SNL Newsletter - Jan/Feb 1997

This newsletter deals with abuse and abuse related issues. Every attempt is made to ensure the accuracy of information presented. However, we assume no liability re same. This newsletter may be distributed for non-profit and educational purposes, provided it remains fully intact, and is distributed free of charge. No other distribution without the authors consent.

When a person seeks assistance with their emotional issues they are immediately vulnerable. Therapists, doctors, counselors etc., are routinely portrayed as "experts", and it can be all to easy for a distressed client to automatically defer to this expertise, believing that the "therapist knows best", even when it doesn't feel quite right. The following Bill of Rights outlines a set of rights that transcend all forms of therapeutic ideology and individual therapist styles.

A Recovery Bill of Rights for Trauma Survivors

As a Matter of Personal AUTHORITY, You Have
the Right . . .
. . . to manage your life according to your own values and judgement.
. . . to direct your recovery, answerable to no one for your goals, effort, or progress.
. . . to gather information to make intelligent decisions about your recovery.
. . . to seek help from a variety of sources, unhindered by demands for exclusivity.
. . . to decline help from anyone without having to justify the decision.
. . . to have faith in your powers of self restoration -- and to seek allies who share it.
. . . to trust allies in healing as much as any adult can trust another, but no more.
. . . to be afraid and to avoid what frightens you.
. . . to decide for yourself whether, when, and where to confront your fear.
. . . to learn by experimentation, that is, to make mistakes.

For the Preservation of Personal BOUNDARIES, You Have the Right. . .
. . . to be touched only with your permission, and only in ways that are comfortable.
. . . to choose to speak or remain silent, about any topic or at any moment.
. . . to choose to accept or decline feedback, suggestions, or interpretations.
. . . to ask for help in healing, without having to accept help with work, play, or love.
. . . to challenge any crossing of your boundaries.
. . . to take appropriate action to end any trespass that does not cease when challenged.

In the Sphere of Personal COMMUNICATION, You Have the Right. . .
. . . to ask for explanation of communications you do not understand.
. . . to express a contrary view when you do not understand and you disagree.
. . . to acknowledge your feelings, without having to justify them as assertions of fact or actions affecting others.
. . . to ask for changes when your needs are not being met.
. . . to speak of your experience, with respect for your doubts and uncertainties.
. . . to resolve doubt without deferring to the views or wishes of anyone.

Specific to the DOMAIN of Psychotherapy, You Have the Right. . .
. . . to hire a therapist or counselor as a coach, not boss, of your recovery.
. . . to receive expert and faithful assistance in healing from your therapist.
. . . to be assured that your therapist will refuse to engage in any other relationship with you - - business, social, or sexual -- for life.
. . . to be secure against revelation of anything you have disclosed to your therapist, unless a court of law demands it.
. . . to have your therapist's undivided loyalty in relation to any and all perpetrators, abusers, or oppressors.
. . . to receive informative answers to your questions about your condition, your hopes for recovery, the goals and methods of treatment, the therapist's qualifications.
. . . to have a strong interest by your therapist in your safety, with a readiness to use all legal means to neutralize an imminent threat to your life or someone else's.
. . . to have your therapist's commitment to you not depend on your "good behaviour.," unless criminal activity or ongoing threats to safety are involved.
. . . to know reliably the times of sessions and of your therapist's availability, including, if you so desire a commitment to work together for a set term.
. . . to telephone your therapist between regular scheduled sessions, in urgent need, and to have the call returned within a reasonable time.
. . . to be taught skills that lessen the risk of retraumatization:

(a) containment (reliable temporal/spatial boundaries for recovery work);
(b) systematic relaxation;
(c) control of attention and imagery (through trance or other techniques).

. . . to reasonable physical comfort during sessions.

Commentary by FreeToBe

Have you every gone to the Doctor's office and had your physical complaints summarily dismissed as "psychological"? I have, and it sucks!

Why is it that if you suffer from emotional distress of any kind your physical ailments are more likely than not to be attributed to your psyche even before appropriate and comprehensive physical assessment and investigation? I don't mean to infer that the psychological and physical do not impact on one another, for I strongly believe that they do. For instance, being in chronic pain all the time can certainly drain one of energy, enthusiasm etc and bring one down emotionally. Likewise emotional issues can impact on one's ability to cope with physical discomfort. What I have a problem with is the tenacious assertion that where psychological issues exist the physical symptoms derive from the psychological, even if the patients own experience with the ailment suggests physical origin.

Not to knock the whole medical profession, for I am sure there are excellent, competent doctors out there, but sadly there are all to many general practitioners who, armed with a little psychological knowledge, make sweeping psychological diagnosis that potentially do more harm than good.

If you come across such a doctor, my advice to you is to seek another opinion. Any doctor who makes a psychological diagnosis of your physical complaints without comprehensive physical investigation is putting your health at risk. My point being that without proper investigation it is impossible to rule out physical origin. Adequate investigation is good health care, something each of us deserves whether or not we have concurrent emotional/psychological issues.

If you would like to share your creative work, poetry, story or artwork here, contact us. We are always looking for interesting articles, personal stories, creative expressions, or other input (including gifs of your work) which you feel would be of interest to survivors of abuse. A special thank you to those who submitted their work for this issue.

Be good
Be careful
Come straight home
Watch what you are doing
Pay attention
Put things back where you found them
Listen carefully
Do as you are told
Don't get smart
Remember what I said
Think
Figure it out for yourself
Look it up
Always do your best
Sit still
Sit up straight
Don't stare
Eat everything on your plate
Go to sleep
Make sure you go before we leave
Take what's coming to you
Don't complain
Don't ask me again
Be grateful for what you have
Say please
Don't be greedy
Never take the last one
Share
Be polite
Smile
Mind your own business
Don't be late
Say you're sorry
Be nice
Be sure to say thank-you
Respect your elders
Love your parents
Be quiet
Speak only when spoken to
Don't move
Don't tell

Excerpts from a diary...

. . . Sometimes I feel something on the edge of feeling. Like a pressure or shadow that tells me there are feelings beyond that edge. It feels threatening, and yet there is a sense that it would 'feel' good to curl up in a dark warm safe place and cry. Only I can't, or won't? I am so afraid of the inside again, of its' secrets, of dark corners where demons lie waiting to pounce when I turn my attention away from guarding the walls.

I know that expression is the path out of the darkness, yet I still fear. With no release for some time, the pressure has been building. Now it seems as if the resulting turbulents will destroy me if released from their prison.

This inner world of mine, so disenfranchised from the outer world of people, social interaction and productive endeavours, is so tangible and influential to me that it leaves the outer world floating in some meaningless abyss. It is the powerful inner world that determines my quality of life.

I say life' but I do not truly live. I survive the tortures of a modern society that still worships status, material accumulation, and laughter - however false. People simply do not want to know, not really. Knowing would endanger their all too fragile sense of safety in their world. Perhaps people would go mad if they really knew. I cannot blame them. If I could, I would not know either.

Yet I do know, and although my sanity often feels so fragile with the knowledge, somehow somewhere deep inside I am sane. The distance between that place of sanity and my present state is represented by the vast quagmire of feelings into which I have yet to willingly venture.

I scrape by. Donning protective armour and bracing my stance, the inner world is barricaded away from conscious awareness and the outer world becomes negotiable - for a while. A temporary reprieve from the ominous edge of feelings' which seep insidiously through the armour. To the outside world this armour looks strong, sturdy, threatening even. Yet the metal is fatigued and worn thin from years of use. Thankfully not many consciously challenge its efficacy.

As old, and as tired as it makes me to wear this armour daily, I cannot imagine facing the world without it. It is the last obstacle between the world and what is left of the real me - the one that hides somewhere in the recesses of my soul, fearful of all light because it knows light to burn. And yet, it is that same tentative fragment of me that yearns for the light. Not to be burned, but to be warmed and fed by it. Submitted by Tinkerbell

Therapeutic Art

I find artwork, be it paint, pencil, paper collage, etc. to be a useful therapeutic tool. It bypasses the censor in me, which granted does not always feel like a positive thing. There are some things the censor would rather keep within! When I am able to use art it allows a freedom of expression beyond words. Art done as expression need not be "artistic" or "perfect" by any standards other than my own. Not setting those standards too high, is one of my goals. Paint for expressions sake! I do a lot of work in black and white, perhaps reflecting the darkness of abuse. I am often surprised at how much of what I was feeling during the exercise is conveyed in the artwork. Two pieces of my art are included here. I hope to be able to include that of other contributors in upcoming newsletters.

Silent No Longer Newsletter

Jan/Feb '97 © All copyrights reserved.

A Recovery Bill of Rights for Trauma Survivors

Commentary by FreeToBe

Excerpts from a diary...

Therapeutic Art