Ula Chwedziak: My father told me to undress and lie down on the bed. I had to wait like that for him to come and punish me

You help female victims of violence. You draw on your own experiences.

I support women who have experienced similar traumas as I have. I do crisis intervention via the Internet. But before I started helping, there were simply conversations on Messenger and sharing my experiences. We would meet on social media groups focused on these topics. Later, I created the Ulowa Traumatycznie fanpage. When I started posting about violence, girls wrote that they had gone through things like this too.

What were their stories?

One was raped by her brother when she was a teenager. Today, she is 61 years old and has to sit at the Christmas table with him every year. The mother of another girl forces her to maintain a relationship with the father who raped her. There was also a woman whose husband is completely dependent on his parents. They even pay his bills. He makes her believe that this is what relationships in a loving family are like, and she doesn’t know the way they should be because she is ACA. Friends of women who are in danger posted too. They wanted to know how they could help them. The worst cases for me are when a mother condones violence against her child. It makes me feel helpless and very angry. This was the case in my family.

What was your childhood like?

My first contact with violence was when I was two years old. I was playing with a balloon my grandfather gave me. My father must have been annoyed by this because he hit me and I ploughed into a bench. I cut my lips and damaged my teeth, I was taken to hospital and I got stitches. My mum told the doctors it was my fault, and later she and my father lied about this to the rest of the family. I remembered this event even though I was so young at the time. I was able to recreate it in detail during the trauma therapy I underwent as an adult.

Was there also mental abuse?

For my sister’s first birthday, my cousins came to visit. We were playing and suddenly my father entered the room dressed as Baba Yaga. The children were squealing and running away, and I stood still and began to cry. He walked up to me, leaned over and hissed that he hated me. I was three years old.

What was in between these crisis situations?

My father was a professional driver, so he was away a lot. When he showed up, he used violence against me and my mum. He would come back from the road at night and start beating her while she was sleeping. At the time, there was this hand-held vacuum cleaner called Kaśka. He would take the handle off and lay her about with it. He used a variety of items.

What about your sister?

He was never aggressive towards her. She became the apple of his eye. She then followed in his footsteps and repeated the same scenario in her own family.

Do you have any fond memories from your childhood?

I owe all the good things to my grandparents – my mum’s parents. I think it was because of their love and the way they influenced me that I was able to overcome my dysfunction. But my grandparents died when I was eight years old. This was when all scraps of normalcy disappeared. After they died, my mum started drinking.

There was no alcohol before?

No, I might have seen her with alcohol at family events, but never drunk. When my grandparents died, she started going out to drink to her friends’. I had to take care of the house and my younger sister, prepare us both for school. I also covered for my mum when my father came back while she was drinking at her friends’. Or I would clean up after the parties she threw at home so there would be no traces. I would do my best to keep brawls at bay. My family and neighbours knew what was going on, but no one reacted. During that time, my mother started beating me too. I would get hit for just about anything, usually by hand. My father used more sadistic methods.

What do you mean?

I had to kneel facing the wall, with my hands up. When I couldn’t keep them up any longer, he would beat me with a belt. Or he told me to undress and lie down on the bed. Sometimes I would lie like that for hours, waiting for him to come and punish me. He would usually show up after two to three hours and beat me until I started screaming in pain. Then he would leave the room. I devoured books as a child, reading was my greatest reward. The worst punishment was when he took them away from me.

What were you punished for?

I was a very well-behaved child, so he had to invent little reasons. For example, he would beat me for coming too soon or too late after he called me. I lived in a scared animal mode. When I knew he was coming back, I listened for the sound of the car engine, the key in the lock, the door opening. It was a state of alarm.

Did you try to buy your way into your father’s good graces?

I tried to gain his acceptance with good marks. It was the only thing I could use because my sister didn’t do well at school. I would finish a year with honours and my father was still dissatisfied with my marks. He even beat me when I got a B instead of an A. And at the same time, he didn’t allow me to pursue my interests. My music teacher encouraged me to go to music school, but my father was against it. I also couldn’t sign up for extracurricular Polish classes. And then he didn’t let me go to high school, but sent me to a vocational school.

Did anyone at school know about what was going on at home?

I don’t think so. I looked for ways to cover the marks and avoided PE classes. At the time I felt guilty, I thought I deserved it all, I thought that I was the bad one. Funny, because at school they called me ‘the lawyer’. I defended the oppressed, yet I couldn’t defend myself. It was a long time before the idea that I want someone to help me even crossed my mind. As a child, the first and last time I asked for help was at age 12. I was on the edge.

What happened?

When I was 10 years old, my father started molesting me. At first, he would go into the bathroom and watch, then it escalated and turned into actions. When I was 12, I went to talk to his sister. She lived next door. It was after one of those episodes. I thought I couldn’t take it anymore. I told her what was going on. She was surprised. She told me not to tell anyone and promised to talk to my father. Then I heard from her that I was making things up and that I wanted to destroy his life.

How did your father behave after that?

I don’t know if there was any conversation between him and my aunt about this. Nothing changed, in fact it got worse. Several times, when I was 14-15 years old and my mum wasn’t home, he tried to rape me. By then, he already had a mistress and all I could think of to defend myself was to threaten him that I would tell mum. I think that’s what saved me.

How was your mum doing at the time?

She was drinking. My parents divorced and the court granted custody to my father. His lover moved in with us, and my mother returned to her home town. He cut off our contact with her, I didn’t see her for six months. And then I started rebelling. I got on a train and went to Wrocław to meet her. I was 16 at the time.

What was the visit like?

Very emotional. My mum was happy and didn’t drink for those few days. But she was already in the gutter by then. And all the bad moments from my childhood came back to me. After that, we would only see each other once in a blue moon. The contact became more regular when I came of age and my father threw me out of the house.

And what was it like for the two years leading up to it?

At the wedding with his second wife, in the presence of guests – about 40 people – my father punched me in the face because he asked for something and I replied that I would do it in a moment. No one reacted. He maintained in front of everyone that I was a difficult child. At that time, I also suffered because of economic violence a lot. He was well-off, but he didn’t buy me anything except essentials. He also forbade me to go out with my friends, to discos, I couldn’t go on school trips.

What did your 18th birthday change?

I started to rebel harder and stand up for myself. My father would still beat me of course, only the sexual abuse stopped. He didn’t like that I voiced my opinions. He kept saying that I would end up like my mother. Finally, he decided that there was no place for me in his house. I packed two bags, left and promised myself that I would never come back.

Where did you go?

To an elderly Pentecostal couple with whom I was friends. I stayed with them for almost a year. It was a time of solace, my first safe haven. Nevertheless, my father called me all the time and I couldn’t just ignore it. He asked what was going on with me, whether I had contact with my mother. He also called the people I was staying with and told them how difficult I was. They didn’t share the details of these conversations with me, I guess they wanted to protect me.

Was this the beginning of changes?

Yes, but everything was happening very slowly. I started working and went to an adult evening high school. In private life, I had trouble building relationships, I easily stepped into the role of victim, and I didn’t know how to set boundaries. My first two relationships were toxic. It wasn’t until I got pregnant that I started to fight for myself and, most of all, for the baby. I decided that my life would not look like my mother’s. I have built a lasting relationship that I have been in for over 20 years, my son Kuba is now an adult. I have never hit him. We have a close, beautiful relationship. And when he was two years old, my father died.

How did you take it?

I was relieved, yet I still felt his power. For example, when a friend of mine jokingly said: ‘You’re touched in the head’, it triggered me. I was immediately reminded of what my father used to say to me as a child. I couldn’t laugh. There were many such situations, triggering bad memories. I put myself in two roles: Kuba’s mother and Mirek’s wife. I felt great in both of them and I was glad I wasn’t replicating the mistakes from my home. But there was no Ula. One day, I discovered that some people didn’t even know my name.

How long did this phase last?

Almost 15 more years after my father died. I went through the whole process that led me to discover who I really am. I started reading a lot of psychological literature, I was educating myself and analysing the past. I realised that my father had been gone for a long time but I couldn’t let the guilt and shame go. In addition, I still had a sister who took over his role. She would criticise me, blame me, treat me like her arch-enemy. Cutting her out of my life was the best thing I’ve ever done. But I have a very close bond with her children, who are young adults now. I created a family home for them that they didn’t have before. I haven’t spoken to my sister in over six years.

Cutting ties – a big step.

At the time, I was already in therapy which allowed me to sort out current issues and see what mechanisms I was operating in. I was working on setting boundaries and assertiveness. I was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder. People who suffer from it feel as if they were in a bubble isolating them from the society. I was learning to live in the here and now. It was a huge turning point for me.

When did you go to therapy?

It wasn’t until I was in my forties, when I found that I had deep depressive states. I started with cognitive behavioural therapy. I attempted suicide in the course of it. It was my second time. The first one was at the age of 20. But I went back to therapy, and once I learned how to deal with the things around me, I wanted to sort out my past. And that’s how I ended up in trauma therapy. I chose a male psychotraumatologist because I had a problem with male-female relationships. For example, I didn’t feel comfortable when a professional came to fix something and I was in one room with him.

And how did you function in relationships?

I wasn’t open in relationships, I kept my distance. Falling in love was a longer process, there was never mad love sparked at first sight. I was looking for a sense of security. I was also afraid of older men. My husband is 10 years younger than me.

Do you feel that your past is behind you?

Yes, I have processed all that mentally. I’ve become Ula Chwedziak, not just a mother and wife. I began to discover who I really am. And I started wearing dresses, as I used to hide under clothes. After a year and a half of trauma therapy, I underwent testing and it turned out that I no longer had complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Transformation, even after severe trauma, is possible. I used to be a victim and today, I am a fighter. Therapy also made me realise that I want to help others. I became a crisis intervention consultant and a coach in the “Shero’s Journey – the Road to Self” development programme for women and the “Rational Behaviour Therapy” programme. I am also a certified cognitive coach.

What does your help consist in?

Mostly in interventions, that is online one-on-one meetings with women who are experiencing violence or other life crises. We talk via video apps, although there are people who are only willing to turn on the webcam after several meetings. My help is the beginning of the journey to change. There are 10 meetings only, as I am the first resort for these women. We share experiences, I recommend books that I have learned from and that are worth reading. This is one of the elements of psychoeducation – we build resources, which means that we focus on things demonstrating that there is a way out and that they can fight for themselves. Most victims lack a sense of empowerment. I also suggest where to go for further help. Therapy should be the next step, and I recommend it to every woman. But not all of them have money for private sessions, and visits refunded by the National Health Fund are rare and irregular.

They find themselves in a no-win situation?

I’m looking for ways to ensure that they have access to further help. I’ve set up a website with a forum. The idea is for women to share their stories on it and to connect them with psychotherapists who agree to help for free. All my activities are pro bono too, I definitely don’t want to make money from it. I also intend to establish a foundation and then use the funds raised for it to pay psychotherapists for helping victims of violence. In many cases, these are people who have had limited access to education and are now either unemployed or earn too little to receive paid therapy. I was in that situation too. Because of what my father did to me, I couldn’t grow and invest in myself for a long time.

Now that has changed.

Yes, I see my mission as helping others in a similar situation to mine. I have always had what it takes to be a community worker, and now I can fulfil myself as one. My fanpage has 2k likes, but I can see how many people are following the posts. When I wrote about how to survive Christmas in a dysfunctional family, 50,000 people read it. There were only 70 likes. People are embarrassed to like such content because it might expose them. Once, I was on duty on a large women’s social media group that had previously presented my story. Five hundred women wrote to me that evening. It took me three weeks to write back to them.

Did that response encourage you to write a book, too?

The main source of motivation to do this was Marta, a girl I met a year ago and who is close to me. She also experienced violence in her family home. She convinced me that a book could give strength to women looking for a way out of the situation they found themselves in. Those that still can’t reach out for help. In the first part, I describe my experiences; in the second part, I talk about how to break free from a toxic relationship. All sales revenue will go to the foundation.

And what is this book to you? Closure, a final goodbye to the past?

No, I don’t face that pain in it once again. This is behind me now. Everything I had to get off my chest, I shouted out, cried out, said goodbye to. This book is a step of courage and overcoming the inner shame that has accompanied me for most of my life. It took me a long time to believe that I was not to blame for what happened to me. That the shame and blame lies with the abuser.

How many people have you helped already?

About 1,000 people have reached out to me so far. Almost all of them are women. Men are still reluctant to talk about experiencing violence. Some women reached out with specific questions, while others were seeking help because they didn’t know where to start. For some, I conducted interventions consisting of 10 meetings, but there were some women that dropped out during the interventions. Some women wrote to me just to offload. They weren’t ready to change things yet.

And what gives you the power to do that?

The change is driven by getting rid of shame and guilt, and that starts when we dare to talk about what happened to us. That’s where you need to start to get your life back.

Ula Chwedziak – grew up in a violent home, today she helps people who have experienced relational trauma. She runs the Ulowa Traumatycznie fanpage on Facebook, she founded the Traumatycznie.pl website and is creating a foundation that will provide free and professional therapy to victims of violence. She is a psychoeducator, a coach in the “Shero’s Journey – the Road to Self” development programme for women and the “Rational Behaviour Therapy” programme, as well as a crisis intervention consultant and cognitive coach.

Photo: Izabela Jabłońska

The text was published in „Wolna Sobota” a magazine of „Gazeta Wyborcza” on 26 February 2022