Moving on

In 2006, HEAL was awarded the Queens Award for Voluntary Service and several of us were invited to Buckingham Palace for tea with the Queen.

Awarded to HEAL, 2006

Our service was saving the statutory services a fortune and the irony, that while the NHS, including Psychiatrists & Psychologists and Social Services were regularly making referrals to us, we were receiving no funding from them and were struggling financially. The cost of our entire service would be similar to the salary of one senior nurse. 

The ever increasing demand and growing waiting list and being a parent was beginning to tell on my mental health. 

Professionals often state that between 3-5 years is the maximum you should work solidly without a break in the survivor field. I had now been at HEAL for 9 years and my entire workload was abuse. I knew it was time to find something new, I was beginning to feel burnt out. 

It was tremendously difficult to tell the members of my decision to leave. I gave plenty of notice and we worked on loss and abandonment a great deal. 

I feel huge pride in the work the members, volunteers, trustees and myself did at HEAL. The courage shown by our members was awe inspiring and I felt highly privileged in working with those survivors and in the programme we developed together. 

I was totally speechless and crumpled when it was announced that they had clubbed together to have a star named after me. I felt so humbled that these heroic people would think that much of me, to do something so special.

My Star, John Wills: Taurus 5h25m01s =24degrees57'36"

I had been thinking for some time what I could do if I was to move away from Survivor work. I had always loved nature and the outdoors. In my childhood and youth, I had used nature to escape from the abuse and regularly visited Hackney and Walthamstow Marshes. I would often see Kingfishers, Herons, Foxes and (the non-native and irresponsibly released) Red-eared Terrapins on my journeys.

I began to think, if I had used nature to help in my healing, then maybe others could also benefit. This was confirmed to me one day at a HEAL session. People were really low and we began to discuss things we had achieved or always wanted to do, many of the ideas revolved around experiencing nature and before long peoples moods changed dramatically. Just talking about nature was helping! 

The idea for Greenpath Ventures began to develop.

I discussed the idea about starting a new charity offering bushcraft and other outdoor activities to adults with mental health issues with a few colleagues and friends, and to my utter disbelief, people thought it was a great idea!

I embarked on Bushcraft Insturctor Training at Plumpton College in East Sussex, passed the course and we formed Greenpath Ventures. I also wanted to further my experience of the outdoors and undertook Arctic Survival training in Sweden.

Me in the Arctic

We formally launched Greenpath Ventures as a registered charity at Essex County Hall in May 2008.

New start?

Sexual abuse statistics vary between countries and reports, but are consistently alarming: Research indicates that up to 36% of girls and 29% of boys have suffered child sexual abuse; up to 46% girls and 20% boys have experienced sexual coercion.

(The 57th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights)

We left London with a huge sense of relief, moving away would give us the chance to start again without many of the old ghosts.

I secured a role working for the NHS in administration and also became a volunteer on a crisis helpline.

I remember being interviewed for the telephone role and I was asked if I had any personal history of mental health. I began explaining what had happened, "I don't understand why any child would keep abuse a secret", was my interviewers response. "Wow!" Not a great start I thought. Thankfully, this person was the exception and my colleagues on the helpline were a tremendous group of people.

Shortly after this I saw an article in the local paper regarding a community group looking for volunteers to help with a support group for adult survivors. The group was called, HEAL (Helping Everyone Abused Live) and was kindly given the use of a room by the local MIND. At that time it may have been the first and only group in the UK to work with men and women together, regardless of the the type of abuse suffered. I called, an interview was arranged and I was taken on.

Helping Everyone Abused Live

The first meeting was very memorable, I was the only man in the room with about 5 women and was viewed with a huge amount of suspicion and even a little hostility. "Why do you want to volunteer?"; I was challenged immediately, when I said that  I had been abused myself, the atmosphere changed completely. "It must have been worse for you, being a man" was the response. "Not worse, but maybe different", I responded.

HEAL offered a weekly support group where people came and shared what was happening with them and how they felt. For a number of reasons, the Co-ordinator left and we held a crisis meeting. It was put to me; "Unless you can take it on, the group will have to fold". I had never trained in group work or led many sessions, but couldn't see these survivors left with no support, so I took on the role.

The first thing I did was to ask the members what they wanted and needed.They felt the weekly support group was not working and that they wanted to have some direction and focus to the sessions. Jointly, we set up a monthly schedule, with different activities such as discussion groups on topics decided on by the members. Over time this gradually developed into more and more structured workshops and the open support group was actually dropped by the members themselves.

We struggled with low numbers for sometime, then suddenly, numbers began to increase and at times we would not have enough chairs, with people needing to sit on tables. Now men came as well and we were working at maximum capacity.

We needed to make the decision to expand. We became a registered charity, secured more funding and opened our own premises.

Tudor House, the home of HEAL

Momentum continued to gather; we were now also actively involved in training staff from other agencies in working with survivors.We went from one group a week to four, which included a drop in, a Carers/Supporters Group and a Creative group, which culminated in having our own exhibition.

We now had a 2 year waiting list to join our groups, with nearly 120 people on it at anyone time.

HEAL Creative Exhibition, Colchester 2006

HEAL Creative Exhibition, Colchester 2006

...and paraphrasing, the immortal words of Ernie Wise, here's a poem "what I wrote" for the exhibition:

Did The Angels?

And when the abuser looked at my child

Did the Angels rage for me?

Did the Angels cry for me?

Why did the Angels have to look away?

In a brief moment a tiny innocent became a

Broken Spirit, an Ugly and Torn child

Loathing and self hatred running wild

With No mirror able to hold the disfigured image

And when my Young eyes looked on adult visions

Did the Angels rage for me?

Did the Angels cry for me?

Why did the Angels have to look away?

In time I became the invisible man

No-body or feelings to touch

Powder and liquid the crutch

Thankfully, No reflection to look upon

And with no help from the Angels…

I have learnt to rage for me

I have learnt to cry for me

And with eyes open I have had to learnt to look at me

And finally I have learnt to say;

“Thank you, my beautiful little boy”, too long neglected

John Wills

Personally, my life was also about to change, as I discovered I was going to be a father!