SASH Nelson – Unraveling…

quote Russell Brand – Step 4 from RECOVERY

For the past few days my mind has been a mash up of blank emotions
Feeling with others
Identifying with parts of their stories
But not knowing how to process my own
Because it just feels too huge
Too complicated
Where do I start
my PTSD,
my ball of string, has so many pieces rolled into it
some are long, very very very long
and others are short, abrupt, moments
with many varying lengths between

This morning Russell Brand challenged me loud and clear
He pushed me up off of my pillows and said
Start writing!

Here goes….

My father
He was my main fuck up
He fucked me up so fucking good
He spent my entire childhood ensuring I was totally fucked up
And he did such a good job of it
Incest is the most confusing type of sexual abuse anyone can endure
No violence involved
Just so called love and enjoyment
It turns my stomach to recall how much he made me enjoy what he did to me
For over 10 years
That is a total screw up in anyones brain
I bury those memories so deep
But this morning they are surfacing
And I am SO FUCKING ANGRY
He stole so much from me
The pleasure of actually knowing when I lost my virginity
Or the ability to give consent and give myself to who I wanted
The never knowing when, because it is blurred into obscurity
The not knowing how to guide my own children
My children – OMG don’t get me started on that
He locked my emotions up so fucking much
I didn’t know how to parent or communicate with me own children
I so fucked up my own children

That day we were going to visit our friends
the day our landrover rolled off the road and down the bank
the day the one man I trusted
let me down for the first time
that one error of judgement
set triggers alight that haunt me decades later
fears that seem now to be irrational
but are so fucking real
fear of falling
fear of losing my children
fear of confined spaces
fear of losing control
fears, irrational and uncontrollable fears…

Home from the hospital
an innocent comment
A curious question
Allowed us to discover our precious daughter
had been abused whilst we were away
she was in the care of someone we trusted
but still a fucked up deviant who managed to get to my precious little girl
So Fucking Up and So Fucking Angry

A month later
pregnant with very unplanned baby No4
after pelvic injuries, broken left ankle, sprained right knee
and weeks on crutches
after a month of painkillers
after a month of vomiting
then
bleeding
a bucket full of bleeding
nearly died getting to the hospital
I lost my baby

Abused by a hospital doctor
another man I should’ve been able to trust
my husband’s ignorance/innocence in female medical stuff allowed it to happen
Nurses enveloped me
allowed me to cry
helped me understand what he did to me was wrong
a week later
re-admittance
a repeat proceedure
re-traumatisation

Finally home
Fucked up again
No you can’t grieve your baby
You gotta praise God
Cuz you gotta accept its all part of his plan
So no tears
No sadness
Let’s just praise God and carry on living
So Fucked Up

Baby No5
Perfectly normal pregnancy
Horrendous delivery
Hospital trauma
Stirrups
Huge needle in my spine during stage 2
Total evacuation of my uterus
Post birth – you need to get out of bed
Migraine to the max
Oops – another medical fuckup
More needles in my spine
“oh you have a wee boy after 3 girls. How lovely”
No fucking way do I want this kid!
I am in so much pain and you expect me to love this baby
10 days to finally hold and begin to love my boy
Such a Fuck Up

Baby No7
7 years later
My friends enveloped me
Finally I was allowed to grieve
But along the way
pieces of trauma
varying degrees of severity
adding up
relationships
family dramas
accidents
business issues
so many traumas
and falls, so many falls
culminating in years and years of body pain
But swept aside as just another thing to deal with
I kept busy, keeping busy
Running the farm
Doing all the bookwork
Raising & educating my 10 living children
Feeding the myriads that surrounded our family table each day
Encapsulating extreme busyness!
I was really, really good at keeping busy

Unknowingly
My stress bucket was filling
then one evening
one small thing was said
But it was magnificent & breathtaking in its delivery
and its magnificence overflowed my bucket
And I broke
An emotional breakdown that
completely unhinged me
Threw me off of my rotation
And spin me out of my carefully controlled busyness
It totally bewildered my husband
It completely blindsided me
But actually
I wasn’t shocked
I had been quietly screaming for help since I was a small child

That Fuck Up led me on my course of discovery and healing
And I am so fucking grateful I began then

Because the 2nd biggest Fuck Up of my life happened two years later

On the 17th February 2013
see! this time I remember all
everything
each detail of that day is marked with such clarity

My husband,
My Timmy
The man who had loved me since I was 14 years old
The man who saved me and cherished me
The man I loved so much
left for town
and he never came home
He was killed
Instantly
only 20mins from our home
when his vehicle left the road and rolled 200m down the hillside

The trauma from that moment
has overshadowed almost every other trauma in my life
I was so Fucked Up and Fucked Over by the police, victim support etc
The people that are supposed to be there for you
What a massive Fucked Up!
the spiral rippling effect this one event has had
on myself
my children
our extended family
is beyond belief
I cannot even write this without crying
I can talk about my abuse
I can get angry, feel sad, etc
But I can’t cry
But for this my heart cries
It is like a bottomless well of tears that will never stop
They are always there
No matter how happy my life is or how content I am in the moment
This trauma has fucked me up like no other

Leaving our home of over 40 years
Packing up after 4 generations
that was traumatic in itself
The splintering of our family
The inability of my children to process and support each other as they each reeled in their own pain
We have been so Fucked Up

Moving to the city
Creating new life and new friends
exciting but
So hard
I got a job
A dream job
Working with Sexual Abuse victims
I So Loved my job
Until I was Fucked Over once again
by the person who was supposed to support us and be there for us
Our Team Manager
After a particular horrendous call out
The worst any of us had ever experienced
Instead of support and care
I was Traumatised
Victimised
Stung big time by a scorpion
Put over a barrel – had to leave
Fucked Up Again

And in amongst my story
there are my children
My children all have their own stories
I have permission to tell some
but now is not that place
Their stories require their own spaces
Their stories are interwoven with mine
through it all
We have become stronger
Still Fucked Up
But So Much Fuckin Stronger

Since I have moved to town and begun working with vulnerable & abused women I have been introduced to the notion of self care.
In our training we were taught that self care is vitally important.
After so many years of putting myself and my needs second, or third – actually probably more than 12th in line this was sort of a new concept for me.

I have spent so many years being strong, the one that everyone depends on, the one that gets things done, the busy one.
I didn’t realise until about 5.5 years ago when my brain said enough and I had a major breakdown.
I had no idea what was happening to me until a friend asked me a question.
Do you think you might be depressed?
Seriously – me depressed!
I dont ‘do’ depressed!
I haven’t got time for that nonsense :-/
But, her question & concern stopped me in my tracks and I took the plunge and went to my Dr.
That in itself was a major exercise at the time.
Anyway, the upshot was, for the first time in my entire life I was able to tell someone about the extensive sexual and emotional abuse I endured for over 10 years of my childhood.
And from there I began my healing.
It has not been easy, it is never easy to open old and deep wounds and expose them.
In fact it is very scary.
I was, and am, a mother of many, and a wife, running businesses alongside my man.
Life was busy.
I had not realised that busyness is one of the ways that abuse victims ‘use’ to ‘forget’ what has happened to them.
Not that you ever ever forget!
Life didn’t get any easy with this disclosure, in fact it got a hell of a lot harder.
My journey of self discovery has been incredibly tumultuous.
I have discovered who my true friends are.
Part of my self preservation has been learning to close the door on those who can’t or won’t support me and to embrace those who can and do.

My therapist has been flabbergasted over the years as one historic trauma after another is disclosed as well as more stress and trauma that has occurred along the way since then.
She commented to me one day that my PTSD was incredibly complex.
I picture my traumas over the years as pieces of string, they have knotted together and through time have wound themselves into a very big ball of string.
Hence the name of this new blog 🙂
I am slowly unraveling and dealing with each piece, unknotting, unraveling, and using them to weave a new garment.
My new garment is going to be stunningly gorgeous and of course the predominant colour will be Orange 🙂

So back to self care.
For me this has not happened overnight.
It has been quite a journey.
Slowly slowly, baby steps, three steps forward and one back, sometimes it has felt like four back!!

My self care began with mending my mind.
Learning how to process what has happened, how it has affected me and the way I deal with situations and then to relearn new ways, more healthy ways of approaching similar situations.
This takes time and I am ever so grateful to have found a therapist who has worked with me gently over the past 5 years.

Physical rest has also been important.
I have pushed myself for so long, the subconscious need to keep busy to bury everything sort of busy.
When Tim was killed my body stopped.
I was literally unable to do anything but go through the motions.
I stopped cooking, reading, listening to music, art……
I literally shut down and spent most of my time hiding in my room watching brainless movies.

Then I ran away.
I took my two youngest and we ran away.
It really wasn’t a conscious decision.
It just happened, but it was a good happening.
We spent most part of a year on the move.
We had some amazing adventures and did some much needed bonding and healing.
It was a very precious time for us all.
It resulted in us moving to town and away from my most recent pain of losing our main man.

One of the first things I did was to apply for a partially voluntary job with SASH Nelson.
It was pretty daunting applying for the first job in nearly 40 years.
But the cool thing was that I was accepted to be a part of the Crisis Response Team.
Becoming part of the team has played a huge part in my healing journey.
My team mates are the most awesome girls, they have become members of my new Village.
It was through this job that I have learnt much more about the importance of self care.
Plus I am able to help support others because I have an empathy and understanding with them.
And helping them is helping me – win win 🙂

And now to now!
Where am I at now?
Well, I am kickin’ arse.
I am so incredibly proud of myself.
I still have down days, days where the tears rule, where I hit the floor in a sobbing heap.
But those days are less frequent.
I have days where I am incredibly lonely, but I am learning to reach out.
I am in a much stronger headspace.
And being in a stronger headspace has given me the ability to focus on my physical being.
Living in the central city on the flat has allowed me to gradually build up my fitness levels.
Due to a lot of injuries both historic and recent my body has been rather battered so walking has been good therapy.
I have restored my soul by wandering around the river and roads with the puppy, discovering new places and friends.
Recently I felt in the right place & ready, so have joined up with a local gym & pool.
It is 10 years since I did any serious gym work.
I have really enjoyed going down there first thing most mornings and getting a good cardio session going.
The trainers have put together a programme for me in the weights room, and after just a month I am feeling so damn good.
I am not focusing on weight loss, just getting my body toned and functioning again.
Yesterday I was very conscious that all my jeans were getting very loose and quite baggy – not really the look I like – so I popped in to see the girls at JeansWest and they helped me find some new jeans.
Unbelievable – I have gone from size 14 down to size 11.
I haven’t been that size in about 28 years!!
This morning, I am feeling really buzzed from my Vitamin G(ym) fix this morning.
In fact I am feeling frickin’ fantastic 🙂
This self care stuff is actually pretty damn good.

Category: SASH Nelson

My incomplete Fucked Up list

Self care