Beyond Abuse: A Recovery Guide for Men and Women in an Era of Me, and All of Us, Too

By Di Riddell

When women and men experience trauma or severe life stressors including sexual abuse, it is not uncommon for their lives to unravel. Acclaimed Australian motivational speaker Di Riddell's great passion is showing you that you can re-activate and tap into your inner confidence and self-esteem bringing new energy and joy into your life, so you can know yourself as peaceful, complete, whole and safe.

Abuse knows no boundaries: it has many faces and wears different masks. The new edition of BEYOND ABUSE contains Di's advice for abuse victims in modern times of both genders and nine original stories contributed from real men and women of all ages.

Mental and physical abuse has been happening before #metoo exposed it as an unfortunate everyday occurrence. Di is a mature woman whose passion is living with confidence after healing from sexual abuse. She shows a real and authentic approach to life and shares freely her incredible experiences, turning lemons into lemonade.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lucky Pineapple Books
• Release date: May 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386444671

Book preview

Chapter 1

Foreword

  By Pat Armitstead

Eighteen months ago I interviewed Di Riddell for The Point TV.

I opened with the following statement … At 69 she is the picture of health and vitality. A confident woman empowering other women. To the observer, her life has a picture book quality, yet, when you look behind the scenes, her childhood was one of sheer terror and emotional deprivation. For years she was subjected to repeated psychological abuse and lived in fear of her own and her mothers life. At the age of 15 she was gang raped and fell pregnant and was forced to surrender the child. It’s hard to believe happy ever after is how this story could end. In the first edition of her book Beyond Abuse, Di Riddell speaks not just of survival…but thrival.

As I write the forward for the second edition of that same book, I am cognizant of the evolutionary leap that has occurred in that eighteen month period. And the circle of influence that surrounds us both and led us to this point.

This is not a book about dying. It is however, about all the little and big deaths along the way to our final demise. It’s about our humanity, lost then found, then lost again. Indeed the world mourns each day for the mortal wounds and grief of so many. Mans inhumanity to man has become a palpable thing.

Across the globe the emotional energy of the world is flatlining.

Some of the reason for that lies in our levels of self awareness. The qualities that mark people who excel in real life, who have successful personal relationships, and who are stars in the workplace have nothing to with IQ. Daniel Goleman calls it emotional intelligence:- it includes self awareness, impulse control, persistence, zeal and self motivation, empathy and social deftness. Deficits in this form of intelligence can result in marriage problems, ineffective parenting, poor physical health, sabotage of the intellect, chronic anger and anxiety, depression, eating disorders, unwanted pregnancy, aggressive behaviour and violent crime.

These are times when the fabric of society seems to unravel at ever-greater speed , when selfishness, violence and a meanness of spirit seems to be rotting the goodness in our communal lives (Goleman, D Emotional Intelligence, 1995).

Our times today call for the resurrection of two moral stances – self restraint and compassion. For those who are at the mercy of impulse - who lack self control – suffer a moral deficiency. The ability to control impulse is at the base of will and character.

By the same token, the root of altruism lies in empathy; the ability to read emotions in others, lacking a sense of another’s need or despair, there is no caring. We need to examine the perplexing moments in our lives and try to understand what it means to bring intelligence to emotion. Our emotional habits are revealed in our moments of rage and fear, and passion and joy . Goleman counters that we can shape our emotional habits – how adept or how inept we become in these areas can be shaped particularly in early childhood.

The world-wide trend for the present generation of children to be more troubled emotionally, more lonely and depressed, more angry and unruly, more nervous and prone to worry, more impulsive and aggressive is most disturbing. Our problems lie not just with our emotionalism but with the appropriateness of its expression. Aristotle sought to teach us to manage our emotional life with wisdom. When we exercise our passions well we have wisdom that guides our thinking, our values and indeed our survival.

Physical and emotional abuse is rampant. There are statistics that verify the level of violence that plays out on both men and women. In Australia currently, one woman a week is killed by her partner. You the reader may identify with the stories in this book. They may trigger old emotional responses. Take this opportunity to heal the wounds you perhaps have no name for, by sharing your own story in some way. You see, it is in the sharing of vulnerable moments, as done in this book, that we generate a degree of trust that is the cement of all relationship building. Journaling and storytelling, whether our own or others demonstrates the passage through tragedy and triumph and we learn who we really are and what our lives are about. We become part of a multi generational quilt of community and find strengths we have forgotten.

When we share these stories with other people we create a high degree of intimacy that satisfies our deepest yearning for personal contact… and that’s for the listener as well as the storyteller!

I invite the reader to be a source of equanimity for others. I honour Di Riddell and the others who shared their stories, and thank them for contributing to their own and others path to equanimity. To hold themselves upright; to be buoyant but not overinflate; to hold their awareness of all things; to constantly be righting themselves; to see the past as the shadow it is; to observe but not judge what they perceive; to hold themselves above the clamour; to be open to receive their highest good; to use intention to stay out of the darkness; to be a channel for a higher purpose; to be the voice they wish to see and hear!

We all now need to be a stand for conversations that heal rather than wound. This is the place of conscious communication. In the documentary Future Dreaming Dr David Martin makes this statement :- The prayer of the flower might be to make me so compellingly beautiful, the humming bird, the butterfly and the bee find themselves a place to land on me. I bid you all to find this beauty within yourselves, irrespective of your circumstances and be the point of attraction for others.

Patch Adams says There is no hope for human survival if we don’t change to a loving world. There is no hope for rich people in the future, no hope for anybody, if we don’t make a world whose values are compassion and generosity.

Pat Armitstead

Multi Award Winning Speaker, Radio and TV Host Website: www.joyology.co.nz

Chapter 2

Has Something Happened to You?

  It never ceases to amaze me how phenomenal and resilient women and men are!

I looked at her and I just knew...knew she was confident, vibrant and alive. And I wanted some of what she had. I knew nothing of what had happened in her life, what experiences she had had, what she had been through to become the person in front of me.

Have you ever thought that when you looked at someone? I know I have. To me that is the essence of natural confidence - an inner feeling and energy that shows outwardly and is demonstrated by posture, energy, manner and presentation. When you embrace and cherish confidence, it assists you to withstand the slings and arrows that life presents to us.

You can't exist in this world without leaving a piece of yourself behind, having an effect from generations past to generations in the future. How exciting is that? However, stop and think...is that how you live, how you love, how you share the piece of you you want to leave behind? What would you like to leave behind as your inter-generational link? Will you be the positive, confident influence to your daughters and granddaughter's? To your sons and grandsons.

Yes, I am mentioning men here. Abuse happens to men as well as women and keeping that thought in mind I decided to include four men’s stories. I have a huge respect and am glowing in gratitude for these men and women stepping out to show their vulnerability in sharing. Abuse is an issue that sadly flows across genders. In addressing it here in my way it creates an opportunity for open communication. It begins a healing process as I share from my heart, your heart, and my male contributors share from theirs. We are lifting the veil of secrecy, bringing it to light not in a judgemental manner but in a loving caring supportive way to enhance understanding and compassion.

Each time I sit to write, I go a little deeper, each time I get up a different woman to the one who sat down. As you read I invite you to see if you feel differently as you assimilate, understand and gain a different perspective of both perpetrators and the survivors. We are all universally connected and our healing does affect universal consciousness in a small way. It starts with each of us.

Going back to considering what legacy you will leave, I say, Simply be real, be you and be authentic. That takes confidence, trust, hope and a strong belief in yourself and your life. I have found that when I show my profound vulnerability in sharing it gives others permission to reflect then share their stories.

This is the update of my originally self-published story 'Beyond Abuse' from 2006. It is my personal invitation to you to share my journey of self discovery, It is more than a story, it was my life, my experiences real, raw and authentic. It is a road map of practical, realistic ideas. It showed my growth from raped, abused and punished to resilient, inspired and powerful. It is a story of moving on.

There has been a 'book since the book', my journey of discovery had only just begun. Today my passion is confidence especially for women 50+ who have faced life changing challenges.

Confidence can slip away slowly over time or be ripped away in a heartbeat. The plus here is to realise that you have not lost all your confidence even if you think you have... you still have the skills, they are simply lying dormant, waiting for you to re-build, re-boost and renew them. Each time you face a challenge, you became stronger as each time you have reach deep down, grab your guts and resilience with both hands and hang on as you take the actions necessary for the restoration of your confidence.

Today I am a confidence mentor - gentle and supportive, yet holding clients accountable. You don't need me to save, rescue or berate you in your confidence stakes. What I do is show you how to access the knowledge of your own power… that is real confidence.

When your confidence is firmly in place, I invite you to surrender, let go of the outcomes and trust yourself. I call it a touch of grace, magic happens in that space.

I am grateful that you have allowed me into a section of your life for just a moment in time. Blessings to the women and men who may be touched by these stories. I sincerely hope that the words will be a light for you if you have been through or are going through challenges now. I trust my ray of hope will uplift you, that you realise you are not alone and life can be even more beautiful than you imagined.

Confidence is a gift, a gift that keeps on giving throughout life.

Now, if we may revisit my opening words, I invite you to take a moment and consider a fellow friend you know who is fantastic. What is it that makes these people amazing? We often make snap judgements and forget that we are a sum total of our life’s experiences, that we are all different and handle our successes and failures in a variety of ways.

For you I ask:

1)  Has something shameful happened to you in your life?

2)  Has some wicked act been perpetrated against you?

3)  Have you perpetrated a wicked act against some others?

The first step of getting through the hardship is admitting to yourself that something happened. We are in denial to ourselves and push it back in our minds. We do not have the power to live anymore, we believe, because someone else decided for us that our lives are over. Guess what, my friends? Your life is not over. I can help you. It took me many years, but I helped myself and now, I am going to help you.

Did something happen to me? Yes, and I have chosen to share, rise above my difficulties and take hold of my life. I am flying into my future. I have faced shame in response to past events. That shame was heaped upon me, yet I found the strength to gather my courage, open the flood gates and do you know what? The shame disappeared. I am now at peace with myself and I am grateful to the universe and for the touch of grace that has brought me to this point in my life. I am not perfect, but I can inspire you to improve your life after abuse of any kind and/or sexual assault because I have been there and done it. I know what it is like being in your shoes. I have felt bottomless as if my life had no meaning anymore. As if my sexual identity were no longer owned by me.

It does not matter what we have done or what has been done to us; we are capable of, and responsible for, any change in ourselves. We can rise above negativity and move beyond the most terrifying of experiences. I realised that you can do this by being honest with yourself and taking the time to deal with your past. In my doing that, it has shown me how events have shaped my lifetime’s behaviour. I now understand that I have battled on thinking I was dealing with my issues. However, I was, in effect, very adept at avoiding the core issue.

How did the title of the original book happen, Beyond Abuse: One Phenomenal Woman’s Journey evolve to this new one? First, I wanted to include people of all genders. The media coverage ignores all people who have suffered from the hands of others. We have since renamed the book for you readers and added new material inclusive of men. Now I have extended that to sharing four men’s stories: John, Justin, Jack and Ash. Their stories come later.

Secondly, the thought was that you can rise above and beyond abuse – whether it is physical, mental or spiritual. To me, beyond has the mental image of above and beyond the rainbow, to the farther side, out of reach and range. Why choose the word phenomenal? It can mean extraordinary, exceptional, fantastic, outstanding, sensational, unparalleled, stupendous, unique, miraculous or amazing. Why woman? I am telling my story as a woman, and my story may be the trigger that another woman needs to release herself from the horrendous place of abuse and the inherent shame and low self esteem that accompanies a victim.

This is a book about my experiences, warts and all! It shows that there is a way out of our past dramas; it gives you permission to take the time for yourself, to realise you are the most important person in your life and to face the problem of abuse if it exists. We must speak out to break the cycle of silence that surrounds abuse; a silence that allows the continuation of all forms of violence. Sadly, statistics support that.

Sharing our stories is one way of breaking the cycle. Maybe we can understand that the person who performed the act of violence against us may have known no better. The abusers may also have had shameful experiences in their lives and been caught in their own cycle of abuse. My journey is testimony to that. It takes courage, determination and guts to bare your soul, but the inner peace it has brought me has been worth the pain.

I will explain further, but first I invite you to get comfortable, indulge in a cuppa, sit in your favourite chair and read on as I share my splendidly imperfect self. Sharing stories is a great way of breaking the ice when meeting people.

My introduction to ice breakers was through being a member of Toastmasters, a fantastic communication and leadership organisation, and my membership has lasted 40 years. In this time, I have heard a lot of what we in the group call ice breakers, the first speech a new member delivers, introducing themselves to their audience. Listening to ice breakers provides a great lesson in not jumping to conclusions about others. What you see today may not be the sum total of the person; their life’s experiences could have been horrendous. We can be masters at covering up past hurts. There are deeper levels of life experiences in people you cannot imagine when you first meet. Therefore, it is wise not to