What is it?

A rhetorical question – what is it about me that makes people comfortable?  I honestly don’t know what it is but for some reason I seem to be able to talk to anyone and generally, people respond in a friendly manner.  In fact, in many cases if they are given the opportunity they will confide in me.

I don’t understand it.  It’s not that I don’t love it – I do!  But I question why it happens time and again.  Yes, I have learnt over the years to show my confident and together face to the world.  Very few people can see past the facade to the me who is cowering inside, dying cell by cell as I fear that I am being judged and found wanting.  So is it that false confidence that pulls people or is it something deeper?  Maybe a sense of the pain inside me?  Is there maybe some kind of signal that I give out that let’s people know that I have suffered and through that suffering, learned how to cope?

I stand in a shop each day, serving customer after customer.  I greet them all in the same way – with a smile and a friendly hello.  Of course, there are many occasions when I am dancing around, singing along to a song on the radio or generally goofing about.  But my nutty behaviour only seems to bring out the smiles.  And the chatter commences.  No matter what level the customer, how important their job or how tough their day, they mostly seem to respond with a smile and a willingness to chat. 

And it starts me wondering again – why are they willing to talk to me, a complete stranger?  Why are so many of them happy to discuss their personal circumstances with me when they really don’t know anything about me? 

In fact, I feel truly blessed.  I am thankful every day that I have – well, whatever it is!  I wish I knew what IT was, but I am grateful!

Differences

This is way off topic , but working with our Locally Employed Civilians (LECs) today brought home to me the way different people deal with various races and cultures.  I have always believed that we are all created equal and the only difference is how we deal with what we get in life.  Obviously some of us are more fortunate than others and receive many benefits in our lives, but I believe who we are is defined less by what we have than by what we do with what we’ve got.

Despite what happened to me as a child, I believe I had a good childhood.  I had a secure home, in a nice area.  I never wanted for clothing or food.  My education was well taken care of and really my only limitation was my lack of self-belief.  But my parents also raised me in such a way that skin colour meant very little to me.

Obviously, due to the law of the land, my exposure to different races was somewhat restrictive, but when the barriers came down it actually meant very little to me in real terms.  The confident and secure front I put on means I will happily interact with anyone – my problem lays within me and not with those around me.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been lucky to be exposed to a culture that is totally new to me.  I want to grow as a person and so am endeavouring to learn the local language.  Yes, it is hard and slow, but amazingly it has earned me the support and respect of our LECs.  And yet today I saw how a lack of respect for people of different races and cultures can directly affect how a person performs and behaves.  Never before have I seen this so clearly and it does make me look back at my life and wonder if I have always been fair and respectful to others.  I’d like to say that I have, but how to be sure?  I wish I knew!

--

'I believe that friends are quiet angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly' 

No, you don't know how I feel

Talking to a young squaddie today made me realise that no matter what your underlying problem there are still many parallels.

I’m not going to go into what his issue was, as that would be betraying what was told to me in confidence, but I can talk about the issues that it raised for me and how it relates to my own experiences.  It brings up the burning question – why do people believe that they know how you feel when they’ve been in a similar situation?  We are all unique; we feel things and react to situations differently.  And there are always contributing factors that differentiate one situation from another.

Okay, yes, I admit it – I am not the first one to have been sexually abused and as child and sadly, nor will I be the last.  But that does not mean that another victim would feel what I felt or react in the same way that I did/do.  I’m not trying to take away from the suffering of other victims, but my pain is unique to me.  You can have a basic understanding of what I feel, but you can never truly know.  That is not to say that I don’t appreciate it when someone offers me support and comfort, but it does mean that the eternal platitudes – I know how you feel, I’ve been there, etc – only result in the walls going up.

I would never have got to where I am now without the love and support of my friends and my boys, but ultimately the path to complete healing is mine alone to navigate.  I just hope that I can use what I have learned from my own experiences to ease the burden of even one person over here.  That is why I am here!  That is what keeps me going when the road ahead is dark.

Moving right along

Well, not entirely sure how to format when posting directly on to my blog, but as I am in an unusual situation this will just have to do for now.

Before I go any further, I would just like to leave a message for anyone new to my blog.  Yes, I am a Survivor of Child Sexual Abuse and that topic is central to my blog.  It isn't necessary to go back to the beginning of the blog and read all the postings, but it would certainly help to put things into perspective and give a much clearer picture of who I am and why.  So...

My journey as a Survivor continues.  To bring this blog up to date, here is a run down of where I am now and how I ended up here.

First of all - where am I?  Afghanistan.  Or to be more precise Camp Bastion in Afghanistan.  And that naturally leads to the question of how I ended up here.

Well, it must have become blatantly obvious to everyone who knows me by now or who has been following my story so far, that I have exceptionally low self-esteem.  I feel valueless and like a waste of space most of the time and to compensate I do things to help other people, even if it is only to make them smile.  By doing that, I then feel that I am worth something.  Yes, yes, yes, I have been told hundreds of times that I am better than that, but no matter how hard I try I just can't believe it.

So, I heard about a job that involved working in the shops on military bases in Afghanistan.  Upon investigating it, I found that the whole ethos of the organisation (which I cannot name) is to bring a little bit of home to troops serving in war zones overseas.  Staff are recruited as much for their skills as for their personalities and their outlook on life.  A prerequisite is an ability to smile and listen, no matter how difficult the situation.

I jumped at the opportunity and after a six month battle with illness, here I am.  And I am awestruck!!  How could someone like me be given such an amazing opportunity?  At first, upon landing here, everything seemed somewhat surreal.  Then, whilst travelling by bus between camps I witnessed a casualty being flown in ... suddenly where I was became all too real.  Up to that point, despite a number of explosions and the constant sound of aircraft, 24 hours a day, I felt more like I was on holiday! 

Even more sobering, the next day when Op Minimise was announced - a soldier had died and all our lines of communication with the world outside camp were terminated until his or her family had been notified.  I almost held my breath for the next few hours, waiting for Op Minimise to be declared over, thinking of that poor family, receiving such devastating news whilst we all lived another day thinking only of ourselves.  It has certainly made me think.