Victoria Cottam. Age 45
Hi I’m Victoria
I would like to share some of my life experiences with you. I have not shared some of these experiences with many people.
I have condensed the events of these past experiences to allow you to have some understanding of how I came to be where I am today and how faster eft has helped me make peace with myself and my past.
I had quite a traumatic childhood to say the least.. I can remember Both my parents did a lot of shouting & fighting..i do recall my Dad hitting my Mum on several occasions and every time I found locking myself in the toilet was a safe place where I spent many lonely hours...both my parents had affairs and quite often my Mum would take us with her when she met her boyfriends...my Dad was more discreet with his affairs but i am sure the anger between them was about this.,,
late one night my Mum woke us and told us to get dressed quickly...I am the eldest of 5 two brothers and two sisters the youngest Gemma was still a baby at the time. We walked the streets with my Mum and it's still quite vague, I cannot remember where we went.
We did not stay with my Mum for very long as after my parents seperated my Dad insisted to Mum that us children would have to live and stay with him, allowing my Mum only the custody of my youngest baby sister.,,I only learned in recent years that my mother was too scared to argue with him but also didn’t have any fight left to challenge him.
my Dad kept the council house and my Mum had to look for her own place, at the time we had no clue what was happening and why.
We visited my Mum on weekends but only for a short period of time as soon after they seperated my Dad met and fell in love with a younger woman who was 18yrs old.
My Mum ended up living in her flat and this new girlfriend moved into our family home.
The flat where she had lived was not nice and we all got scabies whilst visiting my Mum.
It was not long after this we were told by my dad that my mum was bad and we were not to speak to her. The visits stopped..I was aged 9.
This resulted in us not seeing my Mum for many years.
I do not know to this day why my Mum did not take my Dad to court or fight for custody. But I felt abandoned by her for this.
At first the new girlfriend seemed quite nice she would cook nice meals and buy us sweets..but underneath there was definate darkness. I remember playing hide and seek with my sister and new girlfriend suggested I hide in a wardrobe in her bedroom..but she locked me in and left me there it was dark and very little room to move or breathe...I was banging on the door screaming and she was laughing as she left the room..I can't remember how long I was in there but it seemed like eternity it was over an hour.
Also one thing I remember very clearly is my sister and I..being forced to have our long hair cut, mine was long dark and shiny, my sisters was long blonde and beautiful...
My Dad's new girlfriend had mid length hair... she was not getting it cut..she was saying how good ours would look short and how it was the style to have...we were too afraid to say no and we both cried whilst the hairdresser was cutting our long locks off..(mine was cut short back and sides and my sisters was cut short and spiky)...I felt like a boy and I was so upset...This resulted in my Tom boy phase...around age 10 or 11 I spent as much time out of the house as I could.
After a couple of years together the girlfriend left my dad and I found out later she met a police officer and started a relationship
My dad met another woman who I actually never met and was never invited to her house
She had her own kids and I guess was not interested in getting to know me.
he spent most of his days and nights there leaving me to take care of the house which I had to clean cook and do the washing and ironing and also babysit my sister and two brothers...I never left the house much and sometimes missed school to keep the house in order...I always loved school and was quite intelligent and was top of all my classes and excelled in all my subjects...but this was the beginning of my drinking phase around age 12.
Needless to say at this stage I also felt abandoned by my Dad too.
My Dad got in trouble with police which later in life I was told was due to his ex girlfriend dating a member of the C.I.D
She had informed the police that my Dad dealt in stolen goods (which he did)...he was arrested and sent to prison for 3yrs which he served 18 months on account of his good behaviour.
This period of my life is hazy all I know Is after years of no contact with my Mum we all ended up living back with her.
By this time myself and my siblings were quite Feral!!...
And my Mum had only been looking after my younger sister then suddenly had 4 wild traumatised rebellious kids to deal with ...she struggled to cope with taking care of us plus my younger brothers were always in trouble with the police..and I was only attending school when I felt like it and my other sister spent her time hanging around the next door neighbours house who were drug dealers. My Mum soon went into a deep depression and then had a nervous break down...so I continued to do my best to look after my younger siblings and myself as best as I could...which wasn’t great by this time I was drinking heavier and also turned to marajuana as well.
So started smoking cigarettes taking drugs and partying as a means of escape from life. Life was tough no support or guidance I was wandering the streets at 3am on my own at age 13...drunk and high.
I went from top of all my classes with the highest test scores to being locked in the teachers store room for miss behaving and in and out of the head masters office....I soon stopped going to school all together and I can't remember much from this period of life ....not really sure how I survived those drug fuelled hazy years...It was at age 15 when I met H (a local gangster) he was a friend of my Mums who was 12 years older than me.
Everyone was scared of him.
But somehow I wasn’t afraid at all??...I felt safe around him he was sweet and charming and upon turning 16 we started a relationship and I fell deeply in love with him...this was the start of intensely beautiful exciting chaotic extremely dangerous and toxic relationship...he was Jekyll and Hyde this sweet charming man wasn't available all the time he was also taking drugs and sometimes he was very angry and paranoid, violent and controlling. This phase of my life was even more scary and unpredictable I suffered a lot of abuse...Physically, mentally & emotionally.,..it spanned 8 yrs of my life.
guns, drugs, police, violence, criminals.
And after many years of fights, living in fear ....living on the edge, deep desperation bouts of depression, suicidal thoughts, depersonalisation, trapped in a nightmare which I tried many times to escape and failed. Through fear and violent threats towards me and my family if I didn't return to him....made me feel like it was impossible to escape..everytime I left my family would plead for me to go back. It felt like there was no way out...
Then something gave be a glimmer of hope ..I took up full contact kickboxing and I was really good at it (a natural I was told) I channeled all that energy...anger became my strength I became stronger physically and mentally emotionally...and every time he hit me I would hit back!!
He did not like this...as this time we were more evenly matched
Eventually the violent attaks stopped
I told Him that if he lay one more hand on me I would leave regardless of the consequences and I promised myself...
It was some time that passed before the night of the motorway fight...
We had been to watch a band in Sheffield and got into an argument on the drive home
He punched me in the face so hard it knocked my front tooth straight out it was dangling by a thread...
This all happened at 70 miles an hour I kicked him in the head I was so angry and so scared we stopped at the side of the motorway got out car shouting and fighting in the pitch black of the night..I would not get back in the car so he dragged me in.
We got back to out town and I told him take me to my sisters I was not going back with him.
He took me there and I was screaming for my sister to call the police he carried in beating me as I Tryed to get out the car...
My sister was crying and the sirens could be heard in the distance with that he let me go and he drove away.,.i did escape that night and had I decide enough was enough..he harassed me for months and I had to sneak into my apartment and stay there with the lights of for months and park my car streets away...6 months passed he still wouldn't leave me alone but I was free finally I met a young man and we started dating secretly but when H found out he went straight to my Dads house drugged or drink fuelled he had a knife to my Dad's throat and threatened to stab him if I did not return and coaxed him away and tried to defend myself with a bat but this resulted in a severe violent attack he took the bat from me and I was hit with it many times and he then stamped on my head repeatedly and left me in a pool of my own blood in an alley way..my front tooth was knocked out face being smashed in (fractured nose & cheek bone, burst blood vesicles in my eye (loss of eye sight for a few months), broken ribs)..I was hospitalised...I had him arrested and I never went back.. I was 24
These memories haunted me for many years and I had many disturbing nightmares...and drink and cigarettes distracted me from the anxiety that I lived with every day.
It would be years later that I learned how to deal with these demons from the past and it was worth the wait....
I found reiki /seichem I became a master healer and teacher ...this did help a lot
But then I found something even better ...
(faster eft ) this was a game changer I worked on everything I quit smoking in one session
I was working on myself every day
I also met another therapist called Jamie he helped me a lot we worked on each other.
I am a much happier person and feel more peaceful within than I ever have been before I studied to become a practitioner of faster e.f.t in 2012 and created the business befreebehappy and continue help others with whatever emotional issues..fears..phobias addictions..and I feel blessed everyday to be able to this.
And I am very grateful for my life and for the experiences that led me to be who I am today. I have been researching various wellness practices on myself since the age of 18 starting with health and nutrition.
There are a lot of other healings and teachings I have also found along the way that have improved and increased my health and well-being exponentially a lot I talk about on my website and I continue to choose the outlook to keep learning and improving growing inspiring experimenting and sharing what i learned and what I know works well with others (or anyone who listens ) just planting the seed is good enough.
I thank everyone for listening
It is an honour for me to be able share this small insight of my journey with you. The main reason I share this (which was not easy to talk about for a long time) is because i want you to know if I can go through what I went through (quite often with no support system)....and come out the other side not just ok but thriving full of gratitude feeling happier and deeply content with joy in my heart and a love of life...that anyone can do it ....you can do it!!
Yes you can go from surviving to thriving.
Come and find out more
Contact me for a chat or more info.
I’d love to hear from you.
Deepest love & gratitude
Victoria
I would like to share some of my life experiences with you. I have not shared some of these experiences with many people.
I have condensed the events of these past experiences to allow you to have some understanding of how I came to be where I am today and how faster eft has helped me make peace with myself and my past.
I had quite a traumatic childhood to say the least.. I can remember Both my parents did a lot of shouting & fighting..i do recall my Dad hitting my Mum on several occasions and every time I found locking myself in the toilet was a safe place where I spent many lonely hours...both my parents had affairs and quite often my Mum would take us with her when she met her boyfriends...my Dad was more discreet with his affairs but i am sure the anger between them was about this.,,
late one night my Mum woke us and told us to get dressed quickly...I am the eldest of 5 two brothers and two sisters the youngest Gemma was still a baby at the time. We walked the streets with my Mum and it's still quite vague, I cannot remember where we went.
We did not stay with my Mum for very long as after my parents seperated my Dad insisted to Mum that us children would have to live and stay with him, allowing my Mum only the custody of my youngest baby sister.,,I only learned in recent years that my mother was too scared to argue with him but also didn’t have any fight left to challenge him.
my Dad kept the council house and my Mum had to look for her own place, at the time we had no clue what was happening and why.
We visited my Mum on weekends but only for a short period of time as soon after they seperated my Dad met and fell in love with a younger woman who was 18yrs old.
My Mum ended up living in her flat and this new girlfriend moved into our family home.
The flat where she had lived was not nice and we all got scabies whilst visiting my Mum.
It was not long after this we were told by my dad that my mum was bad and we were not to speak to her. The visits stopped..I was aged 9.
This resulted in us not seeing my Mum for many years.
I do not know to this day why my Mum did not take my Dad to court or fight for custody. But I felt abandoned by her for this.
At first the new girlfriend seemed quite nice she would cook nice meals and buy us sweets..but underneath there was definate darkness. I remember playing hide and seek with my sister and new girlfriend suggested I hide in a wardrobe in her bedroom..but she locked me in and left me there it was dark and very little room to move or breathe...I was banging on the door screaming and she was laughing as she left the room..I can't remember how long I was in there but it seemed like eternity it was over an hour.
Also one thing I remember very clearly is my sister and I..being forced to have our long hair cut, mine was long dark and shiny, my sisters was long blonde and beautiful...
My Dad's new girlfriend had mid length hair... she was not getting it cut..she was saying how good ours would look short and how it was the style to have...we were too afraid to say no and we both cried whilst the hairdresser was cutting our long locks off..(mine was cut short back and sides and my sisters was cut short and spiky)...I felt like a boy and I was so upset...This resulted in my Tom boy phase...around age 10 or 11 I spent as much time out of the house as I could.
After a couple of years together the girlfriend left my dad and I found out later she met a police officer and started a relationship
My dad met another woman who I actually never met and was never invited to her house
She had her own kids and I guess was not interested in getting to know me.
he spent most of his days and nights there leaving me to take care of the house which I had to clean cook and do the washing and ironing and also babysit my sister and two brothers...I never left the house much and sometimes missed school to keep the house in order...I always loved school and was quite intelligent and was top of all my classes and excelled in all my subjects...but this was the beginning of my drinking phase around age 12.
Needless to say at this stage I also felt abandoned by my Dad too.
My Dad got in trouble with police which later in life I was told was due to his ex girlfriend dating a member of the C.I.D
She had informed the police that my Dad dealt in stolen goods (which he did)...he was arrested and sent to prison for 3yrs which he served 18 months on account of his good behaviour.
This period of my life is hazy all I know Is after years of no contact with my Mum we all ended up living back with her.
By this time myself and my siblings were quite Feral!!...
And my Mum had only been looking after my younger sister then suddenly had 4 wild traumatised rebellious kids to deal with ...she struggled to cope with taking care of us plus my younger brothers were always in trouble with the police..and I was only attending school when I felt like it and my other sister spent her time hanging around the next door neighbours house who were drug dealers. My Mum soon went into a deep depression and then had a nervous break down...so I continued to do my best to look after my younger siblings and myself as best as I could...which wasn’t great by this time I was drinking heavier and also turned to marajuana as well.
So started smoking cigarettes taking drugs and partying as a means of escape from life. Life was tough no support or guidance I was wandering the streets at 3am on my own at age 13...drunk and high.
I went from top of all my classes with the highest test scores to being locked in the teachers store room for miss behaving and in and out of the head masters office....I soon stopped going to school all together and I can't remember much from this period of life ....not really sure how I survived those drug fuelled hazy years...It was at age 15 when I met H (a local gangster) he was a friend of my Mums who was 12 years older than me.
Everyone was scared of him.
But somehow I wasn’t afraid at all??...I felt safe around him he was sweet and charming and upon turning 16 we started a relationship and I fell deeply in love with him...this was the start of intensely beautiful exciting chaotic extremely dangerous and toxic relationship...he was Jekyll and Hyde this sweet charming man wasn't available all the time he was also taking drugs and sometimes he was very angry and paranoid, violent and controlling. This phase of my life was even more scary and unpredictable I suffered a lot of abuse...Physically, mentally & emotionally.,..it spanned 8 yrs of my life.
guns, drugs, police, violence, criminals.
And after many years of fights, living in fear ....living on the edge, deep desperation bouts of depression, suicidal thoughts, depersonalisation, trapped in a nightmare which I tried many times to escape and failed. Through fear and violent threats towards me and my family if I didn't return to him....made me feel like it was impossible to escape..everytime I left my family would plead for me to go back. It felt like there was no way out...
Then something gave be a glimmer of hope ..I took up full contact kickboxing and I was really good at it (a natural I was told) I channeled all that energy...anger became my strength I became stronger physically and mentally emotionally...and every time he hit me I would hit back!!
He did not like this...as this time we were more evenly matched
Eventually the violent attaks stopped
I told Him that if he lay one more hand on me I would leave regardless of the consequences and I promised myself...
It was some time that passed before the night of the motorway fight...
We had been to watch a band in Sheffield and got into an argument on the drive home
He punched me in the face so hard it knocked my front tooth straight out it was dangling by a thread...
This all happened at 70 miles an hour I kicked him in the head I was so angry and so scared we stopped at the side of the motorway got out car shouting and fighting in the pitch black of the night..I would not get back in the car so he dragged me in.
We got back to out town and I told him take me to my sisters I was not going back with him.
He took me there and I was screaming for my sister to call the police he carried in beating me as I Tryed to get out the car...
My sister was crying and the sirens could be heard in the distance with that he let me go and he drove away.,.i did escape that night and had I decide enough was enough..he harassed me for months and I had to sneak into my apartment and stay there with the lights of for months and park my car streets away...6 months passed he still wouldn't leave me alone but I was free finally I met a young man and we started dating secretly but when H found out he went straight to my Dads house drugged or drink fuelled he had a knife to my Dad's throat and threatened to stab him if I did not return and coaxed him away and tried to defend myself with a bat but this resulted in a severe violent attack he took the bat from me and I was hit with it many times and he then stamped on my head repeatedly and left me in a pool of my own blood in an alley way..my front tooth was knocked out face being smashed in (fractured nose & cheek bone, burst blood vesicles in my eye (loss of eye sight for a few months), broken ribs)..I was hospitalised...I had him arrested and I never went back.. I was 24
These memories haunted me for many years and I had many disturbing nightmares...and drink and cigarettes distracted me from the anxiety that I lived with every day.
It would be years later that I learned how to deal with these demons from the past and it was worth the wait....
I found reiki /seichem I became a master healer and teacher ...this did help a lot
But then I found something even better ...
(faster eft ) this was a game changer I worked on everything I quit smoking in one session
I was working on myself every day
I also met another therapist called Jamie he helped me a lot we worked on each other.
I am a much happier person and feel more peaceful within than I ever have been before I studied to become a practitioner of faster e.f.t in 2012 and created the business befreebehappy and continue help others with whatever emotional issues..fears..phobias addictions..and I feel blessed everyday to be able to this.
And I am very grateful for my life and for the experiences that led me to be who I am today. I have been researching various wellness practices on myself since the age of 18 starting with health and nutrition.
There are a lot of other healings and teachings I have also found along the way that have improved and increased my health and well-being exponentially a lot I talk about on my website and I continue to choose the outlook to keep learning and improving growing inspiring experimenting and sharing what i learned and what I know works well with others (or anyone who listens ) just planting the seed is good enough.
I thank everyone for listening
It is an honour for me to be able share this small insight of my journey with you. The main reason I share this (which was not easy to talk about for a long time) is because i want you to know if I can go through what I went through (quite often with no support system)....and come out the other side not just ok but thriving full of gratitude feeling happier and deeply content with joy in my heart and a love of life...that anyone can do it ....you can do it!!
Yes you can go from surviving to thriving.
Come and find out more
Contact me for a chat or more info.
I’d love to hear from you.
Deepest love & gratitude
Victoria
