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Ep. 78: Childhood abuse doesn't have to define you
263 Plays11 months ago
TW: My guest today is Debra Blackman. Debra tells us about sexual abuse that happened to her as a child, so if that’s likely to be difficult for you to hear, please do switch off from this episode.
Growing up in a family with an affluent facade, Debra suffered in silence from sexual abuse by a family member until she was 17. Her mother failed to see her plight. When the family moved home, Debra experienced bullying and isolation, and struggled to face the situation she was in. The abuse from her father reached a breaking point when she was 18, and she finally stood up to him, leading to her being kicked out of her own home with just £5 to her name.
It's not surprising that this difficult start took Debra down a toxic path in her relationships over the next few years, but today she is a top flight banker and CEO, providing an example of how it’s possible to overcome even the worst kind of experiences and build a life you can love.
Debra tells us how her behaviour reflected what was happening to her, how therapy changed her mindset about her life, and how she hasn't allowed the abuse to define her. She also says how hard it was to walk away from the abuse when she was very young, and acknowledges that she wasn't ready to tackle her trauma until the time was right.
Who is Debra Blackman?
Debra is the owner of Viessentially, an exectuive PA service.
More teenage parenting from Helen Wills:
Helen wills is a teen mental health podcaster and blogger at Actually Mummy, a resource for midlife parents of teens.
Thank you for listening! Subscribe to the Teenage Kicks podcast to hear new episodes. If you have a suggestion for the podcast please email [email protected].
There are already stories from fabulous guests about difficult things that happened to them as teenagers - including losing a parent, becoming a young carer, and being hospitalised with mental health problems - and how they overcame things to move on with their lives.
You can find more from Helen Wills on parenting teenagers on Instagram and Twitter @iamhelenwills.
For information on your data privacy please visit Zencastr's policy page
Please note that Helen Wills is not a medical expert, and nothing in the podcast should be taken as medical advice. If you're worried about yourself or a teenager, please seek support from a medical professional.
Podcast produced by James Ede at Be Heard production.
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Transcript
Introduction to Teenage Kicks Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
And because of that experience, I would not be the person I am today in getting all this joy out of the world and myself if I hadn't gone through that journey. Welcome to the Teenage Kicks podcast, where we take the fear out of parenting or becoming a teenager.
00:00:30
Speaker
I'm Helen Wills and every week I talk to someone who had a difficult time in the teenage years but came out the other side in a good place and has insight to offer to parents and young people who might be going through the same.
Deborah Blackman's Story Begins
00:00:49
Speaker
My guest today is Deborah Blackman. Deborah's gonna tell us about sexual abuse that happened to her as a child, so if that's likely to be difficult for you to hear, please do switch off from this episode now. Growing up in a family with an affluent facade, Deborah suffered in silence from sexual abuse by a family member until she was 17. Her mother, more focused on social climbing and maintaining their affluent lifestyle, ignored her plight.
00:01:19
Speaker
When the family moved home, Deborah experienced bullying and isolation and struggled to face the situation she was in. The abuse from her father reached a breaking point when she was 18 and she finally stood up to him, leading to her being kicked out of her own home with just five pounds to her name. It's not surprising that this difficult start took Deborah down a toxic path in her relationships over the next few years.
00:01:46
Speaker
today she's the top flight banker and CEO providing an example of how it's possible to overcome even the worst kind of experiences and build a life you can love.
Journey from Victim to Survivor
00:01:58
Speaker
Deborah, welcome to the podcast. Oh, hi Helen, it's lovely to be here. Well, thank you in advance for sharing what you're going to share with us because I think it's something that
00:02:10
Speaker
does not get talked about. And there are good reasons for that. And that's why I've put a trigger warning in there. People who have suffered severe abuse like yours just sometimes cannot bear to be reminded of it. And that's understandable. And I just want to say right from the start,
00:02:31
Speaker
Everything you hear today, please take it or leave it depending on how you are dealing with your own situation right now or how your child is dealing with their own situation right now because every story is different and every journey is personal. I'm assuming, Deborah, that you're nodding. You get that. I do. And I can only speak for myself.
00:03:01
Speaker
My opinions are ones that I formed through my own situation. They may, they may not resonate with other people, and that's absolutely fine. If they do resonate, do listen, because despite the worst scenario, things can turn around for the better. And it's a very personal, obviously it's a personal journey, but
00:03:29
Speaker
Unfortunately, unfortunately, it's normal. It's normal in today's society. I think it always has been. It's not the right kind of normal. And one thing is, I want to, if I can, if I can touch one person, one family,
00:03:52
Speaker
That's brilliant. Because by sharing my message, and it's not easy, I'm not out here for fame and fortune and glory hunting or trying to court some kind of misplaced compassion, I was a victim, I'm not anymore, and we can go into how I've changed that mindset. But my goodness me, it's been for the large part of my life, to be honest, if I look back now, because I wore a mask for so long.
00:04:21
Speaker
which you do when you're abused because you're not able to be your authentic self for obvious reasons. And, depending upon the questions that you ask me, Helen, I'm very happy to sort of expand on various things as we go along, but it can
00:04:43
Speaker
And I think a lot of survivors will say it lasts for the rest of your life. But saying that, it doesn't have to define you for the rest of your life. And it took me up until my mid 50s.
00:05:00
Speaker
to properly understand that. And that's through counselling. But that didn't happen until way, way into, you know, into my fifties. And it happened at the right time. I don't regret not doing it earlier. Because ultimately, it was the right time to do
Counselling and Healing Discussion
00:05:20
Speaker
it. So we all have the right time
00:05:24
Speaker
to do things. And one can be told, well, you should go see a counselor, or one that's kind of like a passive aggressive kind of response to people if, if you're having a bad day, or you've had an argument with your partner or somebody close to you. But it, it has to happen from within for it to work, if that makes sense.
00:05:46
Speaker
Yeah, complete sense. I mean, you're talking to a I'm, I'm two thirds of the way through a canceling diploma training to be a therapist. So I've done a lot of work myself and I will I get that whole business of your trauma is with you for life because it is it forms part of your makeup. I think the message that I like through doing these interviews with my lovely guests who've got so much trauma is that
00:06:16
Speaker
As you say, it doesn't need to define you. That's not the end of the world. I think we spend, and I say that's not the end of the world, and it sounds like such a dismissive thing to say, and I've been very angry when people have said that to me in the past, but what I mean by that is
00:06:34
Speaker
It may be the end of a world, but it's not the end of your world. There is hope, there is repair. You just will always carry that trauma and pain with you, but you will make room for it and it won't, as you say, define you. It won't break you anymore.
00:06:51
Speaker
And that's the hope that I think can be given to people when they do hit that counselling place. But equally, I've seen a lot of people come to counselling and decide, actually, now's not the right time. They may not have even made that decision. They've just come in and then backed away because it wasn't the right time. And then they've come back to it at a later point when it was the right time to do that piece of work for themselves. Yeah. And the interesting thing is with that,
00:07:21
Speaker
is oddly enough, I've learned some skills which have been incredibly helpful. I've got a very successful business. I help busy business owners now with outsourced administration help through my company, Vessentially. What it has done is that isolation as a child, that disassociation from what was happening
00:07:50
Speaker
No, it wasn't the right way to learn it. However, it has made me incredibly self-reliant and able to do things on my own. Because with the best will in the world, I'm not the greatest team player. I'm getting a lot better now. I'm coming to terms with things. But before, my default position was to be on my own.
00:08:15
Speaker
because I was separated. The one thing is with abuse, if it's been going on for a long time, the people that are perpetrating it want you to stay away from other people. They don't want you to talk about it. So with that secret comes, for me anyway, an isolated existence.
00:08:36
Speaker
And so you're always feeling what I was that I was looking from the outside in and not feeling a part of the group because there was this big part of my life that I couldn't share and neither did I want to because
00:08:49
Speaker
like all children, this was my normal existence. Living in fear was my normal existence. When my mother went out, the fear that built up, my father used to couch this in terms of doing a maths test. And it would start when I'd get a question wrong. But of course, I'd get a question wrong almost immediately, because I was so frightened. And
Impact of Childhood Isolation
00:09:12
Speaker
needless to say, I'm not very good at maths. But oddly enough, I went into banking and finance. That's a bit of an odd one there. But, but the things that, that it has taught me is to embrace my difference. I think that's a skill. If we have something wonderfully different about us, like neurodiversity, or our physical ability, may be different from somebody else's. If we can
00:09:42
Speaker
use that to our benefit and for the benefit of others, then by doing so it makes us a lot stronger. And the feeling that the contribution side of things, I never thought I had anything to give anybody. I felt guilty all the time and when one is living in a bubble of guilt, you don't have that open-heartedness
00:10:06
Speaker
because you're trying to wrangle with the fact of what have I done wrong? I'm at fault here. But when you realize that you can contribute and you can give a lot, it's made me feel so much more of a whole person. And oddly enough, I'm still very happy with my default position to be on my own. So over COVID, oddly enough, that was a real blessing for me.
00:10:34
Speaker
because I think I'm a natural introvert, but I've learned over the years to be more extrovert in my demeanor because of relationship to building with my business, etc. But now it's authentic, whereas before it always used to break down.
00:10:51
Speaker
because it really wasn't coming from me, it was coming from a pretend place. Now it's authentic and the power behind that is that I now feel the most loved, the most cherished, the most at one with humanity than I've ever done. And that's really a turning point for me because I had a birthday very recently
00:11:19
Speaker
and I've got a very, very close circle of friends. Really, I can't even count them all on one hand. That's fine. It's not a problem. I just know that they're genuine. But interestingly enough, in the business community with what I've been doing with my business, I had no idea, and this is genuine. This isn't just people wishing you, hi, happy birthday on LinkedIn. The messages that I got, I got over 70 messages.
00:11:47
Speaker
of really heartfelt, oh, we're wishing you a happy birthday, because they've seen it on my social feeds that my birthday celebration was a few days ago. And that struck me. And I thought, you know what, this is what normal people have is people wishing them happy birthday, people understanding that, you know, they make a contribution to other people's lives.
00:12:13
Speaker
And that was a real eye opener for me, that I am loved, that I am worthy. And that's another thing, the worthiness, the abuse. You don't feel that you're worthy of anything else other than the pain and the suffering that you're receiving. Yeah, I'm, okay, I don't want to ask you to talk about anything you don't want to talk about, but I'm wondering,
00:12:41
Speaker
if you can just say a little bit more about what happened to you and how it felt. And you've alluded to it a little bit by saying you felt isolated, you felt unworthy, you felt guilty like you'd done something wrong. And that's the bit that I think is so...
00:13:07
Speaker
That's the most destroying part, I would imagine. And I know that this happens. I know from all of my research into therapy and counselling and people with traumatic experiences that when you're a child and something is perpetrated on you by someone that is supposed to care about you, you
00:13:32
Speaker
you can't see that person as being in the wrong because they're your caregiver. And if they're wrong, then you're in severe danger. So you have to be wrong. And so children take it on themselves to be wrong. How can you just describe how all that was feeling for you throughout all of those years? Well, it was normal. So to compare it against others, I don't know how other people feel.
00:14:02
Speaker
But I know physically I was extremely thin. I didn't want to eat. I guess because I was, it wasn't at that stage of conscious decision to starve myself for a control reason or a vanity reason or whatever it is. How old were you when this all began? I can't remember. Right. I think it happened very early on. Okay. My real
00:14:31
Speaker
understanding of it is I was acutely aware of my private parts and I would play with myself far earlier than I think children who've grown up in a non-abusive, sexually abusive environment would do. I became aware of that very, very early on
00:15:01
Speaker
And oddly enough, I was looking at the point of, there's a dichotomy here, that the abuse was very much, that's how I was loved. That's what makes me lovable. And in that regard,
00:15:24
Speaker
I don't, I don't, you know, this isn't meant to demean anything, but I've got a little dog. I let you know before we came on the interview. And she's absolutely wonderful, which can't rationalize. So she doesn't know right from wrong. So I guide her to let her know what's acceptable living in a domesticated environment. And then there's trust, respect and love.
00:15:55
Speaker
So you have to trust that you're going to be okay and that somebody's going to be doing the best for you. You have to respect that person for the choices that they make and therefore the love grows because you feel nurtured.
00:16:10
Speaker
Yeah. My little dog tells me with her little eye movements and her ears and her body language, how she's feeling the instant of if I have to correct her or if I'm praising her. And I am nurturing that animal
00:16:30
Speaker
to form the little person that she is, the little entity that she is, to be a happy entity, a little being in the environment that she's in. But you take that as a child, as an unconscious thing that the adult, the caregiver in your life is gonna be doing the same thing for your better purpose. But what they robbed me of is,
00:16:56
Speaker
It was for them. It was for their pleasure. It was their gratification, not for mine. So I was providing them with happiness, but where was my happiness? They stole my happiness away from me because I was making them happy, but then I couldn't gain happiness for myself.
00:17:17
Speaker
Well, or even acceptance. And I'm just going back to, I'm leaping around, but when you were talking about connection and feeling loved and cherished and nurtured, I was imagining that that is because you put that in place for yourself, because you clearly didn't have that right from the very beginning. Well, what you do, what I've done as a child is I built up a fantasy world. I was given one birthday
00:17:45
Speaker
And I was playing in my bedroom on my own. I had an elder half brother who left when he was 16. I don't think he had a very happy life either. And he was 12 years older than me. And he's unfortunately passed away. And oddly enough, we're both childless. I made a conscious decision not to have children, because I didn't want this, whatever it was, to perpetrate into the bloodline down the line. That was my choice, and I'm very happy with it.
00:18:12
Speaker
But I remember my best place was on my own, so I could go into my fantasy world. And I was in this little farm with little farm animals. And I've always loved animals. I grew up in an environment, as I say, affluent environment with horses and things like that. So I always loved my animals. And they gave me an escape. And I could love something that loved me back unconditionally, which was very important to me. I don't know what I would have done.
00:18:38
Speaker
if I hadn't had the animals, one to escape to and two to communicate with and become at one with. But I remember hours and hours it felt like anyway, playing with this farm on my own. And the interesting thing is I had a large bedroom and
00:18:58
Speaker
I played in this tiny little corner and I used to put the bed across the corner like a triangle so that I played in the apex of the triangle, literally putting myself in the smallest space in that room that I could find unboxing myself in. And it's only now that I actually am thinking about how I needed to pen myself in for protection.
00:19:27
Speaker
whenever I used to hear the voice of my mother or my father calling me down to be
Turning Point to Empowerment
00:19:34
Speaker
with them or have food or what have you, the gut churning, the actual fear that I didn't want to leave that place. So it was a very compliant
00:19:44
Speaker
child. And the sense of me being happy was the more compliant I was. And I became, and this is something which I do actually, I'm thankful for, I became an incredible empath. I can read
00:20:02
Speaker
emotions and energy and the flick of an eyebrow or even before I've even entered a room I kind of know what's awaiting me. And that's for my business has been absolutely amazing because I'm able to suss things out really quickly. What I didn't have the tools was to how to handle it properly but now I'm much much better than that.
00:20:27
Speaker
So feeling anything other than I was, I can't give you the answer because I had no point of comparison. It was just my normal. I was struggling with the word normal at the beginning of this when you said normal.
00:20:48
Speaker
Because it's not normal if normal is a life where you grow up, cared about, loved and have everything that you have a right to expect. I'm not talking about money and comfort and trinkets and toys and gadgets and everything you dream of. I'm talking about an expectation of safety, emotional and physical safety as a child.
00:21:14
Speaker
I think what you meant by normal is that that does not happen for way more people than we think. We like to imagine that most children growing up are not in this horrible situation. That's an aberration. It happens to a select few and it's terrible and we should make it stop. But I think what you're saying is it happens to way more people than we imagine. Absolutely. Those children, because they know that they're not able to talk about it,
00:21:45
Speaker
For them that must feel, and for you I imagine it must have felt normal.
00:21:53
Speaker
I cannot imagine, I cannot begin to imagine how it felt but when you describe making yourself small and the stomach churning when you knew you'd have to join your family, I didn't have that but I had stomach churning if there was a tone of voice when I was called because I was that child who had to behave impeccably otherwise I was in big trouble.
00:22:17
Speaker
And there are millions of us because that was a generational style of parenting. My parents were not bad to me at all, but I knew that it was my responsibility to get everything right so that no one got angry or upset.
00:22:33
Speaker
And I learned to take that on me even when it wasn't me. And I've carried that through my entire life until I hit therapy and started to figure out that actually, no, I have a right to take up space, be who I am, not feel bad about any of it because I'm a I'm a pretty good person. But but that was it was normal for me to assume responsibility for everyone else's feelings. And it's taken a long while to cast that off.
00:23:01
Speaker
So and that's because I didn't know any other way. And I imagine that you and other people who are who were in your shoes. Just because you have to cope. So that felt normal and you just coped. Now, the interesting thing is I grew up with that. And again, the isolation, my mother was which I've realized now a covert narcissist and not interested.
00:23:28
Speaker
You see, these people, and I can't say, you know, it's a whitewash situation, but my parents were products of the Second World War as children. Now, I've never lived in a war zone growing up. I mean, I kind of lived in my own war zone, but not physical one. I don't know what damage that did to my parents. Nobody has to pass an exam to have children.
00:23:55
Speaker
you don't, you're not having to class a fitness exam to parent, you know, you get pregnant, you have a kid. And you think that actually, people would know what to do, or how to do this. But I don't know, in the series of what I think is happening is that there was a cycle that I think my father was abused.
00:24:17
Speaker
Looking back on it, from what I can hear, again, hardly ever met, I didn't know my grandfathers, because they both passed away when I was born. But I know my mother's mother had mental illness, severe mental illness. I mean, it was bad. And I only saw her about twice. Again, it was this isolation. Nobody went anywhere. We stuck in our little bubble, in our little village in North Buckinghamshire, in the countryside, living this affluent lifestyle. But I never stayed with friends. The friends never came around.
00:24:46
Speaker
I didn't really have any friends if I was absolutely honest. But one thing that did make me alert is I went to a very prestigious public school when I was about 15.
00:25:00
Speaker
From then I went, I'd been to a Catholic school. They should have seen something, to be fair. My behaviour was not normal in regards to everybody else. It must have been glaringly obvious something was wrong. And I was so painfully thin as well, and very shy and retiring, but nobody said anything. And I remember there was a girl who I met with, whom I'm still very friendly with now. She's almost like a sister to me.
00:25:26
Speaker
And I went for a weekend to stay with her and her parents in the summer holidays. And it was like entering into a different universe, not just world, a different universe. They came up to me and they hugged me. And I had never been hugged in my life.
00:25:48
Speaker
And I didn't know what to do. I just stood there with my arms down by my side. And the awful thing is when her father came to hug me, well, I mean, it was enough. And he could sense I was completely rigid. And unfortunately, they've passed away now. But my friends said, my parents said, there's something wrong. There's something wrong. But the thing is, what would have happened to me if the authorities had got involved
00:26:18
Speaker
I wouldn't have survived a care situation. I was completely clueless. I wasn't streetwise. I got a very affluent lifestyle. I lived in what people would say luxury. That would have been, I think, more traumatic
00:26:39
Speaker
to have gone somewhere completely different in a completely different environment than actually where I was. I know that sounds horrendous, but I just don't think I could have coped at all being taken away. Right. So the shock of that would have been worse and harder for you to bear than the piece that was connected.
00:27:00
Speaker
And I wouldn't have had the opportunity to escape outside of that. Goodness knows what would have happened to me if I'd have been taken away. Not straightforward, is it? No. No, it's not. And the interesting thing was with that, is as a young person, I didn't have the intellect, the emotional maturity to understand when to mention something and when to not.
00:27:27
Speaker
So when my mother came to collect me very quickly, didn't go in, I remember it was, I had to go to the car. I remember my friend's mother saying, come in for a coffee and no, no, I've got to go. And I sat down, obviously my demeanor changed because I began to realize people wanted to talk to me. They wanted to hear what I had to say. And I didn't know how to talk to them. It was just odd. Anyway, I sat in the car and off we went.
00:27:54
Speaker
And I didn't obviously kept quiet. She said, did you have a nice time? And I said, Mr. and Mrs. X were lovely. And she said, I won't swear here. She said, if you don't effing like where you are, you can effing stay where those effing people live. And I thought, right, time to shut up.
00:28:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's it, isn't it? You depend on these people, so if they disapprove of you, you just shut it down. Yeah, absolutely. So the interesting thing is it got to the point where I was around 17. I remember it was between the end of my 17th year and my 18th birthday.
00:28:38
Speaker
and I was with the horses and where I can detach, the weird thing is I don't hear anything. And that's again good for business sometimes because I can be so focused in something, it doesn't matter what's going on around me, I will just zone in. And that's from the abuse, I can just zone in and just not hear or think of anything else. So I was grooming this horse,
00:29:02
Speaker
And I didn't hear my father come up to the stable door. And I'm in my riding gear and I've got my riding hat on, which is really quite hard to protect your head. Then I say this for a reason. And I'm grooming the horse. And then I see the shadow and I look up and it's my father literally yelling at me. And then I hear it. And I walked towards him, this ogre of a man. And he went to hit me around the head.
00:29:31
Speaker
which was something that he did. Obviously he had no respect for me whatsoever. So the physical side of it was pretty rough as well. But I had my riding hat on and I don't think he'd seen it because it was quite dark in color. Anyway, his hand absolutely kind of knocked me off my feet, but it hit the riding hat and it hurt him. It hurt him a lot. And as I staggered and got myself up,
00:29:59
Speaker
He shrank in my eyes. He just shrank. He just got this small, little, ugly, disgusting, horrible person. And the way I must have looked at him was I knew him. I didn't say anything, but I told him with my eyes, you will never touch me again. And he could tell because he walked off
00:30:29
Speaker
Within about a month, a month and a half of that, I was out. Because I knew, well, I didn't know at that time, but he obviously could not bear the fact that he didn't have a hold over me anymore. Because all of his secret could have come out. And he was somebody in the community that was very well respected. So he couldn't have afforded anything like that to happen. So I remember,
00:30:55
Speaker
Going out one evening, I'd just learnt to drive. I'd saved some money up. I used to teach horse riding as a way of getting some extra money. I was just about to finish school. I hadn't quite finished my exams. I came back and I got this little mini. I came back and it was at a time when my parents said I'd had to be in by some time. They double-locked all the doors. I couldn't get in.
00:31:25
Speaker
knocking on the door couldn't get in couldn't get in couldn't get in and it got longer and I knew they were in there and I was shouting through the letterbox let me in they wouldn't let me in and it was the days before mobile phones I went to the phone box and thinking well who do I know I'm going to have to ask somebody if I could stay with them and there was a couple that I'd met through horse riding nice young couple
00:31:53
Speaker
And I'd made a kind of friends with them. And I said, look, I'm awfully sorry. I said, I can't get in. I've lost my keys. Can I come stay with you? And they went, oh, won't your mum and dad be back soon? And I went, I'd rather not disturb them. Can I come and stay with you? And
00:32:13
Speaker
That was then two years of my life. I sofa surfed because I was completely homeless. And all my plans for university and everything had gone out the window at that point. I tell everybody that my parents were ill and I had to go look after them. That's actually a little bit true because they were ill, but I didn't do that because I didn't want to say anything. And do you know what their story was about why you'd left home?
00:32:38
Speaker
Oh, that I was this awful, terrible, horrible person that was so awful that I just absconded to be with some boyfriend or what have you. Right. Yeah, they just told the story that suited them. Yeah. And then I built my life. I ran through and I found another in the paper. I got a job with a finance company in Aylesbury. And
00:33:05
Speaker
through the goodness of the hearts of people that let me sofa surf, I started up my life. From nothing, from no guile with the world, no worldliness, no nothing. And then a series of awful relationship happens, as you can imagine, and I got married very young to try and get somebody to look after me.
00:33:27
Speaker
And he was lovely. He was lovely, but he was an American Air Force person, and he lived in the States, primarily. And so living in the States, I tried it for a bit, but it wasn't for me. And we ended up and we parted. And then I just wanted my parents to love me. So when I got the chink of my mother saying the dogs needed to look after, this was like after seven, eight years,
00:33:55
Speaker
I'd given a family friend my details so that my parents, if they ever wanted to, could be in touch with me. And she said the dogs needed looking after. At that point, I was living in Bristol, and I went all the way back to where we were living in North... Well, my parents lived in North Buckingham, should look after the dogs, hoping that I'd get some kind of... Yeah.
00:34:20
Speaker
And then I couldn't keep a relationship and that's why I'm single, if I'm honest. I don't want a relationship now. They just don't work for me. I've put people through a lot of pain and I've received a lot of pain through them because I picked the wrong people.
00:34:36
Speaker
And apart from about a couple of people that were nice and decent, which then I messed up, because I didn't know how to handle that. Well, exactly. I mean, that's such a complicated, that's a whole other piece of therapy work, isn't it?
00:34:51
Speaker
Actually, I always make this point, you don't have to do the therapy if you don't want to. If you're happy and you're comfortable with your lifestyle as it is, then there might not be any need to go through all that pain of doing the work. But I'm listening to you talk about picking the wrong people and then messing up when you're with the right people.
00:35:16
Speaker
that I recognize that so, it so often happens that if you don't get that love as a child, you go into the world seeking that love and that acceptance and therefore making rash decisions the minute you get a breadcrumb of, I think that might be some respect, some love, some nurture, some attention. And so you don't really, well, I think,
00:35:43
Speaker
You can correct me because I'm speaking on your behalf, but I imagine that you don't have a lot of respect for yourself in those moments, so you give yourself too easily, too willingly. I've never respected myself. I was always the vessel to do good for other people and never do good for me. But making this into something now that I've blossomed with
00:36:07
Speaker
Through the counselling, it happened with a catalyst. I went out one evening and somebody who said they wanted to meet for business wasn't who they said they were and that set me off the path of counselling because I can't keep on going through this pathway. It's ridiculous.
00:36:21
Speaker
And interestingly enough, I had an epiphany within about six or seven weeks. It happened very quickly because it was obviously right for me to do it. And I dreamt I gave birth to a monster. I know this sounds going to sound fanciful, but literally in my head I did the pain, the sweating, everything. And
00:36:44
Speaker
Once that had left me and I told it in no uncertain terms, in very bad language, to go away, that was it. I knew that I'd turned the corner. I knew that everything then fell into place and it was about a week afterwards that I knew what I wanted to do.
00:37:10
Speaker
And that was my purpose is to build a significant legacy from now so I can leave it all to charity for people who are going through similar things to myself, who are less fortunate than me. And my goodness me, you can probably see in my change of demeanor, it's amazing. It is ultimately
00:37:36
Speaker
brilliant because I know why I'm here, why I had to suffer. It's so that now I can give to others and it's literally flowing out of me and it's been too long now for it to be a fluke. And I've gone through too much adversity for it to be a fluke. So this is why I set up the business
00:38:00
Speaker
I now have two international centers, one in Lahore in Pakistan, one in Kolkata in India, where we supply virtual assistant services at an extraordinary service level, because that's where I come from, from my working. Everything's got to be done well. The company's called Vessentially. Look us up, because we have no hierarchy. Every single person in my business
00:38:30
Speaker
has a voice, are treated with respect, are loved and cherished, are members of the team. I'm no better or worse or anything than anybody else. I just do it for the purpose of trying to channel, to help people grow, to help them grow.
00:38:49
Speaker
to help my clients grow, to help their ecosystems grow, help them spend more time with their loved ones and families, grow their businesses, it's holistic. And the weird thing is, wonderful opportunities like this coming onto this podcast, speaking to people, spreading the word, telling about my adversity, it's not all doom and gloom, it can
00:39:18
Speaker
change and blossom at the time that it's meant to. And because of that experience, I would not be the person I am today in getting all this joy out of the world and myself if I hadn't gone through that journey. Does it make it right? No way. Would I have ever chosen that path if I'd have had a choice as a
00:39:46
Speaker
as a seed, no. But it happened to me. And through me, through what I've done, and I take responsibility, I've changed it. I've made things different. And it's a lasting difference. And it's the same with addiction. It's the same with something where you overeat. It's
00:40:12
Speaker
abuse or being abusive to yourself, because that's what I was doing after this abuse, to be fair. Once that's gone, wow, it's so amazing, freeing, liberating, you can love. And I'm now, which I said to the counsellor, I want to be the person that I know I am, but I've never been able to tap into.
00:40:42
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And without sounding arrogant, I'm amazing. I'm just fantastic. Everybody's fantastic. But now I realise I am. Yes, it's knowing it, isn't it? And that is amazing. Yeah. I just want to ask you, for anyone who's listening, because I'm imagining that although this podcast is usually aimed at parents of children going through something, if it's your parents that are perpetrating
00:41:13
Speaker
the abuse that's causing your pain. You may be coming to this episode drawn in because this is you as an adult. You've been through this and you're struggling to cope and come to terms with it and move on from it. What would you say to those people who are listening who've experienced something similar
00:41:33
Speaker
who haven't gotten rid of the monster and haven't been through the process and haven't had that light bulb moment of I'm worthy, I'm valuable, I've got something, it's time to change. What would you say to them when they're really in those depths of despair? It's okay. It's okay. You're okay. You'll get through this. Sorry, I'm getting emotional.
00:42:02
Speaker
because it happened to me so many times. There is a way out. Believe that you'll find it. And it's not your fault. And you're a wonderful person. And love you for who you are right now. Faults, bad things, regrets,
00:42:31
Speaker
love you, love the soul that you are, love the being that you are because you are wonderful. Don't let anybody say that. We've all got work in progress. We're none of us going to be perfect ever. And you are on a journey and it's hard and it's tough and it's challenging and you didn't deserve to be there, but you're okay. And I'm giving you a huge hug because
00:43:02
Speaker
You are loved, you are cherished. And if you can think a little bit of love for yourself, that would be my advice to anybody, is just say to the reflection in the mirror, I love you. Yeah, that's really powerful. And I suppose, as you said at the beginning of this, you're not on your own. There are other people.
00:43:31
Speaker
There are people who care about you and there are other people who are going through the same as you, so you're not the only one. There's a lot of value, I think, in knowing that other people are on the same journey as you. Are there support groups for people who've been through childhood abuse? I've no idea. I never found them. When I needed a counsellor, I went to Google, I put counsellors near me, I got through to a magazine called Psychology Today where there was an index,
00:44:02
Speaker
The first name on there, lady was called Amy. And because her name was with A, that was the one I contacted.
00:44:10
Speaker
No big thing changed my life, changed my life. It's all on Google, just make sure that they're certified and they're proper people. But no, I don't know. And I haven't bothered, that just sounds a bit, you know, sort of trite, but I haven't bothered to look because when I needed it, I just knew I needed to do it now, otherwise something would happen. Yeah, so the time will come and it will feel right and you'll know that it's the right thing. Yeah, a really good point.
00:44:40
Speaker
So tell people where they can find you, Deborah, if they want to connect or they need to know more about your business.
Vessentially's Mission
00:44:47
Speaker
My website is www.veessentially.com. So that's www.veessentially.com.
00:45:06
Speaker
So it's like essentially with V in front of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And people can contact you there and find out more about what you do as a virtual PA supplier. That's right. Yeah, absolutely. And we do it at an extremely good rate, but it's an exceptional value. Absolutely. And it's all about giving time. It's all about helping busy business owners decompress, de-stress, getting time back in their lives.
00:45:34
Speaker
promote mental health and help them with all the things they're not doing to grow their business. Brilliant. Yeah, I think I need that actually. Life's far too frenetic. Deborah, thank you so much for talking to us about that. It's a privilege to hear about your experiences and how they've changed you for the better. Thank you so much. It's been wonderful. Thank you, Helen.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:46:04
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening. I really do appreciate it. Thank you too to everyone who's already rated and reviewed the podcast. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Amazon, it would mean the world to me if you could leave a review. It really helps get the word out as well as making me very happy to read what you have to say. If this episode strikes a chord for you, please share it with anyone else you know who might be in the same boat and hit subscribe so you don't miss the next episode.
00:46:33
Speaker
If you have a story or suggestion for something you'd like to see covered on the podcast, you can email me at teenagekickspodcast at gmail.com or message me on Instagram. I am Helen Wills. I love hearing from all my listeners. It really makes difference to me on this journey. See you next week when I'll be chatting to another brilliant guest about the highs and lows of parenting teens. Bye for now.