New Directions

I want to travel as far as I can go.

I want to reach the joy that’s in my soul.

And change the limitations that I know.

And feel my mind and spirit grow;

I want to live, exist, “to be”.

And hear the truth inside of me 

(author unknown)

Everyone has a story to tell …. Here is the reason why I am compelled to write mine

On a late and cool September night in 1993, my twelve year old son and my daughter, eighteen months older, held my hands as we walked out of my third significant partner's life. As we approached a neighbour's house further down the road, the children, wearing only summer pyjamas pleaded with me to wake the owners so that I could use their phone. I was reluctant to do so. Not only because I had never met them and was only wearing scanty briefs and singlet top, but as I had lost so much of my self-esteem, self-respect and confidence, I felt too ashamed. I made a feeble attempt at knocking and when there wasn't any response, I didn't try again. 

      As the children huddled into me for warmth, on our unsuspecting neighbour's steps, I felt utter despair at the fear they had only minutes before been subjected to. When I told them we were never going back, they quickly reminded me that they had heard it all before. I promised them from the bottom of my heart, that this time it was definitely over.

     When I thought it was safe to leave, we walked barefooted for almost two kilometers, along a country road to a phone box. I didn't have any money on me and after explaining my plight to the operator, she connected me to a close friend, who immediately came to our rescue, saving me further humiliation of having to call the police.

       By the time we reached the comfort of my friend's home it was almost 1.00 am. Within minutes the children were sound asleep. But for me, sleep wouldn't come. I considered myself a good mother, yet had failed miserably in protecting them from the hatred and anger of a man, who I mistakenly believed would bring joy and laughter into their lives. And, as I lay there on my friend's lounge, I cried for my for my two innocent children, who should never have been exposed to such ugliness.. Not until I began to heal, and realized how much of myself I had lost since this troubled man entered my life, did I cry for the woman I had become.  

Not long after leaving my third partner, I read a little pocket card with the verse ‘Broken Dreams'. It  was only then I understood why my prayers were never answered; not as a child with an alcoholic father, nor when my life was in turmoil in my three long term relationships. A floodgate of tears pours fourth as I cried from the depths of my soul, in a way I had never done before. From that moment on, I put my trust in the power of prayer and the wisdom to guide me towards healing. That little verse remained a permanent fixture in my wallet, and a constant reminder for me to ‘To trust in the Universal God/Energy Force connecting us all'. It is written below; author unknown.

                                              Broken Dreams

As children bring their broken toys with tears for us to mend

I brought my broken dreams to God because he was my friend

But then instead of leaving him in peace to work alone

I hung around and tried to help with ways that were my own

At last I snatched them back and cried ‘How could you be so slow?'

      ‘My child' he said ‘what could I do, you never did let go'

.

 As with most women in abusive relationships, I carried with me a damaged self image from my childhood. Although I was aware that my perception of self and how I related to the world had a lot to do with being raised in a dysfunctional family, it wasn't until after I left my third partner and began to delve much deeper,  I understood why there was so much pain in my three long term relationships.

As far back as I can remember, my siblings and I were witness to our mother's paranoia, disapproval and anxiety over our father's drinking. Her rigid religious upbringing viewed alcohol as a sin, so who could blame her for her angst.  My father would have done better to marry someone more tolerant of him having the occasional drink and with the same aspirations, and my mother, with all her wonderful virtues and limited horizons could have saved herself much pain, if she had  married a man who appreciated and shared her beliefs. They had no understanding of the other, and with their limited knowledge couldn't have acted out their roles any differently.  In time, the drinking escalated, as did the intensity of the verbal onslaughts and emotional abuse, all of which my siblings and I were privy to.

 To escape from the pain and shame, I left home the week I turned sixteen. My rescuing days had begun several years earlier and, although I felt guilty for leaving a sinking ship, to have stayed would have been soul destroying. In the ensuing years, I travelled extensively, had many wonderful life experiences and made loads of interesting friends. Suffice to say, I had no way of knowing, that regardless of how many miles I distanced myself from what I wanted to forget, the pain and shame, unless resolved would remain embedded deep within me at a cellular level.

I vowed never to marry anyone who drank in excess, yet my first partner's overindulgence found him on the wrong side of the law, long before I even knew him. My second partner, the father of my children was an alcoholic. My third partner was a social drinker who seldom drank in excess, yet his problems went even deeper.  In all three relationships, I believed myself to be the one who could heal their pain and transform them with the power of love. However, by doing so, I lost my power and myself in the process. Not until years later, would I realize I had attracted each man into my life, to move me into the next phase of my personal evolution,

    I had kept my first partner on the straight and narrow and, when the children's father went on drinking binges I had picked up the pieces. My third partner, I tried to rescue from his demons. I have since learnt that irresponsible and unstable men do not get rescued; they continually fail and often end up hating the person rescuing them, for making them feel even weaker

 With a lifetime of conditioning to overcome, I could have been labeled ‘Co-dependent' ‘Rescuer' or ‘Addicted to dysfunctional relationships'. I certainly filled the bill for each one. Yet, I never saw myself as a ‘battered wife'. Battered women were those who were continually beaten black and blue, or ended up in hospital with broken bones, none of which applied to me.

The current definition of abuse in the mental health profession covers both psychological and physical violence and is defined as any behaviour designed to control and subjugate another human being, through the use of fear, humiliation and verbal or physical assault. In other words, you don't have to be hit to be abused. In physical battering the weapons are fists; in psychological battering, the weapons are words.

It wasn't until I participated in a play reading about a battered wife, months after I left my third partner, where the objective for the group of women attending was to discuss and form an opinion on the play being considered for a stage production, I realized that I too had been ‘battered'. In the ensuing debate, none of the women understood why some women stay in abusive relationships. Because of the shame associated with it and my own lack of self esteem at the time, I wasn't prepared to divulge my own personal experience to them. I did however voice my opinion in the battered woman's defense. Sadly, they all chose to remain self opinionated and judgmental. Human nature being what it is, people are often too quick to judge another without first walking in his or her shoes.

         And even though I would  never stay in a relationship if my children were being physically or sexually abused, I now have a better understanding, as to why a lot of women do.     

In order to heal myself, I sent loving thoughts to all those who hurt me. No longer on an emotional seesaw, constantly bouncing between my third partner's loving behaviour and outbursts of rage, I felt and looked much better. As the wounds from my past began to heal, and I began to share with other women the healing work I was doing on myself, I was  frequently told how it had helped them to see something within them needing to be resolved.
           I questioned if everything in my life happened for a reason, and if it was my purpose to share with others my journey. In spite of not having written anything other than letters since leaving school, a few weeks after turning fourteen, the seed was planted to write a book.

Several years passed. Everything in my life appeared to be on an even keel, yet the book remained a thought in my head. I had no idea how to go about it ,or where to start, and so I kept putting it off.            

Aware of the damaging affects my father's alcoholism had on me, and much closer to home with their own father, I was confident, that even if my children experimented with drugs at some stage, they would take it or leave it; the same as they would with alcohol. After all, they had been  brought up to treat their bodies with respect, and, hadn't  everyone always told how lucky I was to have two very happy and well balanced children, and later on teenagers!  My daughter was also on the student anti-drug council in her final year at high school, and as far as she was concerned, anyone on drugs was a loser. So it goes without saying, how devastated I was, when a few weeks short of her twentieth birthday, I learnt of her drug addiction.

          As I watched my beautiful daughter in the depths of despair, struggling with addiction and powerless to do anything about it, I could no longer put off writing my book. I needed to share with her and my son, my life experiences, both negative and positive , and my gained knowledge from those experiences.  By doing so, I hoped they would transcend beyond their ingrained conditioning, and that the cycle of abuse and addiction would be broken.

My credentials for writing such a book are my own personal experiences and my healing journey.  When I first began to write, it was for my children and for the multitude of other wounded women. I say women, because of my own personal experience as a woman. I'm certainly not excluding men; they too have been wounded.  Invariably though, women have been the healers and nurturers and therefore in the majority, when it comes to reading self help books and looking within themselves. Even so, I believe that if we learn to change how we feel about ourselves and love who we truly are, then everyone we come in contact with, be they male or female will also benefit.

When I did a search on the internet for books on abusive relationships, Amazon alone had almost 24,000 books on the subject. Most were self help books written by psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers. The dozen or so biographies about women who had been abused were usually well known personalities. Several books were about women who had either killed their partners or vice versa.  
       When I spoke to someone at ‘Sister's Inside' an organization in Brisbane which helps women who have been incarcerated, I was told that 98 percent of women in jail have at some point in time experienced violent abuse and that 89 percent had been sexually abused.

     I believe the ultimate solution is for more women to share their stories of abuse and recovery with others, and that is why I am compelled to tell mine.  

Namaste

Thea