Feedback from Survivors
You can find further feedback and poems from Members in our Newsletter
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Feedback from the 2025 Member's Residential Weekend
In May 2025 we held our annual weekend residential workshop. This has been a regular event since 1999, though in 2020 and 2021 it was postponed due to the global pandemic. We do need to charge a fee to attend this event, but it is heavily subsidised.
CIS’ters is a national charity and therefore some delegates travelled long distances to attend. The weekend workshop continues to be a led by-and for survivors event. The team are all volunteers and all but one is a current member of CIS’ters who role model that as individuals we are more than a survivor and that this title should not limit us.
From some delegates who attended this year:
♦ I can’t express enough how important it is to have a safe space for women who have suffered from childhood abuse to come together.
♦ I enjoy the support and information I get in the sessions.
♦ Realise I am in charge of my emotions/responses.
♦ I feel deeply peaceful and accepted.
♦ A unique and irreplaceable workshop – a lifeline.
♦ After the residential, the benefits to my mental health and overall wellbeing are so visible – everyone comments, saying I’m happier within myself afterward.
♦ …survivors often face challenges that non-survivors struggle to understand. The weekend workshop offers us a place where we can unpack all those challenges without judgement, and we can learn new skills to overcome them, sustaining us throughout the year.
♦ Meeting other women survivors has given me a voice … I feel I’m not abnormal or a freak. I feel accepted.
♦ ……I didn’t have to pretend I was ok if I wasn’t. This was the first public place in a group of people (especially those I don’t know) that I have ever felt like this.
Some of the Workshops:
Advocating for Yourself
Me, Myself and Others
Strong at the Broken Place
Letting Go
Singing
Line Dancing
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Feedback from the 2024 Member's Residential Weekend
Delegate who joined in 2016:
'Being part of CIS’ters, led and delivered by females with lived experience has helped me so much. I have previously been supported by other charities for survivors, but there is nothing quite like CIS’ters. It is unique and a lifeline'.
Delegate who joined in 2021:
Maybe if you have ever experienced feeling isolated and then finding your ‘tribe’ you may understand. Being a survivor and getting to share a beautiful female only safe space with other female survivors is that times a million.
In 2023 I arrived at the weekend workshop with depression and left without depression and it hasn’t been back since. Such is the power of a deep connection and being seen and loved, as a member of the community which is CIS’ters. In 2024 I attended my 2nd event and left as I arrived, feeling good. If I have a blip during the year, I know I can email the office and someone will respond. So far I haven’t needed to do that.
Being part of CIS’ters means that I belong. As someone who has previously spent (elsewhere) many hours in every therapy I could try, and engaged in anything research said would be good for my well-being I can honestly say that weekend offered by CIS’ters to members, is the most healing thing I have ever done.
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Feedback from the 2023 Member's Residential Weekend
♦ 'Joining CIS'ters and attending the weekend event is the best thing I have ever done'.
♦ 'It’s done so much for me – can’t even put into words. Life changing (and I already thought I was doing really well)'.
♦ 'It was amazing to find other delegates had had the same things happen to them. A revelation'.
♦ 'Made me realise others gone through similar & I’m not as abnormal as I thought I was'.
♦ 'It was great to share....... but also to laugh and feel supported and connected'.
♦ 'I felt less isolated'.
♦ 'Was very affirming that I am not alone'.
♦ 'Fun and laughter was encouraged and facilitated'.
Some of the Workshops:
'Why Me’ - session explored ways in which individuals were targeted by those who wished to control and abuse; and why the victims were conditioned to believe what they do, about what occurred.
'Together We' - An opportunity to experience letting go of some of the pain of yesteryear and today, plus creation of space for new emotional growth.
'Line Dancing' - A fun activity to join in or sit and watch offering encouragement.
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Feedback from the 2022 Member's Residential Weekend
♦ "This weekend workshop has truly been life changing for me…For the first time in my life, I felt as though I was truly accepted for who I am and more importantly I have learned to accept myself ".
♦ "I met some wonderful women and I felt empowered to stand alongside them all. For the whole weekend, I felt very safe to be able to relax and allow my feelings to come to the surface and explore a mixture of emotions. Above all, I laughed so very much and this felt really important to give myself permission to do so when it was such an emotional event for me".
♦ "I felt so loved and cared for, something I struggle with on a daily basis. I have begun the process of healing as a direct result".
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Feedback from the 2021 Member's Residential Weekend
♦ “I wanted to give some feedback.
You have continued to support me and offered help if and when I felt able to accept it.
Because of CIS’ters I was able to screw up the courage to receive counselling from my local specialist rape and sexual abuse centre.
Because of CIS’ters I was able to acknowledge the past, and recognise its role in my present.
Because of the newsletters, seemingly arriving by some telepathic witchery, I was able to manage these last 5 years worth of acceptance and growth with at least some of my faculties intact.
Your constant support has meant more than I can say and I hope to one day be brave enough to play a more active part. Jo (1242)”
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Feedback from the 2019 Member's Residential Weekend
From one of our Members:
"Dear Gillian and everyone who worked hard in making the Weekend Workshop happen:-
Thanks to all of you. I’ve grown so much in the 36 hours I was at the residential event. It was so empowering. I really felt my confidence improve as the weekend progressed. I’ve never felt such a sense of connectedness. It all felt safe, and I really feel less alone now.
I can tell that so much work goes into the event and just want to thank you all. I picked this card as the leaves/bows represent all the lovely women I met there and the tree represents growth. Hope you like it! What more can I say ….. loads! I could talk forever about how this event helped me. Thank you all of you".
The Workshops:
‘Sink or Swim’ - Included aspects of ‘other’ experiences we had as children (i.e. What else was happening, for example, domestic violence, alcoholism etc) that affected our resilience as children, plus why professionals/others fail to ask the right questions.
‘How the Brain Responds to Emotional Trauma’ - This session explored the impact of trauma on the brain. How it works and how it helps/helped us to manage the impact of our childhood experiences and thereafter.
‘Managing What Feels Unmanageable’ - Exploring how we and our body find inventive ways to help us manage what might feel or appear to be unmanageable situations – for example – Why don’t we go bang when it gets too much?
‘What Does ‘Self-Care’ Mean? - Exploring some of the techniques we can use, as individuals, to help manage distress and improve resilience.
‘Flower Power and Our Senses’ - Exploring the benefits of Aromatherapy.
‘Singing for Pleasure’ - Making music together is a wonderful way of consolidating our CIS’tership.
'The Tree' - Delegates were asked if they would write down something positive about the weekend and hang it from our small tree. The messages were then used within one of the optional sessions and the following was collectively created and presented during the Closing Ceremony.
‘C’
Compassion, Comfort, Comical, Connectedness, Creative, Chocolate, Crying, Contribution.
‘I’
Inspired, Included, Individual, (loved for who) I (am), (less) Isolated.
‘S’
Supported/ Safe, Solidarity, (understood without) Speaking.
‘T’
Togetherness, Team, Totally letting go, True freedom, Team (are kind and supportive and loving), Truth, Trust,
Taking off the Mask, Tears, Tissues, Toast (burnt (a reference to the toast being burnt at breakfast!)).
‘E’
Energy, Empowered, Empathic, Enlightened, Educated, Easy, Eating.
‘R’
Respected, Resilient, Relationships, Rested, Refreshed, Reassured, Reliable, Relaxed.
‘S’
Secure, Strong, Serious, Singing, Social, Standing together, Speaking (or not).
Above all,
CIS’ters,
collectively stands for
acceptance, belonging, unconditional love,
non-judgment and being valued.
"I like getting post from CIS’ters and being part of this community, helping me to heal".