Thriving, not surviving

I am Chelsey Fielding.

I am a domestic abuse survivor 

I am a copywriter 

I am coupled with a wonderful man

I am a Buddhist 

I am independent

But does this mean I have self-worth? Self-esteem? That I am happy? Free of anxiety or fear? No.

But I have self-respect and fire.

I am not all of the things listed above every day, but I make damn sure that I at least try to feel them whenever possible. Not because I’m told to, not because I’m expected to and not because I have to...but because I want to and I MUST love myself.

Two years ago I was brutally attacked by my ex-boyfriend. He had been siphoning off my money for the last 6 months and had just allowed me to pay for the deposit and rent for the house we were moving into. Once we did move in, he dumped me by text and I wasn’t allowed home. You see at this point, my confidence, self-esteem and self-worth belonged to him and was only increased by his attention. He had ground me into the dirt so much that I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. 

Unfortunately he wasn’t the first man to have done this to me...he was just the first to be violent.

In 2008 I met another man, who I had fallen deep in love and who I believed loved me too but for the three years we were together, he spent much of our relationship emotionally abusing me, cheating on me and lying. He broke me, it took me 4 years to get over him and he knew it. He would spend that 4 years trying to stay in contact with me. Even when I went travelling in 2014 and he was still with the girl we broke up over, he was still telling me he loved me. His mind games drove me to severe depression and anxiety. At the time I didn’t know what was wrong with me.

I spent the next few years in and out of jobs, suffering with what I now know to be depression, being scolded by family members for daring to breathe a word of how I felt to others. They didn’t understand what was ‘wrong’ with me and seemed to find it strange to talk about such things.

It was only until I met Dean and he attacked me that the floodgates opened and my years of trauma that spanned from childhood to now, were triggered. It was only until now that I really could see myself and start to thrive, not just survive.

I met Dean through an absolute desperation to be loved. I wanted a boyfriend - someone good looking, with a good job and a normal life. In my ownership of the predicament that I found myself in, I made Dean fit that mold. I made him into what I wanted him to be. I ignored all the red flags presented to me, convinced myself I could make him love me and it became a goal, an achievement and I won it. 

Things were good for a while. We bought a car and a dog together, he said he wanted to move in with me. On the surface it was all looking peachy. However what I refused to address was his lack of empathy, aggressive and nasty behaviour and the way he would always put me down in front of others and hold me at arm’s length but only just enough to make me enjoy the feeling of when he would emotionally pull me close. 

When things started to look like they were falling apart, I would offer him something to make him stay, first it was the car, then it was the dog...then it was the deposit for the rented house. He took it all and then discarded me.

Welcome to the intricate and clever mind of a narcissist or psychopath. You will know when you have met one because you will literally wake up after the aftermath and blink and be shocked and secretly confused by the: 

Emotional

Physical

And Financial Destruction.

This happened to me. I was homeless, broken, thin, ill and broke. 

I then found out Dean had been cheating on me for 2 months with a girl he had met through work. During this affair he had agreed to move in with me and take my money, it dawned on me then that this had all been a strategic move on his part and I was mad. I was angry with him but maybe most of all angry with myself for being so stupid and letting this happen to me again. 

So I went round there. Mostly to get my stuff that Dean still had and also to tell him what a pathetic excuse for a man he was and I did tell him and for that he grabbed me by the throat and pulled me up into the air by my neck, suspending me and slammed me into the door. It didn’t take long for me to lose consciousness - but before I did I remember thinking with ironic amusement how funny it was that this was to be the way I was to die (My depression had made me suicidal on more than one occasion). I tried to struggle, put my hands on his around my throat, but could barely even feel them. I woke up on the floor to him kneeling on me and digging the left hand side of my head into the floor. 

I did have to leave at that point, there was no other option. He went back to work (!?) and I drove erratically around, in shock. I called my friend and she told me to go to the police. I did and what transpired was a conviction for him, my dog back and able to stay in the rented house I had paid for. But I became ill with stress and had a severe asthma attack that left me hospitalized for 10 days. I was sectioned for a night as I became suicidal and I lost my job as a Nanny due to pure exhaustion, I was back into despair. 

However not all was doom and gloom. Luckily during the court case and conviction I had begun practicing Nichiren Buddhism and I was able to garner a lot of strength through this and I started job hunting and got a lot of my fire back. I had the buds of a new life forming.

That was 2016 - fast forward to now and I can say that after going through on average 7 (yes 7) jobs throughout last year, I finally found the one that I had been searching for. I became a copywriter, the job that I had dreamt of since I was 13. But again it wasn’t plain sailing. I very quickly found out and through terrifying ordeals - that I was suffering from Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder and it became paralyzing. I went through a family crisis at that point, which is what triggered it all. 

I started not coming into work, not sleeping again and generally panicking every day. I felt helpless, alone and most of all ashamed. I was convinced that I was going to lose my job. I went back and forth to the doctors and finally after weeks of complaining about symptoms - they diagnosed me with PTSD. I didn’t know what this really meant but luckily a close friend and work colleague did and she orchestrated what would be the very thing I needed to get my life back on track...she facilitated the opportunity to ask for HELP and that’s what I did.

I asked for help from work to give me adaptations to ease and facilitate my recovery. They did and now I am at work almost every day (in the office or at home) seeing a therapist regularly and I am recovering...slowly but surely. But this doesn’t mean that I don’t still look at myself in the mirror and think ‘what a loser’ think about how I’ve wasted my time, let others take advantage, chased after people who destroyed me...let this happen to me! How could I let this happen? How can I still be so weak? Other people go through terrible ordeals but they don’t let things bother them, why am I so pathetic?!

These are terrible things I say to myself and they are not true. Would I say them to my friend if this had happened to them? No, I wouldn’t. But I gladly say it to myself. This kind of shaming does not get me anywhere and I know it. Yet I can’t help it. But what I can do is learn tools and techniques and try to re-wire my brain, so that I don’t say these things to myself anymore. That, as I have discovered, takes real courage, determination and strength...so how can I be weak? 

Truth is I am not. But what I have discovered is, that through a childhood of not having my emotional needs met due to:

Poverty

A mother who had to work tirelessly to provide for us (no fault of her own, she was let down too!) 

Bullying at school

Incompetent teachers

Bad basic caregivers in all situations 

And just general circumstances of the times

I didn’t develop the right coping skills, wasn’t well adjusted or balanced. My interpretation of love and safety wasn’t normal and I clung to anyone who might have given me love - even if it was juvenile or unavailable. I wanted to to be rescued and I saw any opportunity to try to make it happen through a relationship.

This is why I stayed in so many bad relationships and it led to this. I know it was not my fault what happened to me but I also know that I ignored my responsibility to myself and what it was that I deserved. I had no real respect for myself and I attracted like minded people who not only didn’t respect themselves, but who clearly had none for me. 

We can’t help the way we are brought up, what we have gone through and what people have done to us. But we can help the thoughts we have about ourselves and what we tell ourselves. I have recently found out ‘hey, I’m not a victim and I don’t need to be’ and I am also:

Kind

Clever

Beautiful

Funny

Loving

Successful

Compassionate 

Feisty

Passionate 

Thoughtful

Intuitive 

Creative 

Captivating 

Strong 

Courageous

The list could and does go on...

I have also found out that self-esteem, self-love, self-care, self-worth and self-respect are not things someone has to wait to be given. We already possess them and they cannot be taken away. Sometimes they need to be rediscovered - but they are absolutely there. Along with courage and strength. They lie deep within us and they belong to us. 

However if we continue to be our biggest critics and shame ourselves then they will be buried deeper and it will be more difficult to come out. I am still dealing with crippling PTSD at times but I am still trying and still focusing on my progression. Sometimes I will see what my ex Tom (the emotional abuser) has been up to, seen that he has bought a beautiful, huge house with his girlfriend, owns his own business and is happy and that crushes me a bit inside...but then I tell myself that I thank myself for breaking up with him, for not being with him and that I am so bloody thankful that I am not with him now, because people don’t really change unless they want to.

That to me reinforces that I do and did at my darkest hour have self-respect and I walked away. I walked away from Dean too and I stood up to him. I might be broken and healing now, but I am still made of all the things that make me strong and kind to others.

Your worth is not based on anything other than the fact that you exist. That is the truth of it. None of us are any better than the other. We are all worth the same because we have life. This is important because we have to remember it’s not about the car you drive, the job you do, who you date, the house you live in or what you own. But it comes down to literally the life you own. Our self-worth is different and this is what defines us, it’s what shapes our lives and how we live them. 

This is why the inner voice you have needs to not be critical, but strong and gentle. Understanding to yourself and those around you. That is what will build your self-love, worth and respect and help you make the decisions that will hopefully avoid the experiences I have had and if you have experienced them, then it will be what builds your strength and courage to want and strive for better. 

It’s never too late to start building your self-love and your fortress of self-care and compassion and it’s never too late to make the decisions to facilitate this. Perhaps that means breaking up with a lover, cutting out that toxic friend, leaving that toxic job, doing something for you or just telling yourself something kind. Every time you make that change internally and externally, your environment will start to change with you and you’ll start to build the life you are craving in your heart. But it has to come from the absolute belief that you deserve just as much happiness and love as everyone else. 

No matter how many times you get crushed or stood on or put down or bullied. You can always bounce back, always get up and make a difference. Even if you haven’t had those experiences, you can always build your own self-worth to help yourself and others around you. We need to support and help one another more. 

I am nowhere near healed, but I am a damn sight nearer to not being a victim and that is my goal right now. I am learning to love myself and be OK with it. I have a wonderful boyfriend, a safe place to live, a great job and pretty amazing friends. Life is actually pretty good - but it means nothing if you haven’t got self-worth. So I am working on this and I’m sure with hard work I will be able to really believe that I am a great and worthy person. I’m already part way there.

For those of you who want to know:

Dean plead guilty at the last moment (after telling anyone who would listen that I had tried to strangle myself and ran into a wall) they had proof of one conviction of strangulation but they couldn’t prove him hitting my head. So he got charged with one count of battery and assault. He was fined £300 and sentenced to a year of rehabilitation (so essentially therapy workshops) and a restraining order against him for 2 years. 

To me this wasn’t justice but I watched him get sentenced, stood up to him and opened the door to my self-recovery of 30 years of self-neglect. That was the catalyst to my life being able to move on. 

I still see him around sometimes and it sends me into a panic but I know that he is not worth being afraid of. He’s a coward and I am a lion. His suffering caused his actions and I don’t want to end up like him.

I am more focused on overcoming my PTSD and building my career and my life and contributing value to the world. That is a much more worthy cause. 

I no longer need rescuing. I can do it myself.