The Australian Blue Knot Foundation (Adults Surviving Child Abuse) , formerly known as Adults Surviving Child Abuse (ASCA), is the leading national organisation working to improve the lives of 5 million Australian adults who have experienced childhood trauma and abuse. Blue Knot Foundation helps adults who have experienced trauma in childhood recover. This includes people who have experienced child abuse in all its forms, neglect, domestic violence in childhood and other adverse childhood events. I have received a lot of support from this group and they produce an excellent newsletter with relevant and up-to-date information on surviving child abuse as an adult. This month they published a poignant poem by Mary Oliver which resonated strongly with me. It really encapsulates the ‘journey’ of healing through therapy that a survivor travels.
Mary Oliver – The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice – – –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
‘Mend my life!’
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations – – –
though their melancholy
was terrible. It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognised as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do – – – determined to save
the only life you could save.