Building Alliance, Not Compliance!

Monthly Archives: June 2014


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Cutting off friends

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(Photo – Delphinium Copyright Steve Wright)

 

My blog this week was triggered by someone else’s  blog –

and its really a follow up on the comments that other people make – which often leave you bamboozled and wondering how on earth they could say the things they do and why they don’t understand.

I thought I would share a little experience of my own which has helped me to try to understand the other person.  I had a really close friend who I believed was on the same wave length as me, so when I started to share the difficulties I was having with my own particular trauma – I got the similar replies of Amanda’s blog above. I was told that I should be moving on and so should our daughter – and that bad things happen all the time and we just have to get on with them.

At that moment – it was too painful for me and I knew that this friend was going to damage me further, so I had to make a decision to cut her off. No more texts, phone calls, letters, emails or anything.  It was a painful cutting off because I had believed this friend really understood things.  I think I really grieved over the loss of that friendship and what it had meant to me.  I now had to reevaluate things.

However, 5 years later, I  recently had a phone call from this friend with sincerest apologies for failing to be the kind of friend I needed at that time.  She now knew what she had done, and understood why I had cut her off – she too was now suffering deep emotional trauma, going through a divorce, a house move and a feeling of mental breakdown.

But, it was not her recent circumstances  that helped me to understand her – it was her admission that  she had suffered some extremely painful experiences when she was young – and our families experience was touching on those raw nerves for her.  I realised that our extreme pain and suffering were causing her pain as well – and she was not ready to address this  – so she attacked – just like a wounded animal.

I now personally admire the fact that she has had the courage to  apologise most profusely – and I can begin to heal myself now, knowing that she was also in pain and suffering.

It can often help to know others circumstances when they have hurt us – as it can help us to grow also.   I know this is not true in every scenario but in some cases it is – so it can just give us another angle to help with our pain.


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HELLO AND WELCOME

Hi, I’m Maggie and as this is my first post on my new site, I thought you might like to understand why I wanted to start a service  like this.

As you may imagine, I went through a very traumatic experience in my own life and it affected all our family for a very long time, and we still have to deal with repurcussions from this although we have certainly all come a long way, and I can say that there is hope – especially for those who receive the correct support at the right time.

The thing that struck me was when I met other individuals going through traumatic events, is that many seemed to suffer similar symptoms even though the circumstances were very different.

My image of getting help through a mental health service was like being handed a beautifully wrapped box of chocolates – only to be so disappointed when the box was revealed to be – empty!  I do not decry any health professionals who work hard to help others in this field, but I’m sure they will also agree that this is an area where  staff are stretched to the limit, with little resources or time to devote to the important things.

I decided that I would like to do whatever I could to help and thought it would be easier to use my own skills as a film maker to record the experiences of many different families and provide an online service so anyone could access at any time of the day or night – and did not need to wait for 6 – 12 months for an appointment.  Often, when help is needed – it is needed right now, this day, this night, as this may be the only chance to help a person to survive.

We already have a number of families lined up who have volunteered to be interviewed either using audio or video and they will be posted on the site as soon as we have a few that can be viewed.  We will also be designing training packages for others who need to provide these training skills to their staff  e.g. hospitals, social services and police etc.

Please feel free to get in touch if you have any ideas you’d like to share and I hope you will share the journey with me as I am new to this but I hope it proves to be a beneficial service for lots of people.

Maggie