It shouldn't hurt to grow up – but sometimes it does.

Do you feel stuck in the past?

You are not alone.

It is clear that our past shapes who we are today. For some you can look back and feel pride about your family where you felt supported and accepted for who you are. For a lot of you that is not the case, all you see is pain and loneliness.

You are here because you want to move on.

Psychotherapy has enabled hundreds of people to break the cycle of abuse in their families and learn to create healthy relationships and success in their lives. YOU CAN TOO

IS YOUR PAST AFFECTING YOUR LIFE IN ONE OR MORE OF THESE WAYS?

• Relationships – difficulty in getting close to someone. or sustaining a connection. You find it difficult to trust people and see everyone out for themselves.

• Self-esteem – You have a negative view of yourself that is hard to shake. You have a hard time believing that you matter to anyone.

• Self-sabotage – You are your own worse enemy – finding that no matter how hard you try you end up destroying the things that youvalue.

• Impulsive -  You find it difficult to make decisions and end up doing things without thinking it through. You tend to feel flooded with emotions and it seems that feelings are all or nothing.

• Boundaries – You find that either people walk all over you and you have difficulty saying no, or that you have very immovable ideas and need to control people and situations.

• Difficulties with sexual intimacy -  either feeling a lack of desire or trust in relationships. Feeling ashamed of your sexual desires. You may find it easier to have sex with strangers and getting close to someone makes sex more difficult.

• Depression – You suffer from periods of depression or anxiety that you know relate to your past.

• Perfectionism – You have difficulties with making mistakes or receiving criticism. You may procrastinate due to needing to get things perfect. You find it difficult to be satisfied with yourself or others.

• People pleasing – You tend to focus on what others need and deny your own needs. You find it difficult to be dependent on others.

• Anxiety – you may suffer from generalized anxiety or panic attacks. The world seems unsafe and you expect to be hurt and a target for other people's hostility.

FACING YOUR PAST TAKES COURAGE

It is important that you go at your own pace with gentle encouragement to face what happened. You may not have spoken to anyone about some of the things that happened to you, or if you tried did not get the response you were hoping for.  This may have left you afraid to open up to someone again.

When we have experienced abuse such as sexual, physical or emotional we carry a lot of shame for those experiences which keep us stuck in silence and pain. It is important for you to realize that the shame is not yours, and it is time for you to begin to let it go. Sharing these painful experiences and addressing the consequences to your life will begin to heal them.

I do not believe there are any easy or quick answers to work through the pain of childhood betrayal or change years of disappointment and rejection. But clients report changes that can begin to happen as soon as they start to tell their story and feel the burden they have carried for many years begin to lift. It is important to know that you do not have to keep going over painful memories or re-live them to heal – but it is important for us all to face the truth of what has happened to us.

When we have an understanding of the ways our past  interferes in our life now we gain awareness to make different choices, and break the cycles of our family dysfunction.

I am trained in the use of EMDR and have completed the advanced level training. This can be a very useful tool to process trauma and difficult memories in a safe and compassionate way.

I first came to work with Delyse when I was struggling to find better ways to communicate with my partner. I also wanted to explore some past relationship patterns with my family members to develop greater clarity about what belongs in the past. Delyse provided a calm, gentle and wise approach to the issues I brought forth. She was superb at being present when intense emotions were evoked within me, and she had a way of helping me to untangle beliefs that were only serving to keep me suffering. Delyse was also able to teach me about seeing things as they really are, and learning to accept what is. Furthermore, she would often recommend books that were relevant to my struggles which I found to be very helpful. My time with her has allowed me to disengage more from old thoughts and beliefs. I find that I am less reactive and more inclined to be gentle and understanding with myself when I either experience intense emotions or conflict with others. I would highly recommend Delyse as a counsellor!" B.A. Clinical Social Worker.

HERE ARE SOME OF THE EXPERIENCES THAT CLIENTS HAVE HAD.

• Demanding and critical parents.
• Sexual abuse.
• Physical abuse. – Any kind of physical punishment is both unnecessary and abusive.
• Physical intimidation. – Yelling, hitting and breaking objects when angry with you.
• Scapegoating – Parents who clearly favoured one child over the others.
• Questioning your choices and feelings. Humiliate you for certain emotional expressions and treated you as if you are stupid. Rejected you for choices you make in life.
• Witnessing continual hostility, violence and arguing.
• Threatening abandonment - If you ______ I will send you to _____
• Constantly commenting on what you are doing. – Lack of privacy and a sense of being watched.
• Overprotective Parents – Constantly checking up on you, wanting to know everything, giving you the message that you shouldn't or can't do something because something bad will happen.
• Inconsistent demands -  Changing  their requests and getting upset if you are confused, what is said and what is done are different.
• Emotionally fragile – If you are upset your parents respond by being upset. Use guilt to make you stop expressing your experience.
• Addicted – Dealing with chaos or absent parents due to an addiction.
• Using children as a weapon in divorce.
• Adoption Trauma. – Separation from birth parents, adoption is closed, adoptive parents not dealing with your differences or the trauma of the separation.
• Mental Illness – Dealing with the inconsistencies and lack of parenting as a result of mental illness.
• Hostile Communication – Judgement, belittling, humiliating, sarcasm, contempt, verbal attacks, ignoring, negativity.
• Debating everying with you – as children you could never win the debate but expected to try.
• Anxious and fearful parents – Wanting you to do things that they are afraid to do, or feel incapable of doing.
• Abandonment - one or both parents leave with no contact for long periods of time. Inconsistent contact.
• Ritual Abuse – systematic ongoing sexual, physical, and psychological abuse involving groups around ritualized events.