Intimate Partner Violence in Same Sex Relationships with Holly Denton

Holly bravely shares her journey of healing after experiencing intimate partner violence and the unique barriers being a lesbian presented along the way.  Holly blends her professional training and life experiences to talk about the historical and ongoing barriers members of the LGBTQIA face in accessing medical care, accessing mental health care and accessing domestic violence services.

Holly is a qualified Social Worker with over 10 years experience helping people overcome life challenges and live to their fullest potential. She has now embarked on her career as a life coach and trauma informed breathwork facilitator to further her passion for helping individuals dismantle the structures of who they think they are, and get to know a deeper sense of self love and realise their infinite potential. She has made it her life’s mission to utilise her coaching and transformational breathwork to raise human consciousness and has a strong belief in the power of heart centred leadership in changing the social landscape of the future.
When she’s not working on her mission she is practicing what she preaches, taking lots of time to breathe and embody her highest vision, as well as spending time with her loved ones and her 3 dogs Hugo, Mischy & Yumi.

Connect with Holly on Instagram

Transcript

Okay. So today on the Life After Podcast, we have Holly Denton. She is a social worker in Australia, and  her journey  will be helpful to many of you listeners. So, Holly, why don't you introduce yourself a little bit and then we'll dive into some of your experiences.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. It's a real privilege to Yeah. Be here with you and your listeners. As you mentioned, my name's Holly. I am based in Australia. I I'm a social worker. I'm a clinical social worker. I did a bachelor at university and then I've worked for just over 10 years in the social work field.

So I've done a lot of work predominantly in like drug and alcohol adult services chronic health and a bit of child protection.  I've done a few different areas in my time. And then more recently in the last few years, I've retrained And I've added in I'm now a trauma informed breath work facilitator.

And I'm transitioning into more somatic life coaching services. So yeah, that's a little bit about me professionally. I live in Australia with my partner and my three dogs and also launching my own podcast this year, so that's very exciting. 

So what will your podcast be about?

 My podcast is called Rewriting Reality. So it's all about how we can be the, I guess like creative directors of our own lives, how we can really like turn our situations consciously through like manifestation and having a growth mindset. And again, like the somatic healing practices that I'm working with now to really , shape us shape our identities and our ideal lives, essentially. 

Which are great healing strategies. I've used some of those in my own healing some of those reframes and and breath work.  Like you said, it's giving yourself that control back. I think that's an important part of trauma recovery.  I I love how you explain that it's rewriting your journey that you get to take that pen back.

Absolutely, yeah. So true.  Especially, going through trauma or being in marginalized populations  people lose a lot of control. And I think that it's really important to really normalize that, but then also show people some really amazing tangible ways that they can really get their self worth back, I suppose, and start getting back into the driver's seat

And you're here today really, because I had a listener that responded to, actually one of my first episodes I released talking about domestic violence, and one of the things they asked is can you please talk about  people who have experienced domestic violence  in same sex relationships? What about men who experience domestic violence? Can you have those conversations? Because again, you talked about populations that are marginalized . What I know and what I've heard, there's more stigma, there's more barriers to asking for help. Some agencies just don't know what to do with it when they're presented with that situation because they lack appropriate training and you graciously respond to that because that's part of your story.

So would you share that with our listeners? 

Yeah, absolutely. Look, I've got, I definitely have a professional viewpoint of this and I guess experience and knowledge around it as well as a personal one. So I'll probably interweave the two. But yeah, absolutely, like, like you said, and your listener said, like intimate partner violence does happen in, in same sex relationships.

So today I think I will mostly be talking about same sex relationships as opposed to  gender diverse relationships. I don't think that I have enough knowledge or experience, I guess, in that area. So I do also wanna acknowledge that there are other complexities with other communities that sometimes can be lumped into the broader LGBTQI community. I definitely just wanna acknowledge that, that I probably won't be representing those stories as much. But yes, absolutely. What we do know is in same sex relationships, domestic and family violence is a gendered crime, I suppose. So the research does show that in same sex relationships, it is predominantly men that are perpetrating the violence.

So I think that there's a common like perception amongst society that if you have two women in a relationship, that there wouldn't necessarily be that issue. But alongside of that as well, , like we said before LGBTQI community are largely underrepresented. I guess not just in terms of mainstream knowledge and media and I guess like information sharing, but also research.

So there's very little research on the prevalence so far of intimate family violence in same sex relationships. But we do know from the research that has occurred that it is probably largely under reported because the barriers for people to, I guess, feel comfortable reporting and collecting that data.

But the data that is showing that it happens just as commonly as it does in same sex relationships. And so yes, there will be a lot of, I guess, Layers to collecting that information.  It's really important to start having these conversations because it certainly does occur.

 What we know about violence in intimate relationships is that it's usually largely compounded by lots of other psychosocial factors. So like high risk populations such as LGBTQI communities, they're more likely to be engaging in  drug and alcohol , we've got higher rates of mental health prevalence substance abuse and generational trauma, which all then contribute to poorer standards of living and mental and emotional health, which then does lead to  higher risk factors of those behaviors in relationships.

I do think that it's definitely something that's very underrepresented and , we do need to , start having these conversations. So I guess for me, in a personal sense, I have always identified as a lesbian. So I've been in the LGBQTI community for, I would say all of my life.

I was in a long-term relationship about five years ago now with a female who was quite a few years older than me.  It ended up being a very challenging relationship because I was then yeah, subject to emotional and some physical violence in that relationship. So for me, I guess one of the main issues that I have is that especially when there's two females it's kind of like if something happens, if there's emotional or psychological or physical violence kids. My experience of it is that the recognition even of myself that there was violence occurring was a lot harder to acknowledge because I think we have this broader general sense that, oh, if something's happening between two women or by a woman, it's not actually violence.

And so for a long time  there was a mental barrier for me to be able to even acknowledge it, which I do think happens in, in any relationship. It's harder when you are in the scenario to actually I guess acknowledge and understand that the cycle that you're going through isn't a safe relationship.

And so for me, I definitely have my own personal biases, I suppose, where I wasn't willing to even acknowledge it. And then once I did sort of go through a few quite extreme scenarios I guess there was a slight embarrassment,  to speaking about it with, with someone else. And again, I don't think that that is necessarily only something that women or men experience in same sex relationship.

I think there will be a lot of shame and embarrassment for anyone in that scenario, but particularly for me, I just felt like people wouldn't necessarily recognize it or validate it as seriously as if it was with between a man and a woman.  And certainly are coming out of that scenario.

 I've had a few conversations with some of my family members and they have mentioned to me that there were elements of that relationship that from the outside looking in, they weren't overly comfortable with, but they would have never suspected what was going on behind closed doors.

Whereas I think if you see a man and a woman and you see those dynamics of perhaps  someone in the relationship retreating from social and family situations or perhaps not being their same Emotional and mental selves, then, there may be some identifying flags there for someone to be  concerned about that person's safety and, and welfare.

 I do think that because it was two females it probably, well, it wasn't as taken as seriously as if I was with a man by myself and by the people around me. So that was definitely a barrier. I know that a lot of people also experience  barriers in accessing services because again it is a very unique community and just in general, accessing  healthcare services we are still faced with a lot of adversity and discrimination. And so for a woman or a man to be able to even engage with the service safely is a huge barrier, let alone with an issue that is so complex as intimate family violence because as we know, by the time someone actually does get to the point of seeking help the trauma and the cycle is often very ingrained.

 So what happens with that cycle of violence is their sense of self-worth, their sense of self-agency their belief that  they deserve any better or know that there's any better is often very worn down by that point. And so I think  an underrepresentation of these issues  amongst the broader community also poses a barrier because services are not trauma informed in that way.

And they don't know how to respond and provide safe environments for people to access those supports. On the whole, I think there are definitely very positive movements towards it, but it is still largely a very challenging area for, for our community. . 

 I was actually shocked because, I wanna think , okay, it's 2023, we've evolved as a society for more acceptance and more access to services, and there's this significant delay in research.

Doctors are often driven by that. Trainings are often driven by that . How would they know how to respond if it's a doctor?  How do they know how to have those conversations? And like you were saying, maybe it's very similar to a male female relationship where there's  intimate partner violence, but maybe there's something sort of a little bit different the research isn't there for them to pick up on. Unfortunately still biased in the medical community for accessing care. That had to be very difficult to be in that position. 

Yeah, absolutely. Look, I've been in the healthcare industry, as I said, as a social worker for  for 10 years. And doctors, they're not trained in this area enough.

They might have, you know, a little information session every now and then. But the complexities of  I would say intergenerational trauma that the community has experienced. I mean, politically I can only really speak about Australia because I guess that's where my knowledge base is but I know that there are similar themes in other countries. But  in Australia for instance our First Nations people obviously went through extreme genocide and things when Australia was settled. And since then we've had a lot of work towards  reconciliation and closing the gap in  healthcare outcomes for those peoples. Because there's so much research there, the education amongst health professionals is really good. I would say in those, in those areas, we're very well represented now with First Nations people in healthcare in Australia, and how do we close that gap and how do we involve those communities in their own health outcomes and things like that.

And I would hope that again with more research and more conversations being held, that the same thing would happen, that we would start getting a lot more representation of LGBTQI people with that lived experience. And yeah, the training does need to be there for health professionals because again, even without the intimate partner violence, we do know that and I , have had my own experiences  as a gay woman in accessing healthcare you can have some very negative experiences. , I went to a GP recently and she was going through my normal  woman checks. And she made an extremely homophobic comment which then, made me very uncomfortable and in turn,  I didn't return to that gp.

 I'm someone with very high health literacy and I'm also someone that doesn't have a lot of trauma around my sexuality and I found that extremely confronting. So it does absolutely happen.  Hopefully  in the coming years we'll have a lot more  training around it because society still holds very rigid gender norms as well.

So for instance, in a same sex relationship with two men generally speaking, if you ask someone, they might think, oh yeah, like there could be some violence there, because generally speaking, we do think that men do perpetrate violence. So a lot of the common perceptions would be , yeah, yeah, two men, but you know, men can  stick up for themselves kind of thing you know?  So people don't worry about it as much. Two men, you know, especially  a man being a victim of violence isn't taken as seriously as a woman again for those gender biases that we have where men don't need protection, right? Like they're the protectors.

 I guess on the flip side, with two females in a relationship, why would there be violence? Because females aren't violent, right?  It's this very old way of even viewing gender that then influences the way that we see those relationships. Where it doesn't play out like that.

 Gender norms are something that is moving out the mainstream conversation because , it's not as black and white as that.

Because there's many different gender identities as well as different, relationship statuses, whether it's same sex or opposite sex. That's very complex. Maybe this is relevant somewhere in here being a straight white person, I don't understand these things, but I want to know and understand for the people around me. I read this article and it was talking  about the differences in sexual health needs for people who are in same sex relationships whether it's male, male, female, female. And how often doctors don't know what to ask. They don't know what to look for. They don't know about different needs. They don't know about different health risks that are unique to those populations and how to really work with them.

 Again I was surprised by that.  I don't know how it is in Australia, but there's a lot of talk about understanding how people identify, being respectful of that, which I think is fantastic.  To me it's like, but where's the deeper, where's the deeper that they need? How are we meeting their health needs? How are we meeting their mental health needs? How are we meeting the social needs ? Because it's gonna be different. 

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's like any change we can see change on the surface fairly progressively. As you say we talk a lot about how people are identifying and how they wish to be seen.  We've got a lot more acceptance around that. But yes the deeper layers are much more nuanced. And I think for same sex men there is still, you know that aftermath of all of the trauma that they have experienced through the AIDS epidemic and, , the marginalization and the barbaric representation  in the mainstream media of that community during that time as well as the grief and loss that they experienced as a community. We've still got lots of people alive today that lived through that. And that in and of itself does cause a huge barrier in terms of accessing safe services .

For females some people may not agree with this, but the feminist side of me coming out and you can keep it or not keep it. That's fine. There is a historical kind of view or not willingness to even accept that females have a sexuality and that they do have a sex life, and that they do have sexual needs and activity.

 There's a joke,  oh, two females in a relationship don't they just hold hands? There's lots of comments like, what do you guys even do? And all of that kind of stuff. And you just need a real man. So there's lots of very outdated perceptions of  females, even history being allowed and being recognized that they do have a sexuality.

 A lot of that comes in very passively and I'm sure that most healthcare professionals do not go out of their way to offend or anything, but they do sometimes hold very deeply ingrained perceptions where their knowledge is just not nuanced enough. And not educated enough to be sensitive to those issues as well as just kind of treat it like as important as anything else.

 I do think that even just a general blase  misunderstanding about it can be enough to stop people accessing services in that way as well, cuz they're not taken seriously. Yeah. 

 I'm thinking back and  I've never had a doctor ask me in 20 years what's the quality of your sex life? Do you have any issues around that? They don't ask.  By not asking the question how many things are missed.  Even as a straight person, sometimes it's like the doctor's not even sure when you're having those very normal questions.

 It's weird how  we just don't really talk about female sexuality.  I think that's another evolution to bring in of no we have our own sexuality and we have our own desires and we enjoy sex. I know that's crazy for some people to think about. Yeah.

 It's so true and that is definitely the feminist coming out of me. But  in history women are not seen as sexual objects, but they're not seen as having their own sexual identity around that.

 That's definitely something that when you've got two females, it's either minimized or ridiculed in some way, or it's just not even thought of. So yeah, I do think that there are so many different layers to it. Going back to my own personal experiences, the main issues for me are like one is because there's not a broader recognition of it, it's harder for people to acknowledge it and see it in their own lives.  Even as someone who has very good health literacy and I've worked in domestic violence fields and that would be part of my job is to do assessments with women who have experienced that. Even As someone who has that professional experience, when it was happening in my own life it was not really something that I actually validated for myself.

And it's not until I  left that relationship and gone to therapy and gone through my own healing, that I am able to actually really validate myself and go, yes, that was violence. Even though there was some crazy  quote unquote  physical violence, which would be like the more obvious ways that we identify as violence.

So  even the times where I have been a quote unquote victim of physical violence I, find it interesting that even for myself, it wasn't something that I was really able to acknowledge that she would be possible of, I guess.  I wonder how much of that is because of my  own biases because of how I've grown up.

So yeah I struggled to even acknowledge that .It's all well and good for me to identify as lesbian and in that community, and I generally have very positive experiences of that. But  there were lots of barriers for me to even acknowledge that a woman would be doing that to me.

So I feel like if I struggle with that, then there's no wonder that the broader community would, especially people in heterosexual relationships. But yeah, absolutely, we need to be a lot more represented in healthcare and political  social policy conversations as well as I think another really important area of that would be  the aging population.

So for LGBTQI, people who are ,in their sixties, seventies, eighties again, they've lived through a lot harder times politically and socially than I have in my life.  So I do think that that is also a community that would have a lot of barriers, especially around age care.

People as they get older their dignity  gets kind of  taken away and they get treated a lot less like autonomous people and more like children again. So how do we ensure safety in the aging population, like nursing homes and things like that for people in this community who again, may have experienced intimate partner violence and also the barriers to healthcare, which I think is  a very nuanced space, but something that I would hope in the, in the future that we really focus on.

Yeah, 

 One thing I want to go back to, because I've experienced  intimate partner violence as well.  When you're in it, it's so hard cuz it's not like the person starts out from there and when you've experienced trauma, it's, it's hard to sort out.

 There's a couple things that helped me in my own recovery just to identify if this is  interpersonal violence cuz I can just imagine somebody who's listening to this, well, I don't know, is this a safe relationship or is this interpersonal violence  mm-hmm. One thing I would offer is if you're asking the question, there's probably some dynamics in a relationship that aren't safe. Generally if it's a safe, healthy relationship, that question's not gonna be in your mind. The second thing is is there a lot of imbalance in your relationship? Is there an imbalance in who has access to resources? Is there an imbalance in who has access to choice? Is there an imbalance in, freedom of who can go where and who can't? Because a healthier relationship in my opinion and  training and in my therapy violence comes from a need for control. So if one person is seeking that control in some way, Even if it's not physical violence, that's  your indicator to really think about those dynamics.

Mm-hmm.  in a safe way in that relationship. 

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, look, that is so so well said.  It is so true for same sex relationships as well. The dynamics are, just as important, I think, do you have autonomy? Do you have that balance of  safety in that relationship?

Physical violence is something that is  quite obvious. You recognize if that's happening in your relationship,  not that it's any easier to talk about or to, to seek help around. But it is something that , is the more obvious form of violence.

But you're absolutely right. Coercion and control is always the underlying factor in that.  Whether or not someone's trying to control or coerce you or get an abuse of their power through physical violence, it is also through emotional violence. Like, you know, belittling putting you down, gaslighting you, making you feel  that your opinions don't matter or that you're stupid or that your experiences don't matter either. Financial violence can be a really big one.  That's a huge barrier. And it does happen with women as well, where you may be in a relationship and you might be joining finances or you might be dependent on that other person  in some way where you don't feel like you have your own access to resources.

And that's a huge barrier for people to even leave a relationship because if they even get to the point where they think that it's possible to do that then having the means to do that  it's a massive thing.  Then obviously sexual violence is another thing. So if there's any  issues around consent and consent can change at  any point in time, even if you entered into something as consensual.

Consensual is a ongoing moment by moment thing.  At any point you can withdraw that consent.  In a safe relationship that will be 100% respected. And so again do you feel like you have a voice? Do you feel safe enough to communicate what you are okay with and not okay with in all areas of your relationship?

Are you able to continue to foster your own social life and connections? So for me, a big one, how it started out was  I lost a lot of friends and because I was drawn into this relationship where it wasn't kind of okay for me to have my own friendships and go places without the other person.

And there was a lot of control around that. And because of that, I felt really uncomfortable, so I didn't seek out those connections anymore.  I realized a couple of years into the relationship that I didn't have those outward connections that I used to have. So that's also a really big one, , do you still have those networks of those social and family connections?

And if not, why? What's going on there?  In terms of what is a safe relationship I would say it's exactly the same, whether it's a heterosexual relationship or a same sex relationship is  a safe relationship is where you have your own physical, emotional, social, financial, security, autonomy, and safety.

And is so, absolutely. I would agree with you if there are any of those areas that you would be asking the question more often than not, if you're asking, there may be elements of violence or an imbalance of power in that relationship.  Often people will minimize things even for themselves because one, it's very upsetting.

 No one wants to acknowledge it. It's upsetting that someone that you love or someone that is supposed to love you, would treat you in that way. But it's also very shocking. So a lot of the time you're dealing with a trauma response around that and the shock around that.

As well as I suppose the grief. The cycle of violence often happens where there'll be a period where everything's happy and fine, and then there'll be a crisis point. And then after that crisis point, whatever it is, then you'll have the come down period from that and then things will just calm down.

 Often in that come down period, people are just really relieved. And they're just  taking a breath because they've been in this fight or flight survival, traumatic time. And then when things peter off a little bit.  You're just relieved for a minute to just have that calmness.

And then there's a lot of hope in that scenario  in that stage  where  maybe it won't happen again. There may be some , trying to understand it and conceptualizing it and explaining it.  That's often when the perpetrator will be either remorseful or try and blame you for it or dismissive of whatever happened.

So it can look different  of how that quote unquote repair. So there's always a rupture and then there's a repair, even though it's not actually repair, but it's similar kind of cycle.  In that period it's actually very hard to speak out or access support around that because you are trying to just kind of get through that yourself as well.

So I think.  in any point in time, wherever you are in that scenario, if you are feeling like, oh, this has happened a few times and I am seeing a pattern here. And I guess  a few key things for me would be if there is someone that you do feel safe with in your life, I would try to maintain that relationship as best as you can.

Even if you don't feel comfortable disclosing everything that's going on fully to that extent.  If I could go back, looking back now, I  think that in any relationship it's really important to prioritize  your other networks and connections because isolation It's a massive  barrier, but too like factor in,  my own mental and emotional health is that by the end of it, not only did I feel really depleted as a person, but I felt like there was nowhere to go and  I'd lost a lot of those relationships.

And it's really hard to go back to that.  If you do feel comfortable talking to someone, I would think that some really clear communication around what you are comfortable in terms of what they're able to offer you right now.  You may say , I know this is really hard for you. I I really am not at the point where  I can have you help me to do anything at this point, but I just really want you to know I'm going through a hard time or whatever it is.  If you can communicate what you are comfortable in terms of what the other person can offer you, that one will help them to know how they can help you. But two, it'll make you feel like you're in control a little bit more, because I think there can be some fear as well  if you tell someone , are they just gonna go and like tell the police or talk to that person and then make it worse, and then you're  stuck and then that person finds out.

 So there's a lot of risk around  telling someone as well. So I think if you can be really clear in what that other person can do to help you is a really important thing.  There's a lot of  amazing apps now where you can  download an app that looks like a period tracker or just  a non suspicious looking app where you can have a safe person that if you send A  smiley face message or whatever they know that alerts them.

 There's a lot of very  helpful technology coming out now where it makes it a lot easier just to have those networks set up. Because  what we do know about violent relationships is that there's a lot of safety planning that has to happen for someone to leave a relationship. So if you're in a position where you are thinking you may need to get out of that scenario, I completely understand that it can't just happen overnight. Sometimes it does, but there are risks involved with that for some people.  Starting to think about the safety planning of that around who is one safe key person that you might involve in that scenario or a service that you can also talk through all of those factors around getting the emotional, physical, financial means to even leave that relationship.

Yeah, so there are, I guess, like some, a few key pointers. 

I want to definitely emphasize the safety piece because the person who is perpetrating the violence, their end game is control. So the loss of that relationship, if there will be extreme violence, that's the time where most people who leave a relationship where there is violence present will be harmed or killed.

Yeah. Not a scare tactic to keep you there forever, but like you said, to do it with safe people. Discreetly  find some trained professionals that can help Yeah. Find the safest way to do that, so there's the best possible outcome for everyone involved. 

Yeah, absolutely. , I'm not sure about the locality of your listeners, but I do know that  in Australia we've got like 1-800-RESPECT and we've got  the domestic violence line.

 I do think that those services, if they're domestic violence specific, they're I guess like literacy around same sex relationships and their understanding of it are gonna be better than what you're just gonna get from a  general practitioner or a general service.

 I would say that on the whole, from my experience and my knowledge of it, although, you can't guarantee everything, but those specific services that are designed to help people are more progressive in their training and  being  a safe space for LGBTQI people.

But yeah we're still very underrepresented and, but I would say that the trauma informed care approach is very prominent in those services.  That would be applicable to how they,  approach helping people in this community as well.

 In Australia,

we have Acor and Trans Hub and  lots of other different places that you can go to online or call. That would be a really good starting point just to even talk to someone confidentially. And perhaps , we can talk about other  links to help or services , in the show notes if that's more applicable.

But yeah, 

 Absolutely I can ask Google and  try and find something.

 I feel like there is some, that doesn't matter what country you're in

 Yeah absolutely.  A lot of mental health services and things like that will have online support and things like that.

 I definitely think there's no shame. Even if you are in that relationship and you don't know about leaving or not, like you still love the person or you're hoping that it's gonna work out or you wanna work through issues there's absolutely no shame  whatever stage of the relationship that you are at.

 I would say that your needs are important and even if you are wanting to pursue a future with that person, it's still okay to get support around that, that you don't have to be at full crisis point as well. Even if it's your psychologist or a counselor or something like that, if you just have one safe support or avenue that just makes a huge difference  even in terms of your own wellbeing  and autonomy in that relationship.

I'm not excusing violence  on any means, but it is a very nuanced area when you are in a relationship with someone because there's a lot of feelings involved around that and a lot of like, sadness and hope attached to that. And so I think it's also valid to say that we can separate the behavior from the person.

And it's the behavior that's the issue. And so the question would be, who do you have support for yourself to help manage whether or not you are able to stay in that scenario and how to stay as safe  while you're still there. Or  if you're thinking that you really need to remove yourself from that scenario then how to go about that. Whatever point you're at it's fine and all, there's no shame around that. So I think that's another big thing  as someone who's been through it,  I know there was a long time where I didn't wanna leave the relationship. I was like, what? I love this person. Like I wanna be with them and no one goes into a relationship wanting it to end. So I also wanna acknowledge those parts of the journey as well. And  leading into that getting even just  one person where, even if you're not talking specifically about the intimate things that are going on. It's just your own wellbeing is just so important in any relationship, healthy or safe . That's something that through that journey, I've realized that I will never compromise on anymore. Because , the loss of autonomy, the loss of control, the loss of your own sense of self-worth is so much more harder to come back from, than the healing of bruises or financial things or whatever.

It's like your, your own worthiness and your own wellbeing and sense of identity and self is, I would say like the most important factor. 

Yeah, you're right. The first person that I interviewed about domestic violence he said the same thing.  Part of intimate partner violence is that loss of your own identity. Mm-hmm. ,  I think that's such an important aspect of that healing process however you decide to deal with those behaviors is to find ways to reconnect with yourself to figure out who you really are outside of whatever happened to transpire in that relationship where you did lose pieces of yourself. 

I know you have your training but was your healing as you came out of that relationship what of led you into some of the training that you do now with  breath work practices ? 

Yeah, look, absolutely.  Coming out of that relationship I realized that my mental health was like  terrible.

I ended up going on antidepressants and in a lot of psychological therapy and look that is so important and I wouldn't have got through what I did get through without that. So by no means am I dismissing more traditional therapeutic approaches. To this day I still see a psychologist I  value the talk therapy and the psychological therapy.

And for some people, you know, they do need that more extreme like medication and support. So I'm not a medical practitioner. This is not advice on any way. It's just my own personal experience of it. But for me, the emotional disconnection to myself and the belittling that happened and wearing down of like my self worth was really, really challenging to get back because what happens when we form beliefs, right, is  you get told something or you think something and then it gets backed up by  an emotional experience. And  when you're in an intimate partner, violent relationship, and  women are very much capable of this as well.

Even maybe more so than men. I, I don't know,  that could just be my own generalization, but women are very good at being like emotionally very nuanced as well. And so for me that was such a huge part of it was I completely disconnected from  any ability to just know that I am worthy. And living in a cycle of violence for a few years,  you get very ingrained in the fight or flight stress response. So for me, what I didn't quite get from psychology and from medication was the ability to really understand my nervous system and understand that I was living in that overactive state where like hypervigilance and stress all the time.

 As I said, I'm a social worker, so  I very much love , talk therapy and counseling, but I then ended up moving into  a coaching container  of  women that was really great.  Was just like a extra thing that I was interested in doing. And that led to more somatic practices, like really body-based practices. I did my first breathwork session.  That just completely changed everything for me because in my time of healing and therapy, I would try and think my way into feeling better. Like I would understand it cognitively,  with my mind,  yep, this is what happened.  You were living in stress and you were emotionally and physically and psychologically abused, and now you need to rebuild your sense of worth and everything.

 I could really intellectually understand that, but the piece for me that I couldn't understand was like, I never felt better. I always felt so anxious and lacking in confidence , and I never realized that disconnection between my mind and my body.  and when I discovered breath work,  breath work, it's , the conscious and active use of your breath in a very specific pattern for an extended period of time. What it does is it actually moves you out of a sympathetic nervous system response in your body, and it helps you enter into the parasympathetic nervous response.

So that's like the rest and the digest. And then what happens because of that, because your body is not in fight or flight anymore, the mind and the brain can shut down a lot of  criticizing and ego and judgment and those patterns that really are running the show  subconsciously that we don't realize.

Because the body's actually responsible for 80% of it. And, the mind is like, the rest.  So if we're ignoring the state that we're in and the emotions that are like stuck in the body it's really hard for the mind  to see a new perspective. And so yeah, I discovered breath work and then I went on my own healing journey with breath work.

The beautiful thing about breath work is there's a lot of safety in it because you are in complete control. So you are breathing and at any point you can control that breath.  There's a lot of element of consent, which I think is beautiful because again in in other healing modalities, you may not be in so much control, and particularly the modalities where you may be trying to shift levels of consciousness.

And we won't get too far out there, but  you might be, taking a medication or taking a substance or in a therapy where someone's doing something to you. And it can be really confronting, especially when you have had scenarios where you've lost control of your body or lost control of your safety.

So that's one big thing that I love about breathwork is when you do it in a safe place,  the person that's guiding you through it is only really holding the space that it's you that's in control of your experience. That has been, a really healing element to that as well as it just releases so much stuck emotions and energy in the body in a way where you don't have to talk about it.

You don't have to understand what's going on. You just let the body breathe and you let the body do the work and it releases it. What I have found from that, from my own experience, but also now working with clients is that more often, well I've actually haven't had a negative experience in either way, but people are reporting to me and certainly my experience is that the level of safety and love that you access in your body makes you realize that it's been there all along and that it's the mind and the beliefs and the traumas that you've experienced that have been backed up with those negative emotions that have made you feel and think in this way.

Whereas when we have an experience that's really safe in our bodies where we have a very positive experience of love and safety and connection our mind actually starts to form new beliefs about ourselves. So yeah, when I sort of went through. , I was like everyone's gotta do this . I was like on a mission.

 I still absolutely am on a mission. I've retrained as a trauma informed breath work facilitator. So that's been an amazing journey. And now I am, branching out into doing a lot of breath work sessions with women who have experienced violence. And I do offer one-on-one sessions in that space as well as I'm launching a membership online where people can come and do breath work online in the safety and comfort of their own home, guided by me.

And yeah, my podcast and moving more into that space because I feel like the mind and the mindset  is very limited.  It is such an important part of the piece.  We're really lacking understanding of how trauma is stored in the body. And for me, I'm very interested  in somatic approaches. Even if it's not breath work I would just recommend that if you are on a healing journey, or  if you are experiencing trauma, if there is even five minutes in your day where you can experience in your body a sense of like gratitude or happiness or even putting on a song that you like and dancing around the kitchen,  it seems like nothing, but it's actually so massive because what it does is it just gives your body a remembering that there are moments where you can feel safe. It's very healing to just spend time even just some deep breathing in nature or journaling or playing with your dog or your child or whatever it is where you're reminding your nervous system again, that  there is another way of living,  not just in this fight or flight stress response, but  if you're looking for a more  intensive in-depth approach, I highly recommend breath work. Yeah.  

 Where could people find you?  I  wanna be sensitive to the listeners who may not read the show notes. So where can they find you? 

Yeah, absolutely. Yep. So the best place that I hang out mostly is on Instagram . So my Instagram name is at underscore holly Denton. That's h o double l y d e n t o n all one word with a underscored to start. And there's a link in my Instagram of a free 15 minute morning breath work session.  I don't think it's even 15 minutes, might be like 10, 15 minutes. I made it nice and short. Just  an audio recording that you can download.

There's  no strings attached. It's just my gift to you for coming into my world where you can just use that every morning to just reset and have a few moments to yourself. But absolutely reach out to me over Instagram . My podcast will be launching as well. And there'll be lots of information shared there about the upcoming membership where  people can access some experiences through breath work, but there's so many amazing breath work facilitators coming up as well.

So yeah, I would definitely recommend people looking into it. 

 I've tried so many different healing modalities in addition to therapy.  If you are on a journey of healing, and I think we all are in some sense,  it's an invitation to be curious about your own body.

Mm-hmm. , try a hundred things if you need to see how they feel in your body. See what it does for you because there might be one thing that really clicks and really feels good in your body and really moves you forward. And there might be other things that are not, but just be curious and play with it.

. So that's just my invitation. Yeah. Be curious and explore and so many things, great things out there. 

Yeah, absolutely. It doesn't have to be  rigid. It's certainly not  a thing that you need to punish yourself about or like be restrictive in any way. Even if it's just sitting with yourself for five minutes,  it's , that connection to your sense of self and that safety in there that will always be there  is so important. So yeah, absolutely. Just be playful around it and think about exploring and trying new things and there's no right or wrong

 I appreciate this so much. This was such a great conversation, and I feel if there were no time limits, we could  continue talking for many hours, and I may have to bring you back to explore this further. Is there anything else that you would like to, to say or bring to this conversation?

Yeah just, , thank you for  holding space for these conversations and anyone listening  I hope it's been helpful. I just want you to know that you're never, never alone and there's never any shame around it, even though you may feel that. But definitely there are people and avenues for support. So yeah, definitely reach out. I'm more than happy to chat to anyone if you feel that you would like to explore any of this further. And  I just appreciate the opportunity for coming on.  

Seriously this was a really great conversation and many things I didn't know.  You have a unique perspective that is very important to put out there cause there is so much shame around domestic violence anyways, and I  appreciate your vulnerability  how you brought so many of those pieces in. 

Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm, I'm really happy to, to be part of it. So thank you for holding the space for it.