Get Me Out of Here!

"Get Me Out of Here!" is Jean's story of the psychological bullying and coercive control she suffered within her 18 years of marriage to an alcoholic and how she eventually broke free of the yoke of her husband's behaviours. This form of emotional and psychological control is a pattern of behaviour designed to exploit, coerce, create dependency and dominate. Jean found that her every day existence was often managed in a very detailed way and her personal space, creativity, decision-making and behaviours for action as well as human potential were limited and controlled by her husband's approval or otherwise. Within such relationships a set of rules emerges which apply to the victim rather than the perpetrator - and Jean feared the consequences if she broke those rules. Over time, her alcoholic husband's demeanour and behaviours eroded her sense of self, her confidence and self-esteem, and eventually her entire identity. At the start of their relationship all was well and Jean did not even know that she was being steadily and increasingly abused, manipulated and controlled. However, as things began to go awry, her moral sense of being the "dutiful" wife as well as being caring and loving towards him, masked the more obvious instances, and kept her 'locked in' to a relationship that was taking her hostage. Her story is written in 3 parts - Part 1 examines her marriage and how she eventually kicked him out; Part 2 is how she experiences the initial elation of being free, discovering some of the things she'd really missed and starting to re-build her sense of self; Part 3 looks at how she realised she still needed to take some equally momentous leaps of faith in order to finally get to a place of being fully at ease within herself, to live in the Now and, as a final transformation, really Love Herself once more.