Many people believe that once we are no longer living with our abuser, we will be safe, well and will remain free from abuse forever; that our children will be safe, well and remain free from abuse for their lifetime. We know from our experience this is not necessarily so.

We NOW know we needed the appropriate help to recover. That the power to recover rests within us, but we can’t do it alone.

We NOW know we needed a safe place to share our grief, fear, guilt, loss and anger.

We NOW know that just as we learned to be a chronic victim we needed help to unlearn it.

We NOW know we needed to learn what our rights are.

We NOW know we needed help to move from guilt to responsibility.

We NOW know we needed to be taught healthy boundaries.

We NOW know we need help to identify what our needs are.

We NOW know we needed help to learn to ask for our needs to be met.

We NOW know we needed help to set realistic goals for ourselves.

We NOW know we needed help in developing new patterns of decision making.

We NOW know we needed help to identify how healthy relationships begin and how they feel.

We only know this NOW because we have been on the Recovery Programmes. Without the Recovery Programmes we may well have been doing our best to survive life but we wouldn’t have been living it.

One of our members summed it up when she said; "You don’t know what you don’t know because you don’t know that you don’t know it!"