Re: please help, silenced for speaking out need support

Thankyou so, so much for your response

It helps so much just to have that confirmation that others feel the same way

I have faced this kind of abuse my whole life

I agree that some of it is because people don't want to hear it

but sadly my experience with human nature also tells me some of it

is because people don't want to get caught

so they re-abuse

it's not just about it being re-traumatising, I feel it's an actual act of power

lately I've been reading Michael Foucault and it makes so much sense

he talks about how people align with institutional power and when that power

is threatened they act to defend their identity, sadly often at the cost

of those they are supposed to help

I don't find this stuff bad, it actually helps me heal and gives

me hope that things will change

if anything acknowledging the problems has helped me identify

the real support I need as well as those aspects of it that are dangerous

it has helped others do things like bring the Royal Commission to bear, finally

giving us hope that the abuse will be heard and there will be more safety

and genuine understanding, that we can talk about abuse , learn about it and

heal from it

also been learning stuff from the trauma school and that makes so much sense

that my response to gaslighting is physiological because it is an act of

power so my body releases flight/fight chemicals in accurate response to the fear

of people who exerted such absolute power not just over my body but

also over my speech.

The first acts of violence that I received in life weren't physical

as a child I was never allowed to speak about emotional abuse, because

it would be twisted around - I lived in fear of my mother

I love her very much and she is really different now, but it took the loss

of my sister for her to be willing to see the harm that she was doing even then

it took many years. I love my mum but what she did was abuse.

She instinctively acted to hide her wrongdoing by trying to convince me that it never happend.

The forum staff are acting to conceal wrongdoing by misusing the communiy guidelines

I'm trying to seek help with management

if that doesn't work I'll seek help from the government

if that doesn't work, I'll keep a record of everything and seek an advocate

to help me include it in my submission once the Royal Commission starts

I'll seek help with advice from other agencies that are increasingly starting to realise

that people don't just need help in the traditional sense of counseling

but actually need help dealing with systemic abuse, silencing and misinformation on

a social level

I know my community is waking up

but being able to speak to people who can relate is so, so important

because for all he good and all the good people helping with change, when one of the

'bad people' - who may be good people deep down but are acting out their bad side

gaslight me when I'm starting to feel empowered and take control of the word 'Victim' and 'violence'

the wind goes all out of my sails, I've been gaslit so many times that

their false interpretation of reality still has so much power, it makes me doubt all the good

people and the things I know are starting to change and leaves me struggling against

waves of fear and terrifying memories

I am not mentally ill, I am a victim of violence, everythign I went through even

the most strange experiences that were called "mania" or "psychosis"

they weren't those things, they were in the spectrum of very normal reactions to

being a victim of violence and silencing - violence does not have to be physical

since I have been able to work through the metaphors that others called 'psychosis' or

'madness' - with someone who made me feel really safe (although unfortunately when

I started realising I was a victim of institutional abuse, an important part of my healing

she felt threatened and started lashing out at me so I had to leave - though we have

since made contact and spoken about it, she felt I was threatening her identity and

she couldn't help so she lashed out instinctively, telling me that my trauma was 'boring' referring to other people as having 'real' trauma etc - but that's the thing, humans do have a

dark side and it needs to be given the light to change otherwise people instinctively

gaslight others because they feel threatened by the reality of abuse, particularly when

they participated in it)

thanks so, so much because hearing someone else relate gives me back my reality

just like being allowed to work though my metaphors helped me integrate them

being allowed to work through the fear and the reality of abuse

- the phsyical violence and the emotional abuse/gaslighting for speaking up about it

is really, really important in working through it

the gaslighting is 'crazy making' because it denies what I know to be true, but it also

communicates 'we have power over you, we can make you quiet, you are nothing, you are alone'

hearing someone else speak up breaks that spell

and it lets me know that I am doing the right thing and I need to keep fighting for a world

where we can all be free from gaslighting and abuse

Where we can fight for the existence of real services, discuss our human rights and the evolving framework for them and be free from violence, abuse and silence

I've posted so many amazing resources that have been deleted

but now I know that it's important to fight for this to stop and I won't give up

there is no point in 'seeking help' while the people who claim they want to help

you do everything they can to make it impossible for there to be anywhere to seek help from

and stop those who are taking back their power to reform the service landscape and

the community narrative about truama and distressed to be accurate and not

based on medical misinterpretation and forcing of brutal, decontextualising, out-dated

categorisations and medical re-framing of truama and severe and complex distress

while hiding from the public how much understanding has been developed around

undersanding trauma and distress or how much the medical interpretations have

kept people stuck

help needs to be

something that helps and not harms

so a big part of being able to find help is discussing what harmed about it

the bigger the harm, and more widespread the harm the more important it is to talk about it

so there can be truth, reconciliation and healing

Thankyou so, so much @Eden1919 and I hope you

have a really, really lovely weekend

sorry for my big ramble but I'm still a bit freaked out

going to need to spend the day finding out what I can do to stop the abuse from

this service because when they don't abuse it's been a really important part

of my healing and growth to share with & learn from others here