Blog

My intention for this blog is to empower others who are struggling with pain and trauma and to maybe resonate with some of what my experience has taught me to get up and keep going and keep moving forward even when things are so hard and you are in deep struggle.

For all of the experiences of my life I have become awakened to the belief that my soul made the choice to come to earth on my last and most difficult mission yet and also literally was a transition from Heaven as I knew it to Hell on Earth and that I am certain.

Overcoming the hardest of battles and the most difficult lessons in my lifetime in order to not just pass my life lessons but thrive beyond what anyone who have expected me or hoped I could achieve in order to pass onto others what I have learnt.

The sole intention of this journey was to end generations of trauma from my bloodline for many generations passed in a legacy for my children and generations ongoing and this was my mission to complete and the end goal for me is emotional fulfilment and true happiness and peace that I have led the best life possible and done it with compassion, grace, courage, authenticity, integrity, empathy and gratitude.

I am not forcing my beliefs on anyone I am just trying to tell a story of how I got through a lot of childhood trauma and in my adult live to come to terms with the impact of this on my daily life to this day. I have learnt to be grateful and compassionate toward myself and others and never given up, well I tried multiple times and had to redo my life lessons several times over until the universe was happy that I had learnt my lessons and past and ascended to a higher level.

There is a term The Wounded Healer that I resonate with and have always had the belief that a great wisdom and healing can be taught from those who have experienced a significant level of trauma themselves because of the empathy and compassion but also have a deep knowing and experience of the pain and the dark places our souls take us do we know how to move through and navigate ourselves back into the light.

We all need to have hope, we all need to learn how to find ways to inspire and empower and heal ourselves and others and ultimately when we heal ourselves and share our stories with others this will ripple effect out into the world and even if only 1 person is able to learn and be inspired from my journey by finding the strength like I have it will be more than I could have ever hoped.

The day I was born. I know the story of my birth because I used to hear it from my mother every year on my birthday.

I came into this world fighting for my life as I was “born blue” terminology for being born dead with umbilical cord wrapped around my neck and having to be resuscitated and then spend the next several weeks in an isolated crib and literally fighting for my life completely alone.

In reflection I can determine the significance of this moment and set up for my conditioning for ongoing coping mechanism in my life when faced with trauma is to isolate and go deep within myself and fight for my life alone, this was my life long coping style and survival mechanism.

I remember going missing several times in my childhood and the first time everyone was out looking for me in the neighbourhood only to be found asleep under my bed with my Pandy (lifelong stuffed teddy bear that I was never without). This was a place of safety and comfort for me, I also remember as a child being mute a lot of the time and was always known as the quiet, shy child who never spoke or opened up to people, I never felt like I belonged anywhere and remember feeling very disconnected even at such a young age.

This behaviour I learnt from birth was how I managed and dealt with my life, if I was going through a really difficult period in my life and in a really dark place I dissociated to a point where I shut down and spent long periods of time in isolation to heal and withdraw until the feelings had passed enough to go out into the world again.

My first memory as a child was one where I must have been about 3 years old and we had moved into a new house at my childhood home and my parents had built a two storey brick home and I had come out to the lounge room with my teddy bear in hand (Pandy) who was my constant comfort in my childhood from earliest memory and even in my later years. My Mother was sitting on the lounge and my father in an adjoining lounge chair watching TV and I remember trying to crawl up onto my mother’s lap to say goodnight and she pushing me away and verbally telling me to go to bed and rejecting my physical affection. My father must have noted this and encouraged me to go to him and he gave me the comfort and cuddles that I so desperately wanted from my mother and then went off to bed by myself.

This may seem insignificant to others and of course situations outside of my control were obviously a factor but this was a constant and the setup of the relationship from my mother throughout my life and was not an isolated event. My mother never showed me love and affection in the physical form or emotionally or verbally, it just never happened and even in my adulthood. It wasn’t until really into my adulthood that I noticed that on one occasion in my late thirties or forties that she attempted to hug me and my body froze and literally paralysed me in fear and profound impact and understanding of such a lifetime of rejection or physical tough from my mother for my whole life. When my children were born I was very mindful of this and cuddled and held them constantly to my detriment most times when they were young children, as they became too dependent and especially for my daughter who needed constant validation from physical hugs from me in her later teens and adulthood. This has led to a life lesson as well to ensure to use words to her to explain that I have boundary issues and trauma that impact on my behaviour. I haven’t always been able to do this, and been successful at it but I hope I am getting better to ensure that she has her needs met from me but also understands the reasons for this.

It has certainly not been an easy process and a lot of trial and error and therapy and she jokes often about my lack of affection and whilst we laugh through it highlights the impact of childhood trauma on an emotional and psychological level. It highlights that if we are not mindful and aware of these behaviour and impact of trauma it can manifest. It is not okay to simply shrug it off and let it go and make excuses or deny. For me, I needed to clean up the mess with my daughter and with an open and courageous heart speak my truth to be able to ensure that she does not carry the trauma onto her children. This is the sole purpose of this journey to ensure that my children are not made to feel that they are not worthy of love and belonging. It also makes me very sad that I have so much difficulty and fear of touch and affection, ongoing work in progress.

The Childhood years were very difficult for me and having to go back to do the inner child work that is part of this healing process has been the most difficult and caused the most amount of procrastination. Even though I have spent so many years and exhausted every therapeutic support and help from the most minimal of counselling to extreme physical healing sessions and bizarre types of very controversial therapy there is always the impact and triggers from these years that affect me today and will for the rest of my life because they are so deep and whilst I am aware and have knowledge and skill to work through it the pain at times is still very unbearable and emotionally take their toll.

My mother worked full time from my earliest memory and never spent time staying home on school holidays and I had a sister two years older than me and they were very similar in that they were very focused on their physical appearance from my earliest memories. My mother’s life consisted of the best clothes, the best of everything even though financially it wasn’t easy. I remember her going to skin clinics and hair dressers constantly and her sole focus and value system centred on the physical appearance of herself and her daughters. My sister was very blessed that she was born with good genetics and was always skinny and adored by my mother and I unfortunately was blessed with the genetics of my father’s side and whilst never really had a weight issue (from photos) was always made to feel like I was not worthy of my mother’s love and belonging because I was fat. This was a constant message and verbal dialogue that my mother continued throughout my childhood and also sadly up until my last contact with my mother about 6 years ago.

Unfortunately my sister also bought into this rhetoric and held the same belief and the relationship was broken from the beginning as set up by my mother’s values and beliefs to not only my sister but to others as well was that I was not worthy of love and belonging because of my weight. Whilst you might think that this was only my version of events people that are in my life now since childhood also have these memories. I have also unfortunately had others witness this behaviour from my mother in my adulthood as well and often brought significant shame to me.

As a young child we had family friends of my parents who were very much like family and we spent a lot of time together and ironically they had two daughters. Like my family one of the girls was skinny and stunning and the other was like me and not blessed with the good genetics and when I look back on the difference and way we were treated absolutely disgusts me. As the two overweight children we were treated so appallingly, their grandmother was a sewer and would make clothes for all of us as children and she would make the two beautiful ones the cutest outfits, dresses and best materials whilst we the ugly fat ones got the classic sack dress with the cast offs, this happened long into my childhood and has caused the most emotional and psychological impact on myself into my adulthood to this day and how I think and feel about myself and self-hatred self-talk that because of my weight and am not worthy of love and belonging.

The issues that I carried throughout my life with my weight and my relationship of self-hatred of my body carried throughout my life. My mother had an eating disorder that I recognised as such in later life and my early childhood memory of my mother having periods of starving herself, binging and then purging with swallowing a whole bottle of ford pills in one sitting and then having consequences of that was a very vivid memory of my childhood and very distressing for myself when out socially and having to witness the episodes in front of others. I don’t ever remember my mother having shame or conversations or apologising or explaining these events even well into my adulthood it was never spoken. The concept for me that this was just so normal that everyone accepted and didn’t address is just another example of the shame and hidden secrets in families that become normal.

From my youngest of years I was always very close to my father as we were both very alike in that physically and also quiet and shy. My father was always very shy and withdrawn from my memory when he was sober but was a very different man when he was drinking and he had issues with alcohol for as long as I could remember. My mother was very sociable and I recall childhood years of fabulous parties with our neighbours and family friends that often ended with being awoken in the middle of the night due to domestic violence between my parents and having to escape in the middle of the night to friends’ homes for shelter. I remember these nights vividly at times and became a normality for my childhood up until my parent’s separation when I was 13 years old.

I remember very vividly that my sister and I were split from an early age as children to a particular parent, my sister and mother were inseparable and I was always left with my father. As a child I never questioned this as I had the belief instilled in me that because my sister and mother were the beautiful social ones that they were more deserving of going on the fancy holidays to my Aunties house in Sydney whilst I was left to go with my father on holidays to Wagga Wagga for his annual football mates reunion holiday.. I was very much like my father in that very introverted and shy and quiet and I guess I was easier to take on holidays because of my quiet nature and not cause trouble and basically not like my sister and mother who were very high maintenance and also very erratic and manic in mood at times.

My father was two very different people when he was drinking and when he was sober, I remember going on the train to Rural NSW for our vacation with just my father as he worked for the Railways and got discount travel. (Of course we had the economic vacation and not the fancy expensive plane flight or travel that my mother and sister indulged on) I remember there being some drunk guys on the train and were swearing and my father was enraged and spoke to the train driver and had them thrown off the train at the next station because of their behaviour on train in front of women and children.

My father played Rugby League due to some success and talent was scouted to Brisbane to play for a team in the city like anyone moving from a small country town to the big city the transition for my father I believe was a difficult one as I don’t recall him ever talking about the good memories of his move and he struggled with depression for a long time during his adult years. So for him to go home to Wagga to meet up with his football mates was the highlight of his year and he always spoke very fondly about his home town and regret of moving to Brisbane.

My mother followed my father to Brisbane after he left and began their life but we were always very isolated when come to being away from family as only other family was in NSW which meant a small network of friends of my parents for support and family connections. I have always felt a very sad disconnect that I never really had any connection with both my maternal and paternal grandparents or Aunties, Uncles and cousins, we were always the city kids when we came home and often I felt a segregation because of the strangers that we were within the family. He always wanted to return home however the lure and excitement of the big city had my mother trapped and she would always say that she would never go back home.

My grandparents were very strict religious catholic people and I was terrified of my grandmother, she was a primary school headmaster and would make us say the prayers and Rosary before meals and bed. They had religious paraphernalia everywhere and was a very stern faced unemotional woman and I had never a close nurturing relationship with her and I never remember her being loving or affectionate toward me. The only good memory I have was on her day that she baked and she made us cupcakes and it was such a treat from her. It is very sad to reflect on such a loss of connection and grief with grandparents and family and also highlights the trauma of generations passed that has been passed onto me by my bloodline that was evident in behaviours and relationships of my grandparents and other family members.

My father’s parents were always seen as not good enough by my mother’s standards, and there was no love lost between my father’s mother and my mother. I was always told that it was to do with Religion and that my mother was Catholic but I always felt that my mother had come from a very affluent and well to do family in Wagga and my father from a poor Protestant family and that the differences were a wedge between the two. I know that my father was very close to his mother and I was too on the couple of occasions I met her and she would write to me and I felt a very soulful connection to her. On the couple of occasions we would visit I would rarely see my grandfather and my father never spoke or would acknowledge his father on our very rare visits to his family home. Years later I was told that my paternal grandfather never once went to any of my dad’s football games and never interacted with him. This was again more evidence of generational trauma passed on that had such a significant impact on my life because of the hurt and deep pain that my father suffered.

On this trip with my father we stayed with my mother’s parents on a farm just outside of the city centre and I remember as a kid such a stark contrast from city to rural Australia farm life and even with the house, it was small home with extensions built of the main house to accommodate for growing family and so when we went home for holidays my sister and I would have to stay in like an extension off the main house that you had to go outside the main house and onto the veranda outside to get access too. It was very scary as a young child being isolated from adults in the main house and also being by myself as a young child, I think I was roughly around 6 years old from memory and my father slept in a room in the main house with my grandparents. I remember as a young child being terrified of being left by myself and getting very upset to the point of hysterical and terrified of the sounds and trees outside and farm animals much to the disgust of my grandparents.

I have such vivid memories of this holiday that I relived several times of my life which felt like a puzzle with so many missing pieces and to this day have such an emotional sense of sadness and betrayal that is so overwhelming. I remember because I was so scared of being outside that my father let me sleep in the house with him and in bed with him on return of his drunken nights out with his football mates to appease my relentless complaining. At the time and I never understood why there was such a dramatic commotion and scene the next morning when my mother’s parents caught me in bed with my father. For me it was normal, my father used to get kicked out of my mother’s bed many times when he was drunk and he would come into my bed late at night only for me to wake up and find him there so for me it was very normal.

I didn’t understand a lot of what was happening at the time because this was my life as I remember and normal and did not have any cause or concern to think anything different. What I became aware of years later in my late teens and early twenties that gravity of what this meant and was only a memory to me because this was the outing to others outside of my parents when the abuse was exposed. One of the huge betrayals for me and my disconnect with my maternal grandparents and family and the Catholic Church was the sin of others to sit back and do nothing once they become aware of what was really going on and this has been a long story for many victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse for many years. Also the betrayal and absolute failure of both of my parents to put their head in the sand and not think that they had a responsibility to me to clean up their mess.

One of the more difficult parts of doing this healing work with the Inner child for me has been the reflection in my adult brain is to unpack all of the trauma and abuse that I suffered as a very young child. At certain times I have had to disassociate myself from the belief that we are the same and it is easier to not connect to the child in this story as me. As I reflect on the strength and resilience in this younger me I am incredibly grateful for the spirit guides and angels who walked with me along the journey and if I wanted to say anything to this young me it would be really that that little girl was my true hero and the Wind beneath my wings.

So we returned home after the holiday and life returned to normal or life as I knew it for several more years. My father’s drinking got worse and the fights escalated and I became more aware of the seriousness of the breakdown and toxic relationship between my parents. My mother sought attention of male attention outside of the marriage and my father disconnected and spent more time and hours drinking at the pub away from the home. I remember their being several attempts to try and rekindle the relationship and my father moving away for a time to work with friends who owned a pub in North Queensland with friends but the relationship returned to normal after a brief period of happiness in their relationship.

I think that I survived these years by staying with friends and trying to escape and live my life through other families to escape my own. It’s hard to remember when the sexual abuse started or when it ended but the emotional and psychological abuse was incredibly traumatic in that the confusion in my mind as I was very close to my father he was the only parent in my childhood that was present. He would do the cooking, cleaning, emotional comfort and he was the only parent that was present in my life as my mother had very significantly disconnected from me on every level by this time. I have very little memory of my mother being in my life in my primary school years, she would be at work all the time and on holidays I would get sent off to family friends who owned pubs to be looked after and my sister would always stay at home with my mother. I was always welcomed at others homes and felt more at home with these other families than my own. I would escape to the neighbours and anyone that would have me to escape the reality of my home life.