People who have not been entangled in abusive relationships often ask, “Why doesn’t she just leave?” By reading Trading Places, by Natalie Hutchison and Mary Turner Thomson, you begin to understand.
Natalie Hutchison was reproached as a child, ignored by her first husband, then physically abused by her second husband. Finally, she decided enough was enough. Natalie escaped the abuse, went back to work, started a business, and in 2006 won the Barclays Bank Trading Places award, given to individuals who overcome tremendous personal adversity to turn their lives around.
Natalie had health problems as an adolescent, and she tells how her parents reacted to her medical issues.You see the seeds of self-doubt being planted. This is how it starts. This is how some women become primed to be victims of abuse.
Then, Natalie tells her story and how she felt—and that, I believe, is the value of this story. It clearly illustrates the thought processes and emotional hooks experienced by the victims of domestic violence.
But this is a story with a happy ending. Natalie learns to trust herself, then makes a leap of faith to start her own business and rebuild her life. She leaves the pain behind to find joy and success.
Trading Places is available now in the Lovefraud Store.
Ox Drover
It is nice to hear a story that DOES have a “happy ending” as well as to realize that what happens to prime us to be victims (whatever it is in our individual cases) doesn’t always have to keep us “down.”
“Success” is available to us ALL should also be the message, if we take the “bit in our teeth” and use all our strength to rebuild our selves!
Jewels
This is a great story; I’m glad it had a happy ending. I also know how “outsiders” are, when it comes to believing that an abused person can “just get out…”
Often there are far more subtextual issues which prevent a person from up and leaving an abusive and/or disordered partner; in fact, there is often a great deal of discouragement BY those well-meaning friends and relatives. I commend Natalie for her courage to do what needed to be done for herslef.
I would like to share a story along similar lines – if you need or want some inspiration to overcome serious obstacles and those pesky, “chaotic life events,” I’d recommend this little-known movie: “Homeless to Harvard.”
Here are the details:
“Based on real-life events, this drama directed by Peter Levin tells the inspiring story of Liz Murray (Thora Birch), a homeless teen forced to care for herself and live on the streets when her parents lose their battle with drug addiction. Determined to find a better future for herself, Murray goes back to high school and manages to get her diploma, capping off her achievements by winning a scholarship to prestigious Harvard University.”
I admired Liz for her determination to overcome her FOO issues, at least enough to finish high school and earning a full ride to Harvard in doing so.
Be well, everyone ~*~
carriesguns
personally,after experiencing life with a sociopath- well before awareness was even around for that personality type..
it seems to me that our society, particularly the marketplace, is structured to reward sociopathic behavior, not in personal life, but in the business world.
i even am of the opinion that salespeople in the 80’s and 90’s were “funneled” into that mindset/behavior….
Ox Drover
Carriesguns, glad to see you back…glad you are still lurking around!
Escapee
Carriesagun
Really valid point about the sales people in the 80’s and 90’s – they are still with us! I have listened to the Dale Carnegie type mentors and their evangelical rantings about ‘success’ – but they seem only to deal in monetary success motivation – I have a theory that it’s a bit like the whole cult ‘induction’ process where they use chanting – it actually changes the brain chemicals. Hardly surprising that it carries over into all areas of people’s lives – it’s like there’s no safety valve.
The S I was unfortunate enough to be involved with was typical of this type and he definitely used ‘sales techniques’ to pressure people into doing what he wanted. It was as though his philosophy was ‘ it worked in making me rich so why not elsewhere’. All this said, I think that a person has to be receptive to this type of ‘brain training’ to begin with. It’s always left me cold – all that high pressure ‘selling’. I never got how the salesman could be ‘comfortable’ knowing that he was making another human being so ‘uncomfortable’ that they would cave in to his pressure.
Just a thought.
classicbenzgirl
This book sounds encouraging. At the moment, I am combing the site for a book I read about here a few months back in someone’s comment, having to do with [mostly] women who are basically nice, decent ppl who tend to be ‘too’ helpful and nurturing, and therefore in their somewhat vulnerable state of mind, tend to attract N,S,P types – can anyone help me with title and author?
I’M SO TIRED OF BEING THE SCAPEGOAT/ENABLER, that I’ve intentionally been celibate for many years, while I raised my kids out of their teens aind into universities. Tried dating, yet the nicest guys kept turning out to be more creeps within a handful of dates, so I gave up, thinking I was somehow so damaged that I was the cause – as if I brought out the worst in them. Yet, I still want to understand what the mechanisms are that play into these attractions. My father was a classc N and alcoholic, and mother the strong, silent ‘saintly’ enabler without knowing it. My brother was told at 12 he’d be a thief by 16, and he was and still is… and dad wants nothing to do with him, nor does he want to take any responsibility for the years of physical and mental abuse hurled at our large family, over 40 years later. The really sad thing is he’s been in AA for over 25 years, and is a mentor there, yet another brother lives with him and is enabled to drift from job to job, high on drugs and alcohol…
I’m finding that as trusting and nurturing as I used to be and basically still am, I seem to have raised kids with noiticeable N tendencies, and I need info to help them (and myself) understand what we’ve been through with their father and a later longterm relationship I had, so they can differentiate and understand the influences we’ve had, and, this is why I personally need the support of the aforementioned book I seek.
Thanks so much!
Escapee
Classicbenzgirl
Possibly ‘Women who Love Too Much’ ? – can’t remember the author. You could google the title and see if this might be the one.
Good luck!
Tilly
carriesguns:
I luv your name! I agree totally and even in personal life it is debateable!
Tilly
P.S. maybe you could visit zklz passingthru ?
classicbenzgirl
Thanks, Escapee, but I think it’s a newer book I’m looking for – pretty sure it was mentioned as being a recent publication. The comment stated it specifically described how apparently nice ppl attract sociopaths and such, and how we blame ourselves without merit.