I don't compare myself to others in terms of life achievements. Most of us are born; we grow up; we develop; we have ups; we have downs; we pair up and we buy things. I'm being flippant, of course, but in a very broad sense, that's where most of the people I spend time with are at.
My life got stuck at the downs. It really did. It went down and down and down. In the space of about a year when I was around twenty-three, my anxiety and depression saw me made an involuntary patient in a psych hospital where I was given ECT (electric shock treatment) that stole my memories from me. I struggled to eat and weighed 39kg. I would sit in a toilet cubicle and scratch at my flesh with a sharpened stick, because it was the only thing that could offer respite from the agony I felt in my mind. I was transferred to another hospital where I was raped by another patient. Some time after I was released, the man I loved took his life and I soon returned there for more time behind closed doors.
There were moments when I came from ECT out under the stark summer sky with no sense of myself. No name. No love. No life. No beauty. No safety. No warm arms or soft lips. No poetry whispered through red wine slurs.
I consider that my starting point. Zero. I was born from an utter devastation of the spirit. And in thirteen years I got to here. Now.
So I don't compare myself to others in terms of life achievements. It's all relative. When I was a single parent, I would mostly just laugh at other women's occasional awkwardness or insensitivity, but the patronising words that often accompanied it always managed to poke me between ribs and even now makes me want to ask, 'What were you doing at thirteen?'
I have just taken a little journey back through your blog. Sadness, shock, amazement. Amazement at where you are now. It's hard to explain the feelings that have transpired. I always seem to sit from afar, and am bewildered at the trauma and pain that people have travelled through. You are so amazing.
ReplyDeleteYou have always been such an inspiration to me. All you have been through, all you have become, and that you would share it all with ME, an anonymous weirdo from Qld ... I think you're great and I count it a real privilege to call you my friend.
ReplyDeletexoxoxoxoxoxoxo. i emailed you because i'm chickenshit. you are one brave woman.
ReplyDeleteThis is my first visit to your blog after your visit to mine from the rewind. What a difficult time you've had and I don't mean that with pity. Sometimes I complain about my lot but I've not come close to the difficulties you mention in your post. Even though my occasional trials seem like kiddy tantrums compared to the challenges you have faced, I suppose they are all real for us at the time we are in them. It is all relative, isn't it. And compassion rather than judgement is what we should offer more than we all do. You've obviously come such a long way in 13 years and sharing positivity and that hope is something to be greatly commended.
ReplyDeleteFrom "one" to "another": my mom had munchausen syndrome. She used me to get pity and attention. She would give me things to drink or "medicine" that would land me in the hospital fighting for my life from age 2 upward.
ReplyDeleteAt age 14 she tried to give me away to an old man who was too smart to risk it.
Considering myself unworthy, I married a man who agreed.
It wasn't until age 49 that I started from zero......again. But there comes a time when the sun does shine on every dog's behind at least once.
When I read your story, I have a temptation to see your experience through the filter of what I know and do (my habits). All I have to go on are movies like Frances (Farmer). In the end they become stories for me, less real. I haven't decided whether to judge myself harshly on habitual thinking pattern I have. I don't know what else to do.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you going to do with this history?
Michael - I don't know that I need or want to do anything with this history but own it and honour it and try to use it to find strength and compassion on the path forward. I think that's probably enough.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe my last post was about Christmas and here you are laying it all out. I think you're awesome, and it fills me up with sad to know these horrible things happened to such a caring, clever person. I think your idea of zero is a good one, it can only go up from here. xx
ReplyDeleteI am completely in awe of what you've come through, which I know isn't the reaction you're going for, but it's the one I've got. I love your thoughts on what you'll do with all that history - strength and compassion certainly seem to be two traits you own quite well, among other, equally positive ones.
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