Transition to Adolescence

Life changed significantly for me when I started High School and I was 13, I recall going to stay with a friend from school and her family down the Gold Coast for holidays and when I came home finding my whole world had fallen apart. My sister had held a birthday party whilst I was away at our house the night before and she would have been 15 at the time and I returned home to having walked into an almighty fight between my sister and my father. My sister was furious and verbally abusing my father and swearing and screaming because he had embarrassed her the night before because she had friends come to the party who were outside in cars and I gather were drinking and having sex. My father had gone outside and told them to stop or leave or something and my sister was horrified that he had done this and embarrassed her. I walked in to see my sister swearing and verbally abusing my father and he slapped her across the face. Basically my sister looked at my mother and said either he leaves or I do and my mother looked at my father and said you need to leave and with that he packed his bags and left and never came back. Looking back, I found it difficult to understand my mother’s rationale of what acceptable parenting, the abuse that my sister suffered in that situation was more important than the years of abuse I had suffered. Trying to work through in my adult brain why did she not tell him to leave after she was aware of the abuse I suffered, again another rhetoric or belief at such a young age that my sister was more deserving and worthy of love and belonging than I was. The next couple of years for me were really distressing, I had not only lost the support of my only parent, I was left with my sister and mother who both hated my father and took it out on me because I was the closest thing to him and a constant reminder of my father to them, and his only supporter. My mother and sister refused to see my father ever again and I was the only person and support to my father which was a huge burden. I would be allowed to see my father every fortnight on pay day when my mother sent me or drove me to where my father lived to have a visit for a couple of hours and collect the money that I would bring home to my mother.

My mental health significantly declined during the next couple of years and I was left alone and isolated. My mother began an affair with a married man and he would visit every Saturday and they would spend the day engaged in sex and was obvious to me that this relationship was a long standing one before my father had left. My sister left the house for long periods of time which was a relief for me and I had never had any sort of relationship or interaction with my sister so this was very normal but I was not part of her life and the relationship was never close and she was incredibly cruel and mean to me during my childhood and even into adulthood. My mother would go away for weekends and I was left alone and would gravitate to friends’ houses or have friends over as I was always the cool house to come to because my mother was never home and never cared what I did or what happened, she was so focused on her own life that I was left to parent myself.

At times during the years of 13 to 15 my mother would be notified by others comments or advice about my depression or significant isolation and would always blame it on me and tell me it was because of me being overweight. I remember a time when I was about 13 years old and she had bought me some weight loss tablets and I had so much trouble trying to swallow them because they were so big and I would try so hard to swallow them but would keep gagging and throw them up. An issue I still have today with swallowing tablets. I remember her being so angry with me that she would get them and force her hands down my throat to get them down which was so distressing for me that I think she gave up after several attempts of not being successful.

Another situation was she rang my father and told him that he needed to take me to Jenny Craig after it has just opened in Australia to make me lose weight because she put down all of my issues with depression were related to me being overweight. Another humiliating event that I had to endure with my father taking me to Jenny Craig every fortnight to get weighed and at that time it was all tinned and powdered food which was really awful but not wanting to suffer the wrath of my mother in one of her tirades I complied as did my father. In retrospection and when I look back at those years I can’t recall being that overweight, I think my average dress size was about a 14 but for my mother this was unacceptable and I remember being weighed in Grade 12 by the Physical Education Teacher and weighed 70kg which was so horrific for me but I recall he wasn’t concerned and attempted to alleviate my distress but by that time I was 17 years old and in retrospect the fear and damage with emotional and psychological abuse from my mother increased the fear significantly.

Throughout these years my mental health and depression significantly declined and I know that my mother was very angry about my low mood at times and would often fly into fits of verbal rage and physical abuse. I recognise now that my mother had significant mental health issues and would without any cause storm into my room in fits of rage and yell and swear at me and get wooden coat hangers out of my cupboard and belt me with them in an uncontrollable rage and after her rage and once she had calmed she would leave and I would be left to discard of the broken wooden coat hangers in my room and no words were spoken it just became my normal.

One specific incident I remember was when I started to experiment with cutting myself as a form of trying to relieve my internal pain, I specifically remember in desperation and a process of learning over the years is that the body is well tuned to identifying trauma, and the body always wins in bringing pain and trauma to the surface. I had a glass in my room that I smashed in a burst of anger and frustration and started slashing my wrists, in those days it wasn’t a well-known issue as it is now but rather learnt behaviour from watching movies and identifying with the concept. I remember feeling instant shame afterwards and having to cover up the damage that I had done so that my mother wouldn’t find out.

I remember going to school the next day and having to wear a long jumper to cover the evidence however the weather was not working in my favour and during the day people must have noticed and alerted the teachers who ultimately contacted my mother. There was no Child Safety in those days that I recall and certainly not an option for my protection and safety as I went to a Catholic Girls only Private School in Brisbane and therefore changed the dynamics significantly. I don’t remember anyone at the school asking me about it or asking questions, all I remember was the physical wrath of my mother and her physical abuse of the wooden coat hangers when I got home from school that day. In these times when my mother verbally and physically abused me because of her frustration and anger with me and I had no idea of what was happening at the time I became somewhat mute, isolated and severally depressed. Because I could not articulate or explain what was going on and my mother saw this as some sort of defiance or fault with me and another reason of evidence in her mind that I was imperfect and not worthy of her love. When I returned to school the next day and the teachers and students saw the welts and bruises on my legs again no one said anything and they never contacted my mother again, they also never sought any help or support for me, sadly it was only 1985.