Thursday 13 August 2009

Hurt and Heartbroken

Hey!!

Well this is very personal to me! I was in a relationship until this year.

It started off all love and happiness! As you do, i thought he was "The one". Sure, it was a bit unusual to others relationships, but it wasnt desperatly out of the ordinary. And i was happy. We would spend lots of time together, enjoy each others company! It was great!

Then, after months of being together he started to get all horrible. It all went so badly wrong! He started being a bit rough at first, a bit controlling. Then it all blew up in my face! Spiralled Out of controll. Before i knew it i was in too deep, 16 years old - in a domestically violent relationship and i was in a really bad place in my life! Lost a lot of my friends for one reason or another. Was very unpleasent! He would do many different things to me. Hitting, threatening, rapeing, controlling me. Luckily i am out of it now! And safe and happy =) and learnt so much from this experience! Now i know what to look out for and i will make sure it doesn happen again!

So many women go through this! Many arnt so lucky, and will die as a result of domestic violence and belive me - There was times i thought i was going to! Its very hard for women in this situation to admit what is happening to them. Before all this happened, i would see adverts for domestic violence or hear about someone it was happening to and think "Shes so silly!! Why doesnt she just leave him?!" - I understand now! You a stuck there out of fear. They maintain such control over your mind. They trick you, play mind games! I was scared for both mine and my familys safety. The only way to keep them safe was to put myself through pain and keep this man happy!

I want to discuss what different kind of things go on in domestically violent relationships! I went on a course kind of thing, bit like group therapy. Where they help you understand things and you get the oppertunity to talk to other women who have experienced the same thing! I met some amazing people there, its hard to belive what they suffered!
So stay tuned for some more info on it =)

If you are suffering from domestic violence - get out! It takes so much strength and courage but it will be worth every second of it! You are 10 times better than any man who can do that to you!
Tell a friend, or family member! My mum found out about mine and confronted me about it and i just broke down in tears. Partly because i was ashamed of what had been happening to me, partly because i was so happy that finally, someone else knew and it would go away now! It would stop.

I still think about it even now. But how could i not? This is a major thing that happened in my life, its made me who i am today and i like that person! Some days it is harder than others but all i have to remember is that no matter what i feel now - its not as bad as the real thing! Honestly, looking back now i have no idea how i coped!

All Women Who Have Overcome Domestic Violence Amaze Me!!
You Are All Great!

My Dogs

Hey! This is my first ever blog! So be kind to me please =)

Since i want this to be good, thought i would start off with an entry about my dogs. As you will see from my interests I love dogs. I have 2 dogs currently, 2 border collies. They are both very mischeivous! Ive had 4 dogs in total.

The first one, was a greyhound. I was only about 4 at the time when we had her, so my experiences with her were a bit limited in a way. I loved her a lot though. She was a great dog, unfourtunatly we dont have her anymore. We had to give her away to a kennel that was ownede by a family friend because she escaped and killed a cat, my mum didnt want her anymore.

My second dog, i got when i was twelve years old. He was the best!! I did Agility with him, It is a great sport! I would recommend it to anybody! He was fantastic at it, we did shows and competed and everything! If anyone is interested in that ask me for more info! But anyway, he was really well behaved 90% of the time and could do lots of tricks and was generally a great dog!

At the moment, i have twins! A boy and a girl! They are TERRIBLE! lol. Loads of hard work! Whenever you want to train one, the other gets in the way! I would seriously not recommend getting 2 siblings at the same time! Im pretty much their main trainer. They listen to me more than anyone else, which is great! They both have some behavioural problems. The girl dislikes dogs, some people, and she used to chase cars and bikes and things (Will talk about that in a sec!) and the boy is a lovely thing lol, he just dislikes certain dogs. I think that is mainly because he is still in tact!

The girl, since obviously a car problem is quite bad! She would lunge at cars and if for any reason she was off the lead near a car... well its horrible to even think about! Apparently this is a very common problem in Border Collies due to their hearding instinct. They cant heard sheep so they try to heard everything else, yes - even big metal machienes! So this is what i did to solve her problem, i hope it helps if anyone is experiencing the same problem;

I firstly took her around lots of car parks. The cars there are not moving, or very slow moving (The perfect way to get her used to seeing, smelling and hearing cars in a safe enviroment!). I then progressed to walking her along roads where the cars are going a bit faster, to get her confidence up! She is a very very nervous dog, this is most of her problem! I did this for a while. With little helpful things inbetween like if we were waiting to cross a road i would wait extra long so she got used to the cars going infront of her. Then one day, i took her to a really busy road. Quite near to a dual carriage way. I sat with her by the side of the road, had a bag of treats in my hand. Kept her attention focussed on me. She was obviously stressed to begin with, she didnt like the fast moving traffic at all! But eventually after about 30 - 40 mins she settled down! She would "look at me" (a command i taught her so that when i say it she has to look at me, not anything else) when the cars went past! If she did that she would get a treat and loads of fuss! Eventually she was sitting there with me getting treats and laying on her back for her tummy to be rubbed. Talk about relaxed! hehe!
Since that day, she rarely chases them any more. Im not saying "I cured her and this is an absolute cure for this problem!" because its not! I still would not trust her off the lead by a road. It took a lot of had work, a lot of stress and I had to be really focussed on wanting to help her over come this! Luckily for me it worked, and if anyone elses dog has this problem you should give it a try!
Also what i am currently doing with her is the same theory but for dogs! Im taking her round to local dog shows and training venues to get her used to socialising with other dogs and at the very least, just being near them! Im hoping to start seeing some results soon! I will let you know how i get on!

Does anyone have any advice on this? Do you know of any good ways of getting a very scared dog braver? Preferably i dont want to have to resort to drugs! I dont want to have to keep her on drugs the rest of her life! I love her the way she is!