This could not have been possible without the tireless and unending support of Matthew Meinck

Ending the cycle of abuse has been the single most difficult thing I have done in my life. This could not have been possible without the tireless and unending support of Matthew Meinck. This period of transformation occurred for me during a time when Matthew was subjected to gross media vilification and malicious personal attacks on him. Without his brave resilience to these attacks, I would not have had the ability or the inspiration to make the dramatic changes in my life that I have.

Being subjected to extreme physical, psychological and sexual abuse is something a child should never experience. My experience of being abused as a child caused a disassociation within me from the pain and trauma that the abuse causes. The disassociation is necessary for survival, living in an environment where those that are meant to be the caregivers are actually the abusers. I became numb to this part of my life and it was as if it didn’t even exist. I didn’t have the ability or the capacity to take on the abuse – no child does!

Growing into physical adulthood the abuse continued. Being numb to this aspect of my life, I had little awareness of how vulnerable I was to continually being abused and also to abusing others. Being disassociated from and numb to the pain and trauma of abuse is what allowed me to abuse others – you have to be divided within yourself to be able to do this.

The only way this cycle of abuse was able to come to an end was for the division within me to become integrated so that I could live as a whole person – for the first time in my life as an adult. I had to relive and experience the extreme disturbance and the pain and trauma of abuse, something I had disassociated with, to become whole again. I believe that this would not have been possible without the unending support given to me by Matthew. His support was determined and consistent even when faced with his own personal challenges of being attacked by a misinformed media and public.

It is thanks to Matthew that I can now live a life free of this world of abuse. Something I am eternally grateful for. My only wish is that people would wake up to how important people like Matthew are in the world and support them rather than allow them to be attacked.

post submitted by Monte 

Thanks to Matthew (Meinck) life is now simple, clear and straight forward.

Getting to the bottom of people pleasing.

 Before meeting Matthew (Meinck) i never had any testicles, or 'balls' as they say.

I was completely gutless.

My life was pathetic and miserable.

I was a people pleaser.

I couldn't think for myself, well feel for myself really.

I was so out of touch with any feelings, sensations or disturbances in my body.

I had no idea that those were the things, the tools, the truth to which each person's life is guided.

I ruled my life around my thinking, thinking about, and working out what was right and wrong, what was right and wrong for the other person.

I did not know that right and wrong is only determined by the pure sensations in the body, resulting in a thought.

Not thinking about something, that creates a false emotional feeling.

I can clearly feel the difference very distinctly now.

Back then i was driven by what another wanted, to the extent that i wouldn't have any awareness of myself, or what was correct for me.

When another person acted or spoke, i didn't notice at the time, but my own self disappeared, somehow i couldn't see myself.

But of course then i wasn't looking, but i can see that now.

Thanks to Matthew (Meinck all this and more has been unravelled and corrected itself.

I had been sexually abused often as a child, but had blocked it out as i wasn't relevant, i didn't count. I was only there for others.

Thanks to Matthew i have be able to see all of this and get to the cause very simply.

Because of seeing this, as well as going through the process of it, my life has changed as a result.

Thanks to Matthew (Meinck life is now simple, clear and straight forward.

I am able to respond to the truth in my body, rather than detaching and painfully, uselessly, trying to work it out in my head.

Life flows more and i am now not left with a feeling of dread from going against the flow.

It turns out better for others too!

Thank you Matthew.

post submitted by Trent

I am forever indebted to Matthew (Meinck), as he saved my life.

I am forever indebted to Matthew (Meinck), as he saved my life.

I was consumed with depression all my life.

The core feeling of worthlessness never left me, and affected my whole life.

I had attempted to take my life three times, and was endlessly planning the next attempt to escape the pain of myself and my inability to cope with the world around me.

With Matthew's help through massage and counselling my depression has been resolved.

Now i have an understanding that comes as a feeling from within my self, not just a recognition in my thinking.

When the overwhelming urgency comes to kill myself now, i know it is just a sensation leaving my body which was the feeling i was left with, after each time i was abused as a child.

After every time i was abused, that feeling of wanting to kill myself, as well as the physical and emotional trauma, was trapped in my body.

Matthew has not only stopped the pattern of being sexually abused, he has opened the flood gates for all the trapped trauma to be released and healed.

Therefore giving me a life, and a life worth living.

I owe Matthew so much, thank you with all my heart.

post submitted by Gaby

Thanks to Matthew (Meinck) my time and my home is now my own

I live in a feeling of being nothing therefore having nothing to offer.
I did want to try to express the recent feeling deep in me of knowing I no longer make myself available to be used day and night.

'Being switched off and numb since my first abuse at 6 months, it took Matthew (Meinck) 10 years of constant hard work and support to allow me to finally start to thaw.
And I still need his continuing interaction to help me see when I'm trapped in my victims thinking.
I can't begin to describe to you the feeling of not being an unpaid whore in my own home anymore, where whenever I was at home and I never knew when and whom was going to turn up and demand what. The constant anxiety and pressure I lived under in my own home as well as the panic if I wanted to do something for myself or away from the house. The persistent feeling of always having to be prepared and ready was terrifying.
Thanks to Matthew (Meinck) my time and my home is now my own.
The feelings of anxiety and panic are still there as habit but with far less intensity and frequency.
The knowing and the relief deep within me that the action doesn't happen anymore is worth more than I can express.....'

post submitted by Tina

There is nothing that I felt through that process that Matthew (Meinck) didn’t feel along with me

What is it like to live a life of fear? To feel you have to try to control everything and everyone in your life.

The emotional psychological physical and sexual abuse I suffered as a child led me try to (in a child’s way you try) to control my world. Trying not to step on cracks in the ground or holding my breath in between them was the first thing I recognised as the start of the control. My world was completely out of control my father's rage would flare up at any moment give whatever he believed at the time to be a just reason and as a child I thought I was the reason.

As an adult I lived my life still holding my breath and it wasn't until this week I have realised to what extent that was happening. 

I have only been able to realise this because it is finally breaking down.

To be able to live my life free of this is something I don’t feel words could ever do justice to.

And when I say free I mean in every sense of the word. A freedom from fear a freedom from self-disgust a freedom from feeling as survivors of sexual abuse do that I had to pay a price a penance because after all it was all my fault right. 

In this harsh and violent world I found a way to heal, someone to guide me someone brave enough to take that ride with me. There is nothing that I felt through that process that Matthew (Meinck) didn’t feel along with me he laid his health on the line simply because he could see the need I had and that he could heal that need. The things I have read in the media contrary to this disgust me and the only thing that really concerns me in life now is that the utterly unique way that Matthew (Meinck) has of encouraging healing in a person will continue to be miss represented and will be lost to the people who need it most. 

He has nurtured my health and now I am in position to nurture his and that is what I intend to do.

post submitted by Anonymous

(Re: Matthew Meinck) Other people may help you to heal the surface, but I know of no-one else capable of reaching the darkest places and bringing them to the surface that they may integrate and rejoin life

I get overwhelmed when i try to express why Matthew is so important to me. one day i will be able to express it clearly for other people to understand. it is a feeling that is very very deep inside, he has made it possible for me to live, he has spoken to the parts of me that were deeply hidden, the parts that i thought were completely abhorrent  and unacceptable, he was firstly able to reach them and i don’t think it is an exaggeration to say no-one else had the capacity to even know they existed inside me let alone to speak to and reach these parts. you don’t understand what it is to be raped to within an inch of your life, what that does to you, how it destroys your capacity to live, that part of you that was there would never really be healed, well Matthew has facilitated the impossible, and in this way he literally brought me back to life. What i am trying to express is that other people may help you to heal the surface, but i know of no- one else capable of reaching the darkest places and bringing them to the surface that they may integrate and rejoin life. It is this part of me that is ferociously grateful to Matthew, probably because this part of me is a little ferocious in general. it is gutsy and raw, it has been to the limit and returned.

post submitted by S.J.L.

Matthew (Meinck) is the only person who has ever looked closely enough to see that this incredible pain and hurt was (is) hiding inside of me, and who has taken the time to help me start to heal.

I don’t know how many people go through life feeling like they belong, that they’re acceptable, lovable, worthy, ‘ok’. I’m 38 years old, ‘successful’ by society’s standards, you could say. But I have only experienced these feelings for short periods of time, and then only in the past 18 months or so, after almost 9 years of constant and dedicated healing. 

The majority of the time, deep inside, in the place I hide from the world, I don’t feel worthy of much at all. In fact I feel like I have to make up for myself somehow, that I am so bad, I need to compensate just for being alive. That’s just one of the things I’m left with after a lifetime of being raped. 

It started with my dad when I was 9 months old. It’s impossible to communicate the anguished, twisted, confused thinking that results from something so horrific being done to you when you can’t comprehend it, let alone stop it. The only thing you have to fall back on is that there must be something terribly wrong with you, for someone who ‘loves’ you to treat you that way. 

As the years went on, I somehow knew in my heart that the other girls at school weren’t being hurt the way I was. Not only did my pain show – I was lonely, miserable, lost, angry and mean, even though I tried desperately not to be – but the knowledge that I was being singled out for the abuse only confirmed the truth of what I was being told (that it was my fault) and strengthened my belief within myself that it must be true. I can’t express the extent of my self hate, even at that age – 5 or 6 – I remember it being overwhelming. No one took an interest – no one. No one looked beyond the expression of my hurt and confusion to see what was inside. Instead, I was told that I was a mean, awful girl, and that if I didn’t learn to think before I spoke, I would never have any friends. Again – I was the one at fault. Not only for getting raped in the first place (I was a child!), but for the terrible effects that being raped was having on my ability to be a normal child. In the end, all this taught me was that I had to learn to hide my pain better, to become more controlled and more of a pretence. Which in turn only pushed the pain and self hate deeper. 

And so my miserable life went on. Until not long after my 30^th birthday, someone introduced me to Matthew Meinck.  Matthew is the only person who has ever looked closely enough to see that this incredible pain and hurt was (is) hiding inside of me, and who has taken the time to help me start to heal. It was with his help that I first experienced the intensely sweet relief of realising that I wasn’t just a mean awful girl, something I believed to my core to be true, but that I had been grossly, devastatingly and crushingly hurt, over and over and over again, and that the damage from that treatment had warped me, twisted me up and filled me completely until the only thing that could ever come out of my mouth or actions was an expression of pain. How else could I have possibly turned out? 

That realisation was the start of my healing. It seems almost easy now to say that I would be dead if it wasn’t for Matthew’s help – I would have killed myself many years ago. But staying alive is the easy part. The hard part is healing the pain. It goes so deep and it’s through every single cell in your body. There is no part of me that hasn’t been affected by what has been done to me, or by what I have believed about myself in reaction to what was done to me. And it’s a mire. There’s no way I could get through the confusion of my twisted thought patterns, attitudes, beliefs and self criticisms on my own, no way, they’re just too good. Look at the horror they had to justify – that’s what brought them into being after all – what hope do I have trying to apply some nice thoughts to myself or trying to counter the destructive thoughts when there’s a lifetime of hurt and self hate propping them up and driving them on? But with Matthew’s help, the past 9 years has been a constant breaking down of those thought patterns, one by one, as they expose themselves. 

I’ve lost count of the number of counsellors and psychologists I saw before Matthew, trying to work out what on earth was wrong with me, not one of them came even remotely close to the truth. Not one of them was interested enough to. Not one of them was even capable of trying it. The evidence is there – I saw those guys, but nothing changed, my life carried on no differently. Then I started seeing Matthew, and my life started changing. Big time. It couldn’t be more different now to 9 years ago. 

I know it’s cost Matthew a lot to help me and others in the way he does. And I am overwhelmingly, eternally grateful to him for it. To be able to live times in my life when I truly like who I am, and don’t judge myself for the hurt that’s still inside me and that still causes trouble. I’ve lived most of my life believing I would never experience that. Never experience the simple acceptance of myself. In one way, it’s devastating to be 38 and feeling like I am only just now starting to live, starting to come out of the dreadful darkness that’s been all I’ve known, starting to see life more clearly, as it really is, but on the other hand it’s the sweetest, most precious and priceless thing – had it not been for that chance introduction to Matthew, with his unique understanding of how complicated and messy pain is and his incredible ability to get through that pain, to help to loosen its hold so it can start to unwind and release, his deep compassion for the hurt and confusion that I was (am) in, and his generosity to be there to help me from day one, I know I would never have experienced it at all. 

post submitted by M.