‘Life is always going to throw its challenges and hardships at us, but with the right tools we can thrive and not just survive,’ says Antoinette de Barr.

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Source: Photo by Austin Schmid on Unsplash

Have you ever experienced trauma in your life?  Me too. Whether it’s the big traumas like sexual, physical or emotional abuse or the little traumas like bullying, heartbreak or grief. We all to some extent are carrying a level of trauma.

The key is to know what to do with it…

I’m Antoinette, I’m your typical fun, caring, adventurous, Jesus-loving, 35-year-old, single mum… Only I’m not typical! None of us are and that’s the beauty of life. We were all created uniquely, for a unique purpose. I discovered that on my journey, but it didn’t always start like that.

From trauma to God’s glory

The story of my life is one of ‘hurt people, hurt people.’  Unfortunately, I was the one hurt…Fortunately, I am no longer hurt. I am living proof that your past doesn’t have to define who you are!

I grew up feeling like I was never good enough and no matter how much I tried to earn people’s love and acceptance it was ‘never enough’

I grew up feeling like I was never good enough and no matter how much I tried to earn people’s love and acceptance it was ‘never enough’. I experienced things from a young age that no child should ever experience. My childhood consisted of physical, sexual, emotional and narcissistic abuse. I would try and escape the pain at home by going to school, and while I loved burying my head in my books the pain of feeling unloved and unwanted followed me into the classroom and made a special appearance on the playground.

By the time I hit my teenage years I was a wreck. Life went from the frying pan into the fire. I was raped in the street at 13, alcohol and drugs were my only companion and unbeknownst to me I entered into my first abusive relationship.

‘I wouldn’t be able to do what I do if I was married and had children’

I was a broken mess. I felt like I was unfixable, too damaged to be helped. Some not-so-great therapists contributed to me feeling like that. My official diagnosis was ‘severe anxiety and depression, borderline manic-depressive disorder and C-PTSD’. I was put on the highest dosage of medication I could be on, but for me all it did was numb everything which the drugs and alcohol had stopped doing.

When I was 16 I met Jesus and for the first time in my life, I felt hope. I thought this was amazing and life could only get better from here. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for me. I was met with a new foreign type of abuse… spiritual/religious abuse from the church. That hit hard. It’s a different level of abuse when the Bible is used to control and shame you. It left me once again questioning my worth, my beliefs, and even my relationship with God.

The behaviours and patterns I learned on my journey can only be described as dysfunctional and toxic.

The behaviours and patterns I learned on my journey can only be described as dysfunctional and toxic. I had gone from trying to earn peoples love and acceptance to do things to try and earn God’s love and acceptance. God started showing me what it truly meant to be love unconditionally and that was the start of my healing journey.

I learned how to receive unconditional love, how to love myself so that I can love others well and how to overcome fear, insecurities and all the other awful things that try and stop us living in total freedom, I learned to grow deeper in my relationship with God to a point where the words of the Apostle Paul ring true in my life: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28.

‘Early trauma affected my mental health’

I’m here today to tell you the life you dream of – where fear doesn’t dominate, anxiety doesn’t paralyze and hopelessness has no home, the one where you can be free of shame, free of pain and free of being stuck. The one where you can live confidently, knowing who you are. The one where you can know what you are put on this earth to do. The one where hope becomes an everyday, every circumstance reality - you can have that too.

Life is always going to throw its challenges and hardships at us, but with the right tools we can thrive and not just survive. Sometimes all it takes is one step of faith to allow someone in on the journey, to help guide you and bring you to that place you have only dreamed of.

In my book Hope: Live a Life of Freedom I walk you through the steps on how to achieve this.