Timeline Exercise

This exercise can be written or drawn. It may be a particularly useful exercise for those who can’t remember parts of their lives – a timeline will show you where the gaps are.

You can always go back and fill in the gaps at a later stage, if you remember things later. Take a large sheet of paper and draw a long line – straight or curved, depending on the paper size, with perhaps your birth at one end and your age now at the other end. You could extend this, if you wish and add influences from before you were born; for example, details about your parents and/or grandparents lives. Mark your age from when you were born to the age you are now along the timeline and begin writing or drawing symbols that represent certain landmarks in your life.

1968 – Born

1970 – Age 2. Brother born.

1971 – Age 3. Mum and dad split up.

1972 – Age 4. Had a special birthday cake.

1973 – Age 5. Didn’t like mum’s boyfriend.

1974 – Age 6. Stepfather and stepbrothers moved in.

1975 – Age7. Moved house again.

1977 – Age 9. Abuse begins. Couldn’t bear the sight of sausages and eggs.

1978 – Age 10. Won award. Nice teacher.

1979 – Age 11. Began shoplifting. Develop eczema.

1980 - Age 12. Caught drinking at school.

1982 – Age 14. In detention a lot at school.

1983 – Age 15. First time had “wanted” sex. Aunty Tilly visited – She was nice to me.

1984 – Age 16. Began an after school job.

1987 – Age 19. Moved into a flat – Great to be able to stay up late at night.

1988 – First Child.

1990 – Second child.

1993 – Age 25. Partner left.

1993 – Age 25. Started dealing with the abuse etc.

You might like to use colours or symbols to indicate happy/unhappy/sad/angry/frustrated periods of your life.

In reviewing your timeline, think about what got you through the difficult parts of your life – and how you survived those times.

Exercise focusing on your skills, strengths and learning’s

Make a list of useful and not so useful learning’s. You list may look something like this.

Not so useful things I learnt:

·         To not respect or care for myself

·         That I wasn’t allow to say “NO”

·         To be “hard” outwardly, to appear “tough” and uncaring

·         To doubt my sanity

Useful things I learnt:

·         To take care of myself

·         To look at people’s actions, not their words

·         To empathize with others

·         To hold on because pain lessens with time

·         To know that I am strong, I am a survivor

You may want to think about these learning’s influenced the direction of your life. In doing so, make sure that you focus equally on the positive things in your life. Remember: You survived. You are alive. You have got yourself this far.

List all of your many skills and achievements as part of the exercise, including some of the good things that other people have said about me.

Here is an Affirmation to chant when you feel overwhelmed:

I know I am healing and I am getting stronger, consciously or unconsciously, minute by minute, day by day.

Act like a dragonfly

Some survivors get stuck repeating going over and over particular abuse experiences. To avoid this, practice the following process of 1, 2, and 3:

1.      As a dragonfly, choose to land on some pleasant memories or thoughts first. Enjoy those memories for some time (say ten minutes – you can put a timer on to help you).

2.      Before choosing and moving to a slightly more difficult memory for just a short time (say two minutes)

3.      And then lifting off that memory and moving back to more pleasant memories or thoughts for some time (say ten minutes).

As you practice this 1, 2 and 3 exercise of shifting your focus from pleasant to difficult and back to pleasant memories you will be gaining control over dipping into and out of memories of the trauma of the past in a measured and sustainable way.

A reminder: Mood Management

If you learn to take preventative action between episodes of depression, you can reduce the intensity and frequency of future episodes.

·         Do some goal setting and planning. Think about the direction your life is taking. Develop some absorbing interests.

·         Watch you nutrition, sleep regularly hours and exercise. Do not ignore your body just because the problem is with your mood. The mind and body interact.

·         Put pleasurable activities into your life. It is important for emotional health to experience enjoyment regularly but it won’t just happen.

·         Practice yourself talk and disputing techniques as often as you can so that then you are faced with an episode you are well prepared to tackle it using cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).

Mood changing Activities

Engaging in certain activities will make people feel good. Experiments have shown that the activities listed below have helped people who were feeling depressed:

·         Social interactions in which the feels wanted, liked, respected, understood, appreciated, and accept (for example, being with happy people, having people show interest in what you have said, thinking about people you like, being with friends);

·         Activities associated with feeling of adequacy competence and independence (for example, doing a project in your own way, planning or organizing, doing a job well, learning to do something new);

·         Activities that are intrinsically pleasant (for example, laughing, being relaxed, eating good meals, thinking about something good in the future, seeing beautiful scenery, having peace and quiet, sleeping soundly at night).