Susannah Faithfull
Susannah Faithfull of Aurora
As cases of child abuse continue to hit the headlines, Rosanna Greenstreet talks to Susannah Faithfull about her Kingston-based charity Aurora, which helps those affected
Since Operation Yewtree launched in 2012 and exposed the appalling crimes of the likes of Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris and, most recently, Gary Glitter, the public has become much more aware of the dreadful impact that sexual abuse in childhood can have on a person’s life.
It is something with which Susannah Faithfull, who runs Aurora, the Kingston based charity for adults abused in childhood, is only too familiar, as she, too, was abused – initially by her mother and later by two uncles.
Susannah, who turns 60 this year but looks younger, greets me at the door of the three bedroom, terraced house which serves as Aurora HQ.
Wearing a flowing skirt that skims her ankles, she has long wavy hair and a face that radiates warmth. Barefoot, she urges me to kick off my shoes and introduces me to her second husband Nick, with whom she runs the charity.
While Nick mans the phone in the tiny office she ushers me upstairs into one of the three treatment rooms where we have tea and she tells me about her childhood.
“My dad did a flit when I was a baby and I grew up in Kent where we lived with my mother’s family. We were poor – my grandfather had been a merchant seaman and, as he got older he did gardening, but he drank and gambled and would lose jobs. My grandmother was the village midwife. My uncles worked in the cement factory and my mum and aunts mostly stayed at home.”
Susannah hesitates. She has told her story many times but recalling the circumstances of her abuse, which began when she was two, cannot be easy.
With her hands cupped around her mug of tea, she takes a sip and continues, “I know that my mother had been abused, and that she was also overindulged – she was a lot younger than her older sisters and utterly spoilt.
When I was nine, she was diagnosed as being a paranoid schizophrenic and then she was in and out of a secure psychiatric unit. My grandmother used to sign the release forms for my mum and so she would come home and abuse me again.
Nowadays, I think my mother would have been diagnosed with a narcissistic personality disorder, because everything was about her. She was both smothering and cruel and I didn’t ever feel separate from her. It was almost like she didn’t see me as an actual person, I was an extension of her.”
The abuse stopped when Susannah was 13 and, in time, she moved away, married and had two sons, but the damage – both physical and mental – affected her deeply.
She explains, “I was haunted by it and I did what a lot of survivors do, I pushed it down and pretended it didn’t exist. Then of course, I crashed. I had post-natal depression and then, in
the nineties, I wanted to kill myself.
I thought my sons would be better off without me.”
Susannah, who was then living in Bath, had counselling with her GP and then managed to secure funding to spend three months at a residential crisis centre in north London.
“My boys, who were coming up to 14 and 16, went to live with their father so that I could go into this centre,” she says, adding simply, “It saved my life.”
Susannah Faithfull of Aurora
And now, 20 years later, after settling in Surrey, Susannah is saving others. Having trained as a counselling psychologist, she and Nick, who is also a counsellor, founded Aurora in 2006 to provide one-to-one counselling, psychotherapy, support groups, workshops and social activities for adult survivors of child sexual abuse.
“I realised there needed to be a place for survivors, where they can talk and meet each other, somewhere they can learn to build themselves,” she says.
Aurora has between 30 and 35 clients, and the gender split tends to be 80% women, 20% men. The treatment offered is unique and attracts clients from as far afield as Birmingham, Manchester and Cornwall.
After an initial assessment, a recovery plan is put in place. Susannah believes that talking therapies combined with ‘bodywork’ interventions help a client to heal both their mind and body.
“A lot of survivors have physical symptoms like IBS or high blood pressure,” she explains, adding, “Any complementary therapies are done by qualified counsellors or psychotherapists because of the depth of what we are dealing with. For example, we have two psychotherapists who do biodynamic massage, which is about the release of trauma held in the body.”
Another aspect is anger release in one-to-one counselling or in groups. In the treatment room sits a plastic baton and a beanbag. The idea is that clients beat the beanbag with the baton to vent their feelings. Susannah gives me a brisk demonstration.
“Sometimes clients can’t deal with anger, so they just hold the stick, but some really go for it,” she says, giving the beanbag another wallop.
Susannah has thought of everything. Clients are encouraged to arrive at Aurora half an hour before therapy so that they can mentally prepare for their session, and they can stay on for an hour or two afterwards.
She says, “We all put on an image for the world, but with survivors the gap with how they are at home and how they project is often much wider. So the half an hour before a session encourages the client to relax and prepare for their therapy.
We have time between appointments so they can sit for a while, or they can go into the garden where we have a heater and blankets. Anna, my deputy clinical director, makes hot food and cakes and that’s a bit of a fundraiser.
We charge a pound or two for hot food for those who can afford it.”
Susannah is adamant that the treatment Aurora offers should be open ended. “We have to make sure that we’ve enough money for each person to carry on counselling for the next year or even two years because we don’t want to say – and, thank God, we’ve never had to – ‘we’ve no more money for you to carry on.’”
For those who can afford it, each weekly therapy session is £45, but that covers only half the cost. It’s hard to see how the charity survives.
Susannah smiles, “We fundraise like crackers and Nick and I don’t take a salary. We’ve had small grants over the years – a couple of thousand here and there and our landlord is sympathetic, so we don’t pay as much as others round here. ”
Nick and Susannah have been together for 16 years but could only afford to marry quite recently.
“Nick cashed in his pension so we thought, “Quick let’s do it before the money all evaporates into Aurora! We married in October 2013 and had a lovely time.”
While Susannah may have left her darkest days behind, she still thinks of herself as a work in progress.
Of her abuse she says, “I will live with it till I die, but you can live with it. I consider myself fortunate because I’ve had children. So many can’t because of the physical effects of abuse, so I have been blessed in that respect. Sometimes I have nightmares or I need to look under the bed. But now I recognise that something has triggered those feelings and if I am
a bit wobbly and I need to look in the wardrobe or leave the light on, that’s OK.”
The exposure of Savile et al, the scandal in Rotherham and the rumoured VIP ring of paedophiles who frequented the Elm Guest House in Barnes, would seem to indicate that sexual abuse is, tragically, more prevalent than anyone anticipated. Although it is hard to be precise, some research says that one in four people are affected.
“I think this is the tip of the iceberg, I wish it wasn’t, but I do,” says Susannah, adding, “Not every survivor has to have therapy, if they can find someone who can listen. The feeling of isolation is the biggest problem.”
And her advice to a survivor who may be reading this?
“I would say keep going, find someone or somewhere where you can feel safe and get the help that you need.”
Let’s hope that Aurora gets the help that it requires to keep providing what is evidently a much needed service.
For more information and to make a donation go to, aurorahealthfoundation.org.uk
Author Rosanna Greenstreet has also written about the story of Claire Beeken who suffered with anorexia for over 13 years due to the trauma of being sexually abused by her grandfather from the age of 9 to 15 years of age. She went on to found a charity to help those with eating disorders. Click here
