Please note that this conversation with Rene includes accounts of sexual coercion and refers toalcohol use and rape culture. Scroll down to the bottom of this page for links to relevant support services.

Rene is 41 and lives in Cornwall with her son by the sea. As a Support Coordinator, she’s experienced at supporting people to manage and overcome uncertainty, helping families secure support that will give their lives greater stability. (A Support Coordinator helps people apply for and access different kinds of support and funding, including housing support, disability allowances and support for caregivers). The pandemic profoundly affected Rene’s work and personal life, introducing new risks she had to navigate at home. Having overcome the sexually coercive behaviour of the ex-partner she was shielding with, Rene is now taking control of her own narrative, unpicking and rewriting her relationship with boundaries, sex, self-doubt and self love.  (Sexual coercion is when someone is pressured, tricked, threatened, or forced in a nonphysical way into unwanted sexual activity. For example, sexual coercion can make you think you owe sex to someone). Rene is using cold water swimming and the platonic embrace of the sea to reclaim her body and feel held.

Rene describes herself as someone who has a rich internal world, who loves language, singing and writing. She says the writer in her has her launching into new, potentially risky experiences out of curiosity. Her newfound love for cold water swimming has her bathing in the sea almost every day, an activity that is deeply rooted in her recovery. 

If you knew that that pain was

going to go on for a long time,

then it would start to really wear you down

‘The pandemic has subjected a lot of people to this draining, long-term uncertainty. It’s like when you’ve got short term pain to deal with, it can feel very tolerable, because you know it’s not going to last for long. But if you knew that that pain was going to go on for a long time, then it would start to really wear you down. In fact, when I had long term back pain in the past, it started eating away at my identity. It sort of eats away at hope and eats away at positivity, so it’s very much about being time bound. We can all grin and bear it, we can go, “I’ll just do two more seconds in this yoga position,” that’s fine. You can cope with the burn, but if you thought you had to stay in that position for ages or something terrible would happen, it gets hugely stressful.’

There are power structures and

most of us have to work within them

‘I’ve realised, deep down, what freedom do we ever have, apart from our own mind or our own sense of self? Some people have been really triggered by the different elements of Lockdown.  Mask-wearing for example, and curfews. I just kind of think that a lot of life has always been like that. There are power structures and most of us have to work within them, it’s just now that they’ve come slightly more to the surface. They’ve become slightly more overt. For me that hasn’t been terrifying, because I have always understood that they were there. I don’t think I found it as shocking, maybe I have had a slightly distant objective view of it.’

A lot of my work is about

providing families

with more certainty

‘A lot of my work is about providing families with more certainty. In our culture, a lot of certainty is finance related. My work is to do with identifying any extra financial support, benefits or grants that might be available to people and helping them through the process of applying for them.  Sometimes people have applied multiple times and have not be successful. Where my expertise lies is how to portray things and the language to use to present the right information. This hopefully allows for extra income and relieves the pressure for them. I’m usually working with families where there is an unpaid caring role, so someone is caring for a disabled child or partner with long term health issues. Some people may be caring for 2 or 3 individuals across one small household. I do something called a Carer’s Assessment, which primarily looks at the wellbeing of the person who is doing the caring. Often in society, things are heavily loaded towards the person with the health issue and the carer often goes unnoticed. They can start to feel invisible. So, it’s about putting the focus back on them a little bit and letting them know what help is available to support carers to carry on in their caring roles. Sometimes it gives carers some certainty just to know that there are people out there who are thinking about them. I think it makes them feel less invisible.’

‘I think that the caring role can sometimes make people feel like they haven’t got much autonomy or freedom. They can’t leave the house for more than an hour because of the condition of the person they care for. I think that can be a cause for huge mental strain. So, in terms of lockdown, situations where there are already family relationships under pressure, things are intensified. A carer may desperately rely on the times they go out for coffee, so for an hour or two, they have time to feel like themselves again. Lockdown ripped all those opportunities away. People couldn’t just pop to the café. Everything was shut down. It became unbearable for carers. The long-term uncertainty of the pandemic ripples across these vulnerable groups.’

Lockdown created a

pressure cooker effect

‘At the start of the pandemic, I went into the first lockdown with a guy I’d been dating for about 5 months. We were getting on well. He was getting on with my son, and we thought, “Well we are either not going to see each other or we lockdown together.”  My son was happy with it, so we decided to lockdown together. My ex-partner quite quickly became sexually coercive. I realised that being in a living situation with him was full of pressures. Lockdown created a pressure cooker effect that allowed me to see how that relationship was going to play out. Needless to say, that relationship broke down.  At the beginning of lockdown, coping with that and coping with work stresses meant I was drinking more alcohol. I was a social drinker before, suddenly I was like, “Hmm… Not that sociable is it, if I’m not socialising…” The relationship ended and I decided I didn’t want to be using that tool as a coping mechanism. I wasn’t healthy. I gave up all alcohol and all smoking in August. I also had some counselling last year. My therapist helped me to focus on selfcare, helped me finish the relationship and make healthy choices. Now I have wild swimming. So, if I am in the middle of a stressful day, I can think, “I’ll be in the sea at half past 4,” and it just takes the sting out of everything, because I know I will be having a lovely reset. Everything will be washed off by the sea. There’s something very symbolic and healing about wild swimming. That’s my new addiction. Like a kind of cleansing ritual.’

I realised that you could meet someone

who really seems very gentle and loving,

who is still potentially a great risk

‘As a Support Coordinator, I’ve worked with women who were fleeing violence and sexual abuse. I think it’s interesting how, when you are looking or reading about a situation, you can find it horrific, but when you find it literally in your own life, you can’t see it the same. You justify it. You try to make sense of it. You rewrite it and normalise it. My ex doesn’t seem pushy or physically overwhelming – actually, he was never physically pushy or overwhelming. But he quickly got into my head. I internalised this dutiful role. I took on board this pressure, rather than face it and say, “This isn’t ok. I don’t like this.” Occasionally I would erupt, and he would temporarily take it on board and then come back with a comment like, “Well this isn’t normal,” or, “Well, I haven’t met anyone else who doesn’t like it.” Which really messed with my own sense of what’s normal and OK. In terms of uncertainty and risk, I realised that you could meet someone who really seems very gentle and loving, who is still potentially a great risk, because they can get into your head. I felt very gaslit.’ (Gaslighting is a type of psychological manipulation where an abuser systematically pushes someone to question their sanity and/or perception of reality, for more information click here).

I’ve grown up and been

bombarded from every angle

with messages telling me that the

most erotic thing a man can do is

completely overstep your boundaries

‘I think I’ve now learnt how to be far more protective. Currently my way of managing the risk is to have no interest at all in any kind of relationship. At the moment, I’m trying to understand and process what a healthy boundary is. What I’ve uncovered is that I don’t think I have ever had them. Looking back, I think I grew up with very rapey behaviours in attitude, film and literature dressed up as eroticism. Actually, I’ve just noticed there’s a book on my shelf, that was my mother’s called, Love Confessed. (Rene reaches for a book on the shelf).  It’s got love letters from famous literary characters and erotic short stories. One of them is basically about this Lord of the Manor who walks past a couple of maids and can’t help but have his way with them. Well, it's rape! But it’s in a book called Love Confessed. I’ve realised, I’ve grown up and been bombarded from every angle with messages telling me that the most erotic thing a man can do is completely overstep your boundaries, chase you, pursue you, then grab you, bend you over and kiss you. It’s made me think, “Wow, I think I’ve spent my whole life having my boundaries completely disregarded.” So, I am needing some significant time out now before I can even think about going into something new.  Even what I find erotic and what my fantasies consist of have totally evaporated. I think that’s interesting because it shows that there is deep change going on. I’ve left one place, but I haven’t quite landed somewhere else yet. I’m managing the risk by completely avoiding the potential for risk while I am working out how I feel.’

I just think it’s so interesting

that someone’s imprint can

remain so powerfully on you

‘My experience of sexual coercion pushed me to develop new behaviours. I don’t think this is a good thing, but I think I learnt to shut off from feelings I didn’t like feeling. So, say there might have been a part of me where I didn’t want to be touched and he’d go, “Oh for God’s sake, I’d let you touch any part of my body,” after me objecting and objecting and that not getting anywhere, I just went, “Ok then, I’ll just switch off. I just won’t feel.” I think I still keep certain parts of myself shut off from myself. In time I will find some way of healing that.’

‘My ex thought he should have access to my breasts whenever he wanted. He couldn’t understand the fact that some days I was in the mood and some days I wasn’t. It’s that phenomenal entitlement that I was met with head on. The sad thing is that I haven’t wanted to or felt comfortable touching my own breasts since finishing the relationship. It has created such a negative sense of trauma in my body. So, although I’ve healed in so many ways, there’s a lingering damage to my body, because of someone else’s feeling of entitlement. It doesn’t upset me so much, because I know I’ll get over it. I will heal. I just think it’s so interesting that someone’s imprint can remain so powerfully on you.’

I felt very safe in the water

‘Wild swimming is helping me reclaim my body. There’s something about being in sea water. Today it was sunny. I closed my eyes. It wasn’t particularly sea weedy. I  felt very safe in the water. I thought, "What a beautiful feeling it is to feel held." It’s beautifully sensual as well, the water is sensual and it forces you to be in your body so its very mindful. Having boundaries trampled, I’ve really shut off from places in my body and I think cold water swimming is a really healing way of reinhabiting my body.’

I’m learning to trust my

feelings and trust my decisions

‘Selfcare has been massive. I had a mother who was a very dominant narcissist and I think that the trampling of boundaries started very early on. My parents married 11 days after they met. I grew up with this romantic notion that love was all consuming and everything, and it hit you like a thunder bolt. When actually, what I needed to learn was how to be comfortable in my own skin. I think that set me up for having my boundaries trashed, combined with erotic-rape-boundary-crossing in popular culture. I ended up having some really badly crossed wires around what was erotic and what was sexual. Fear, pushiness, and domination all clouded the water too and got mixed up with what was innately erotic. My wires were very damaged. I was looking for love and accepted physical boundaries being crossed for the sake of love. The irony was I was looking for the love I didn’t realise I could find in myself. I spent years thinking, “What does that mean, loving yourself, nurturing yourself?” I couldn’t grasp it. Couldn’t embody it. Until I finally understood what it meant. It’s simple things like a blanket that feels really lovely, or spending more money on some really nice socks, or saying, “No,” even though it’s a friend you love but actually you’re really tired. Now, I’m constantly making little decisions about really tuning into how I actually feel about doing this. Having this. Choosing this. So self-nurture and self love have been something I have been discovering over the past year. Rather than looking for love in another and making poor choices, I’ve cut that stage out and found that love and nurture in myself. Because I understand the wavelength of it a bit more now, how lovely and safe it feels, I think I am in a very different place. I would never attract the kind of energy that I have attracted in the past –  the type of men I’ve attracted or been attracted to. What I might have found exciting or challenging, I would now just want to walk in the opposite direction from. I think it’s about fine-tuning what that feeling of safety, nurture and loveliness feels like to you. Then it becomes something you want more of. You want to be around the people and the friends that promote it. I can feel myself putting in better boundaries at work. I’m feeling a sense of honouring my feelings, not doubting. I’m learning to trust my feelings and trust my decisions.’


Links to Support Services


The Survivors Trust

The Survivors Trust is an ’umbrella agency’ for rape, sexual violence and childhood sexual abuse support services throughout the UK and Ireland. This means they provide a detailed directory of different support services for the impact of rape, sexual violence and childhood sexual abuse, including national helplines.

Click here for their website

Phone - 0808 801 0818

Email - info@thesurvivorstrust.org

 

Rape Crisis England & Wales

(For people who identify as women or girls).

Rape Crisis England & Wales is a feminist organisation which promotes the needs rights of women and girls who have experienced sexual violence. They provide a directory of Rape Crisis services for women and girls which are run by women. They also provide information specifically for people who have experienced sexual harassment.

Click here for their website 

Phone - 0808 802 9999 (between 12 noon - 2.30pm and 7 - 9.30pm every day)

Email - rcewinfo@rapecrisis.org.uk

 

Mind

A national mental health charity which provides information and support.

Click here for their website

Phone number - 0300 123 3393

Text - 86463

Email - info@mind.org.uk

 

Samaritans

Samaritans run a free, 24-hour helpline to those struggling with their mental health.

Click here for their website  

Phone number - 116 123


Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)

Help and support for anyone with alcohol problems.

Click here for their website 

Phone - 0800 9177 650

Email - help@aamail.org 


Carers UK

Carers UK is a charity that champions the rights of carers in the UK. They also offer carers expert information and advice and support carers to find new ways to manage at home and at work.

Click here for their website.

Phone - 0808 808 7777 (Monday to Friday, 9am – 6pm)

Email - advice@carersuk.org