complex PTSD. Dissociative Identity Disorder and Generalised Anxiety Disorder. This diagnosis was by an expert in the field. Not everyone likes to be labeled as having a mental health issue. Many feel a benefit from having a diagnosis. For me however, the above diagnoses were a relief. I have been wrongly diagnosed and thus received incorrect treatment for a very long time. I understand that diagnosing mental health issues is not an exact science.  At 21 I was diagnosed as having Psychotic Neuroses. I was partly to blame for I had not disclosed the traumatic injuries I received in childhood.

I am now working under professional, medical supervision, at reducing many of the medications I have been prescribed. Several of these have had very unpleasant side effects and some have clashed with others. I am on a slow detox..

I have been told, and have also assumed via my own research, that the diagnoses above applied to me. I have written of such several times. Too many people with mental health disorders related to trauma are still incorrectly diagnosed. I sincerely hope that changes over the next few years.  Sadly the NHS does still not fully recognise CPTSD as a condition in it's own right.

It could be said, as the song goes, that since lockdown many feel “Mama We’re All Crazee Now..” 

So.. Moving forwards in a backwards direction, I intend to finish the second book in the Beyond Survivor Trilogy which is co-written with the wonderful Canadian therapist Donna Bailey. "Phoenix Warriors - Beyond The Ashes of Childhood Sexual Abuse" with @26PeacockLady will be released later this year. Due to certain agreements I am having to rewrite certain segments and also replace others in their entirety.  Following that, will be my third and final book written as a "survivor".  It will follow a similar format to my first book and the working title is "A Phoenix in Flight". 

I have never made much money as an author. Since my first book was self published, it took a very long time to break even.  What little profit there has been has been put into other mental health projects. Making money or becoming famous etc has never been my aim. My intent was always to share what I had learnt, to try and help others through my own experiences and my own methods of coping and "surviving". 

Personally I have much planned beyond that. The groundwork for which is currently already being laid.  A huge part of that has been learning to accept and love myself, as me. I have other writing projects underway which will be written under a pen name/pen names. There will be a crossover of sorts, as some of the topics are ways to reduce anxiety, methods of meditating, making the most of your inner potential etc. The big change is that these will all be under a Pagan umbrella. They will not necessarily be written from the perspective of someone who was once a victim. They will be written by a man who has embraced Paganism his entire adult life and has found purpose, love, and peace at last.  A man that accepts his sexuality, a man that accepts himself, a man who is finally learning that he is enough, just as he is.  

Ref. Sexuality.. It is something I struggled with for decades. I have lived with, and loved, partners of both sexes. The labeling of sexuality is something that I am unhappy about. I accept that I am me. If I had to use a label I would prefer PanSexual. As a male victim, I could not be sure, if I had not been subjected to transgressive homosexuality (by paedophiles), what my sexuality may be. Whatever the past, whatever water has passed under the bridge, I am me. I like me. I really am enough, just as I am.

I also have a few fiction books to finish and set loose on the world. I have spent decades writing. It's time I sorted it all out and just get it done.

My new works will obviously have new websites etc as it is important to me to keep them mostly separate. I am not hiding one from the other, I am not ashamed of any aspect of who I am and what my life has been. 

Stay tuned and stay safe!

Forever Beautiful To Me #poetry

No sight
of any wonders
of the world,
no beautiful thing,
not anything,
could mean as much
as to see your face
look gently at me again,
no beautiful sound
could mean as much
as to hear you speak
softly to me again.
Since I lost you,
now I look
at what else
once seemed beautiful
and compared to you

it all seems dead,
lacking something
of what it once had,
compared to you,
and I would trade
all else that is beautiful
simply to know you,
so I can love you,
near to me again.
Without you near again,
everything else
that is beautiful
seems only a theory,
an aesthetic,
applied principles,
some abstractions,
components,
resemblance to ideas,
concepts,
compositions,
a technical question,
but nothing really
really beautiful.
You would always be
more beautiful
to me.

The Truth - I am glad I am leaving #Domestic Violence #MenToo

The Truth Be Hidden
Like a wave of stinging bees
a vast maw spews forth
its delivery of denigration,
staccato sticks and stones
hurled with venomous vigour
in machine gun frenzy
the leaden poison bullets
hitting the heart hard
jerking the soul strings
wearing thin with insult,
acidity dripping and dissolving
corroding their commitment
polarisation pulsing into view
building walls ever higher
cemented by hatred
surely it is not meant?
where is the commitment,
the shining example?
replaced by petty point-scoring
and manifestations malignant
boiling in intensity fermented
showering ears with barbed comment
eyes roll and look for deliverance
ever stalled like praise
a poised viper waiting
to spring with pent-up
bitterness an addiction always
everyone else wrong, always
an excuse for adrenaline fix
of abuse, a tirade of blame
heaped like so much shit
on their shoulders, broadened
by years of this manic seque
the mind of a seeming harridan
being called forth all too often
channelling its primal negativity
pounding, pounding, demanding
submission the only solution
that is unless you leave.
Though knowing that even in the
 leaving, my escape will be considered betrayal.

Guest Bloggers Wanted! #childabuse #survivors #csa #cse #malevictims #malesurvivors

HI!

I'm very proud of this blog. It has become a resource to others as well as being my place to share my experiences, introduce survivor friends to my audience and have the occasional rant!

 I'm looking for guest posts on the following topics.

Child Abuse
P.T.S.D
D.I.D
Depression
Suicide
Male Survivors
Therapy
Alt Therapy
Coping skills/mechanisms
Survivor Poetry

Please contact me through this blog or via Twitter @Beyond_Survivor if you are interested.

Any length of post is fine and it can be anonymous if required.

Thank you again for taking time out of your lives to read this blog and for the amazing support you give me.

Submissions can also to be sent to JanLFrayne@yahoo.com

Paedophiles and their supporters may not submit...

The post can be anonymous if you prefer. If you are happy to be yourself then you can also include photos, links to yourself on social media and your own website.

My aim is to make this blog a comprehensive resource for other survivors and also to promote awareness regarding all aspects of being a survivor of abuse. Speaking out and sharing our experiences is a great way to both help ourselves in our healing journey and to help others to understand us better.

Many thanks for your interest!

Ján

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