Recently I was a co-facilitator in a women’s education/support group. This is a group that I have ran before and look forward to running again. Any opportunity that provides me the space to both teach ( women) and be taught( by women) I find very exciting. Anyway, this group is a 12 week group that is closed; meaning that once we are into the second week of the group new people can not join. During the 12 sessions women tend to become very close knit and build relationships that last and grow outside of the group.
The educational focus of the group focuses on things like providing women with the understanding of what an abusive and a healthy relationship are, tactics people use to gain and/or maintain power and control in a relationship, the impact of abuse, coping skills, self esteem, women and anger etc. Women also learn how culture and various societal institutions further perpetuate the oppression and violence against women.
The support aspect of the group comes in many forms; beginning with the first women offering another woman a ride to or from group, to the passing of a Kleenex box, to the nodding in agreement during the telling of a experience and moving to the understanding that they are not alone in their experience or alone in their journey of healing.
About midway through the group each woman is given the opportunity to tell her story. Most women at this point have told their story a zillion times by this point. They have spoken to family, to friends, to police, to lawyers, to doctors and nurses, to victims service support persons, to shelter workers, to employers, to babysitters and landlords. They have told, and told, and told, and told all to suit the purposes of another. So police can lay charges, so doctors and nurses can assess and treat, so friends and family can support, so they can be safe in a shelter, so their employers will understand their need for time off or help keep them safe while at work, so daycare providers can understand their children’s needs and often to landlords when they give their notice to vacate.
I have often heard people say that there is healing in the telling of your story, the sharing of your pain. I have heard that having someone bear witness to your story that your experience is somehow validated and that it decreases the “isolation” of it all. I have very rarely witnessed any healing from the telling of a story when it is told to suit someone else’s need. I suppose it does help in the retelling that women appear to become numb and detached from their experience- for the interim anyway for the healing journey is a long one and you must first come through the storm so to speak.
I have, however, been witness to the amazing healing and power that comes to women in group as they tell their story. They tell for their own reasons, they tell in a safe place, to people they trust in a manner which feels good and not invasive or prying. They speak, usually with tears streaming, from their hearts and their souls. They speak of pain and suffering, of resilence and bravey, of fear and love and of past and present. They tell their story, their personal experience, their truths in a place wrapped in love and compassion, in fornt of those who understand in ways that others, we hope, will never.
For most this is the zillionth time of telling their story yet it’s the first time in telling it for themselves, in honour of themselves. They share in the way they want to share, without questions- for their own reasons!
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