My name is Ruth Ryder, I am a therapist specialising in abuse; emotional, financial, physical and sexual.  I am also a clinical supervisor with an understanding of domestic violence issues and abuse.  My practice is in Dawlish, Devon.

My work is with people who have suffered abuse in childhood and later in life, these therapeutic relationships have been part of my life for the last 20 years.The emotional and sometimes physical impact of being abused can last for the rest of your life,

You may be feeling unsafe and vulnerable, you may be very anxious and tearful, unsure, confused and scared. Sometimes it is really hard to actually grasp how you feel, but you just know life is a continuous struggle  and sometimes there is no one to tell, who do you tell, who would understand? It can be so lonely. You can feel so sad.

Sometimes you don`t want to eat, that can feel good in a strange sort of way, as if there is something you can do to temporarily make you feel stronger, back in charge. It can be a way to make you feel safe and wanted, it can provide a sort of structure, it can give you an identity, it replaces the really important things that were taken away from you as a child, you are trying to get them back. It will become very hard to live without this as you will come to depend on the false help it gives you. You will come to rely on it; we all need to rely on something! It is an unhealthy, rigid, addictive way of giving you what you may never have had as a child.

Sleep can become a problem, waking early, hardly being able to sleep at all, feeling so tired.

Maybe you are drinking too much, although sometimes that can be difficult to know. Other things can numb the anxiety and torment, drugs, relationships that don`t really ever work out, but always offer that hope, that spark, real intimacy at last! Work, too much, filling the emptiness, never knowing when to stop! Shopping, lots of it, every day, credit, a really immediate hit, a real high. It doesn`t last, you will need to keep shopping and you will come to find it can take over your life.

That feels to me as if it is the real sadness. False hope, occasionally feeling as if this will make you feel content, normal, accepted. the reality is that as a child you have to try hard to normalise whatever abuse you are going through to survive and it's nor possible to blame whoever is responsible. Actually it never even occurs to you to try.They are letting you down so badly, but you feel that it is you who is letting them down and so you try harder or at some stage you may stop trying and begin withdrawing, hiding, making secret places to go! That can be inside yourself. You are starting to stop trusting, it's too heartbreaking.

Are you hurting yourself, are you trying to release the pain?

Is it to protect yourself?

Are you following a pattern?

Is it safer than killing yourself?

Do you deserve it?

Is it to make yourself ugly, you may be overeating to keep people away?

Is it habit? 

It can feel as if you are going round in circles and sometimes it can be so hard to stop that endless pain without support.

If you feel I can be of help, please call me on 07974 277738.

Alternatively email me at - ruth@stmichaels.eclipse.co.uk