I was feeling adrift on Good Friday. Wistfulnes came upon me and I was listless. Thinking of this world and the tragedies which occurred the past week…My mind was insisting that I curl up in bed and not move. I know enough about myself by now to defy this edict. I ended up doing the reverse. I took my daughter down to the river and went for a walk. I was joined by friends and as the kids played, we chatted. On my way back home, I met another mum, who was trailed by two little boys. Her face was cast in sadness, and she disclosed that she had only been at her in-laws for fifteen minutes and already they were irritated by her gorgeous sons. Rather than stay and become more and more upset by their cantankerous behaviour, she walked to the river. The boys burnt off energy and we had a lovely time, picking up sticks and errant treasures.
My daughter was overjoyed to find that the Easter Bunny had been Easter Sunday ! There was a trail leading to the backyard, a little girl with a basket, hot on the scent. We lit a candle at breakfast time, and stated what we were thankful for. Afterward, we went to church, and were greeted by many familiar faces. This place is about love, and about service. You can be real here, and the relief is palpable.
We messaged a friend, and found her to be depressed. She was alone in her unit, and I said that we were coming to see her. “when you are feeling despondent, you sometimes have to do the opposite of what your brain is telling you to do,” I insisted. I know from personal experience. If you feel like isolating yourself and staying in, you have to do the reverse. If you feel like drinking or binging, the same applies. Holidays are a cruel reminder of what you are missing out on, if you are alone. You see the myriad of families enjoying each other’s company on Facebook via status updates and photos. You can’t even watch TV without ads appearing, showing you how it is meant to be. Feelings of rejection, abandonment and fear emerge from the recesses of one’s mind. It is hard to escape.
I mentioned to our friend that we were going to Vaucluse House, so my daughter could take part in an Easter trail. To my delight, this friend wanted to come along. It takes guts to do the opposite of what your mind is demanding. We watched my daughter and her friend playing amongst the ancient trees, and had a Devonshire tea afterward. It was a perfect afternoon. Next time you feel like isolating, or are pressured to stay inside a home with people that make you feel unwelcome, do the reverse.
Firstly, I want to wish you a peaceful Easter. For me, it is a time of contemplation and restoration. I wrote the following for Siren Empire about the season, and what it means to me.
I took my daughter to the Royal Easter Show at Olympic Park yesterday. It was a glorious day; the sun was beaming down and we had to find shelter to coat ourselves in 50+ sunscreen. The Australian sun is unforgiving and you can burn quickly!
My daughter fell in love with these hermit crabs, which we simply had to adopt! The little shop ‘crab-sat’ them until we were ready to leave. They are amazing little critters, and can run fast when they want to!
These pictures capture the mastery of the cakes that were on display. Aren’t they stunning?
We had a tour of Sydney’s upcoming Metro Rail. It is spacious and well-designed, inspired by the system in Singapore. I can’t wait to go on adventures on it!
My daughter was entranced by the art on display.
We ate strawberries dipped in chocolate, talked to a myriad of fascinating people, and admired beautiful animals and fresh produce! The food on offer was too tempting, and I was as gleeful as a child when we reached the show bags! I now have enough toiletries, tea and snacks to last a year! Our Sydney Royal Easter Show has a proud history, and I love the feeling of connection you receive from being there. You meet people from all over Australia and the world. You can ask questions of authorities on anything from gardening to food security.
I love this city, and am proud to call it my home. It has at times, been a love/hate relationship. I lived in the city, though for the years I was a hermit, I didn’t engage readily with it. I was a hermit, in an(albeit colourful), shell, much like our hermit crabs. Sydney seemed cold and hard and unapproachable. Now it feels like home, and I feel like I have a place in it. At Easter, I tend to reflect on what has transpired; on the people whom I have loved and are no longer here. I think of survival, redemption and being rebuilt. I think of fresh starts and hope. I pray for peace. This Easter, may this peace descend on us all, and remain in place.
I can’t tell you how much the response meant to me after I posted Til it Happens to you. The support was incredible! I was too overcome to respond for a while. People have asked how I got through it all. I suffered status epilepticus at 13, meaning I had continual seizures which couldn’t be controlled. I stopped breathing and was in a coma. It took a long time to recover from this event (it was predicted I wouldn’t). The next year, I met a monster, and was abused. The finale was being thrown off a building at fifteen. My healing has taken over twenty years. There are some things that have helped.
1. I can’t handle violence of any kind. I can’t discuss literature, nor movies, let alone view them, if they are violent. At first, I didn’t want people to think I was fragile. I didn’t want them to see the distress that talking about violence (parcelled as entertainment to the masses), conjured. I would pretend that it wasn’t hurting me. Nowadays, I don’t pretend. I gracefully bow out of conversations and invitations which would bring me into this sphere.
2. I couldn’t leave the house by myself, even to go to the letterbox. It has taken many years and many small trips to gather the strength to go farther afield. I plan ahead, and the apps I have on my phone make my preparations easier. If you are agoraphobic, be kind to yourself. Every little step is a triumph. My major incentive was that I had to get to the IVF clinic early in the morning, and simply had to do it. It made me braver than I actually felt! Now I take my daughter everywhere, and the freedom is liberating!
3. I have had to confront my deepest fears. The ones I was frightened of encountering, as I would surely fall apart. My fears included rejection, loneliness, being left alone and finding out that people weren’t as they appeared. Confronting these fears has been terrifying, and it has hurt. I have uncovered that people I looked up to were abusive behind closed doors. I have been let down and let go, but I have survived. I learnt not to leave myself behind in the process. Comforting myself became of premium importance.
4. People see a smiling, functional adult when you are out and about. They don’t recollect the child kept alive in Intensive Care on a respirator. They came into my life during a different chapter. I know what it took to get to here. The hundreds of hours of physiotherapy, the scores of surgeries… I have to remind myself of my achievements and give myself a quiet pat on the back.
5. Boundaries are a big one for a survivor. I felt as vulnerable as a newborn when I started to make a life for myself. I believed anything anyone said, and believed everyone was a friend. It has taken trial and many errors to come up with boundaries, and to trust my judgement above all else. It was a revelation, to give myself the space to honour my instincts. If a person or situation doesn’t sit right, and makes me uncomfortable, I walk away. It is imperative to do so, as I have a little girl watching me. I need to display good boundaries so she knows that its okay to be in touch with her own. It has sometimes taken me being struck mute in the company of somebody who is toxic, for me to comprehend that my body is trying to protect me by producing physical symptoms. I am free, and thus I get to decide who stays in my life. It may not be anything that anyone is doing. Rather, they remind me of someone from the past. I still have to honour my discomfort.
6. Things will trigger me on a daily basis, and much of it is out of my control. It could be a song coming on in the supermarket, an aftershave I detect in passing. It might be a conversation, or visiting a friend in a hospital where I had prior surgery. Deep breaths are required, and sometimes a visit to the lady’s restroom to compose myself. I tell myself that my anxiety is a natural reaction, and I am doing fine. If I am with close friends, I will tell them that a memory has come up. If I am not, I will breath deeply, find a focal spot to concentrate on, and reassure myself quietly.
7. I will not drink to excess, nor take tablets to blot out a bad day. Sometimes, the memories hit hard, and along with the massive amount of pain I suffer, it becomes overwhelming. Alcohol is a depressant, and thus, is disastrous as an antidote. I will only have alcohol when in the company of friends at dinner, or as a toast of celebration. It only compounds the depression which inevitably comes after overworked adrenals have crashed. Instead, I go for a walk, swim or am otherwise active. It helps tremendously.
8. I will space out at times. When you hardly sleep, and are in pain, it happens naturally. When you put flashbacks or a panic attack into the mix, let’s say I am sometimes away with the fairies! Writing (and preparing for a writing task), also lends itself to spacing out. If you holler at me on the street and I don’t respond, that’s why! I am escaping into my inner world, which is expansive and magical. I nearly jump out of my skin when I am walking along and a car beeps me. I remain jittery for the rest of the day. I am hyper vigilant; always scanning a crowd for danger, even when in my own world. It’s quite a combination!
9. You are allowed to say “no” to a request. You are allowed to rest. I keep going until I can’t, and at that point, I retreat for a bit. I have to. It is a revelation, when you learn that you can keep free spaces in the calendar. Even thirty minutes to sip tea and daydream is heavenly. I need time alone to restore and reboot. Time is precious, and I try to use it wisely.
10. My survival has been an odyssey of epic proportions. I tried to run from the memories. I attempted to smother them, as one instinctively does a fire. The smoke streams from underneath the cloth, and then the flames explode forth in a cacophony of rage. It is like burning off disease, only to have damaging adhesions form underneath. Running doesn’t work, and it certainly doesn’t help. Over many years, I have visited my places of trauma. I have wept and I have released at each site. I only did so when I was ready. You have to be ready. My natural instinct is still to run when triggered, but now I have tools. They come in the form of a laptop, a paintbrush, a pastel. They come to me as bird song, my walking shoes, my friends and my music.
When I was a child, I had big dreams. I had a determined spirit and an acute awareness that what was being done to me was not only wrong, but evil. I felt as though a cannon had ripped through my psyche, smattering me into pieces. Over time, I have laid out all the pieces, and put them into place. I am glued, sewn, fused and grafted together. I was once a china doll. Now I am reinforced and can never be broken again. It takes time to heal. You will want to give up. You will consider yourself beyond repair. You will want to run and you will try to escape your own mind. You will want to give up. Please don’t. The joy of finally accessing the tools to help you cope are worth the fight.
I  had my hair done yesterday by a professional. I can’t tell you how decadent it felt to have someone wash and style it. I had previously painted my hair in turquoise and aqua tones with fudge, and cut it myself, much to the amusement of the real hairdresser. She was a beautiful young woman, and confessed that she wants to write. I hope I convinced her that she could; that she had many untold stories begging to be shared. She watched my daughter dancing to the music over the salon’s speakers, and quietly wondered what her children would be like. “It is a delicious surprise,” I smiled. “They will bring more joy than you ever anticipated.” After my hair was done, I bid this angel farewell. I had Lady GaGa’s song, Til it Happens to you in my head. I had watched in awe as she performed this extraordinary song at The Oscars. For over twenty years, I have tried to articulate my experience, and damn, this song said it all. I was rendered speechless after hearing it.
I boarded the bus home, and a news bulletin came on the radio. Cardinal Pell had been speaking in Rome, and essentially proclaimed that children weren’t believed back in ‘those days.’ He wasn’t even sure that he knew it was a crime. He took no responsibility. A lady seated near me called out to the bus driver that she was infuriated by his response. The driver grimly nodded and I stroked my little girl’s hair, silent. I wondered how many on that bus had been abused as children.
13 years of age
I recall the dread I felt when I needed to go to the toilet after being repeatedly raped. I would cry and shriek in pain, my kidneys infected and my ureter bleeding. Still, nobody helped. Everybody knew and the good people that were trying to make it stop, were syphoned far away from me. I was urged to drink more water. Day after day after day of being abused. Death seemed a more attractive option than living at the time.
I was in the clinic with a decorated photographer. She shot for Vogue amongst other publications, and her mother had a title, by order of the Queen. She handed me a beautiful green journal, and urged me to write. “Song lyrics, words and sources of inspiration,” she advised. “One day you will open it, and see how far you have come.”
Oh yes, I have come a long way. I don’t quite know how I pulled it off. I was pounced on like I was game and he was the hunter. When I was bloodied and damaged, I was discarded. There will be one indelible image seared into my mind when I recall the Royal Commission of 2015-2016. It will be a spouse’s retort to a columnist who had defended Pell. This is Clare Linane’s eloquent response.
It is always there, waiting to be triggered. I tiptoe through life, roaming the vast, wild coastline, visiting Sydney’s Islands and watching theatre. Perennially searching for beauty. It helps. Everyone who has been alone with the horror of abuse as a child can take comfort at the outrage today. They are being held accountable. At last! At last! It doesn’t take away the pain and anger stemming from the years of silence. I hope that in your search for peace, you stumble upon things of beauty too. We shall never be silenced again.
I attended a fundraiser for Beyond Blue last week. Two women spoke, both with differing pathways into depression. The first speaker had been an ambitious executive, which had seen her reach the top echelon of her company. It meant constant travel, 18 hour days and a huge amount of stress. She had jetted interstate a few weeks after having her baby by caesarean and that was but one instance of her punishing schedule. She knew it was time to revaluate her life when she began to weep in her car on the way to work; when, late at night, she thought of ending her life. She is now uncovering who she is and reconnecting with those she loves. So many people in the audience related to her experience.
The second speaker is a dear friend of mine. She was gravely ill, and in hospital constantly as a young mum. Isolated from her peers, and desperate to get better, she fell into depression. I think we all would have, given her experience. She gathered the right team around her to assist her recovery, and through sheer grit, she climbed out of the darkness. The thought of leaving her family was too much to bear. She had something to hold on for.
The talk reaffirmed that depression can strike in a myriad of ways. It can be caused by unbearable pressure or illness, grief and loss. We can have a life which seems marvellous, and still be depressed. We need to look out for each other, and provide a sprinkling of hope. Whether that be pulling up a friend by asking what the hell they are doing, running around like a whirlwind. What are they attempting to escape? It could be checking in with loved ones to enquire how they are doing.
We are as malleable as clay, and as fragile as the glass on our phones and other gadgets. We are strong beyond measure, like intricate iron lacework on old terraces. We are complicated. Depression doesn’t need to have a reason. It just is. A horrible blight on an otherwise healthy rose. I wish I had the answers. I guess we can help ourselves by regularly checking in with our lives, and banishing (as much as we can), that which causes stress and angst. We can check in with our friends, even if only to send a message of love and appreciation. We need to know we aren’t alone.
A few years ago, I called in on a mental health nurse that I knew. I had long admired his work, and his holistic approach to his clients. He even had a gymnasium installed in the rooms, and kept a watchful eye on people’s diets. “Right, that does it. I am not able to cope without medication. My depression is getting worse, despite my best efforts!” I proclaimed. “Can you please prescribe me something?” He did something unexpected in turn. He laughed. “Are you kidding me?! You have had X, Y and Z happen in the past few months, and these events have pummelled you. I would be concerned if you were behaving as though everything was as it should be. You don’t need medicating; it wont help you. You have reactive depression, caused by the events unfolding about you. The feelings you are experiencing are normal and a sign that things need to change. Your depression is normal, as are you. You are coping tremendously well.” It was on this day that I discovered the difference between reactive depression and endogenous depression (no obvious cause). I have had both alternately throughout my life, and there is a marked difference between what responds to medication and what doesn’t (when someone points it out to you)!
I was hoping a pill would make the discomfort disappear. Instead, I was urged to sit with it, journal it, and hear what it had to say. It has been dark, windy and rainy the past week; a perfect time for reflection. Here is a screen shot I took of my constantly humming phone this morning.
40 text messages and 1,056 emails. Sometimes, there are many more of both, not to mention Facebook messages. Last year, I endeavoured to answer them all. My schedule was to get up at dawn, answer messages, and write content, for myself and others. By 8am I would organize my daughter for the day and ferry her to workshops. If we were at home, I would work with my daughter for six hours, then get her to classes in the afternoon. In the meantime, there would be more work for me. On top of this, there were social activities. There was the forever buzzing phone too. At Christmas, I stopped going onto Facebook. I found I just couldn’t cope. I felt like Mickey in Fantasia, when he conjures up the buckets, only to have them flood the room. That is very much how I have felt with all the messages. During December, I heard the most horrific stories of abuse and of deep sadness. I carried it on my shoulders, and the weight slipped down and smashed the already broken column of my spine. There was little lightness, and much darkness. My child needed me, and so I had to stop. I am forever grateful to this little girl for what she teaches me. My energy has been replenished by our walks and games. You can be in the same room to those who mean the world to you, and yet still be a world apart when distracted.
As with a few years ago, I don’t need medication for this particular brand of disquiet. I just need to organize a more manageable way of being. To put my contact list into categories, and un-subscribe from everything that chews up precious time. There have been days when I haven’t had time to eat, nor do what is necessary to maintain my health. Trying to be everything for everyone and feeling like I am failing. Putting myself last on the list of priorities. I have had time this week to put together a plan of action for this spine. I am going to undertake the discogram and chemonucleosis that was offered me years ago. I had it once before, and it provided relief for quite some time. If successful, it will do the same and bide me time. This decision feels right, and so now I start saving for it!
I know many of you can identify with the overwhelm. If I hear my phone ringing, I have an anxiety attack. I am slowly making my way out of my cocoon, but never want to go back to the unsustainable, 24/7 demands I made of myself. How terrifying and liberating it is, to finally have time. Returning to the world whole, rather than chipped and hollow, is what I desire.
The past five years, in particular, have seen me running around, unable to pause. It were as though there was a big scary monster pursuing me. I became embroiled in the world of demanding schedules, with cross-cultural references, faces and world news seared into my mind. If I stopped, I would have to acknowledge grief. I would have to feel physical pain. Hell, I may even cry and fall apart. I was on a trajectory of keeping my name out there, producing work and being connected. It helped that I desired to escape the house as much as possible. Armed with a little bag of snacks and my Opal card, I ran. I move to a beautiful and peaceful home and what happens? Every memory is vying for attention. Within the peace has come a storm.
I had to laugh the other night. My daughter was cuddled up next to me, and I woke with the most excruciating lower back pain at 1am. I fumbled in my bedside drawer and found my TENS machine. Drowsily attaching the pads, I turned it on. I gave myself quite the electric shock, as I had unwittingly put it onto top speed! I lay there in agony, laughing whilst trying not to disturb my daughter. I read a book the other day, and it described in great detail, the ward at the Children’s Hospital where I had spent many weeks at thirteen. It talked of the ICU. The moments I was actually asleep, were spent dreaming of these places. The smells, sights and sounds were alive.
I have just wanted to sit and cry. Chronic pain is merciless and cruel. Trying to manage life takes everything I have. I will book in for scans to see where I am up to. My main goal is to keep walking. If that is threatened, I will have surgery. At the moment, I am preparing meals, meditating, setting up a new computer and preparing to write a new book, detailing some of Sydney’s secrets. I am exhausted and excited at the same time. I know I have a degree of depression, but its hard to tell what is caused solely by not sleeping and being in pain. It is confusing, to be able to laugh whilst feeling crummy. To have anxiety when the phone rings and yet be able to do other scary things. Damn, we are complex beings!
I sit and grieve for those whom I lost. Grief doesn’t happen on cue, rather it comes upon us like a wave crashing in. Physical pain is the same. Sometimes it can be held back so as to be tolerable, whilst other times, it cant. Just as I have times where I can sleep for 12 hours through exhaustion, so I have times when I sit and cry. There is nothing to be done, but feel it and allow it. I look out at this rainy day and see the torrent. I also see how it is nourishing the many rose buds in my garden. This week, I am not going anywhere. I am staying home, putting on my brace as though it were a seatbelt and preparing myself. Songs are coming into my mind, alongside memories. Its okay. I am going to be okay.
Alongside the full calendar and buzzing phone is a woman desperate for rest. I just can’t do things at the moment. I need to process what I am thinking and feeling. How often do we actually do that? Allow ourselves time to determine what it is ours and what belongs to other people? When I am done, I shall return to society with a full cup, rather than a cracked glass, leaking fluid, rather like my spinal discs. Dancer, the budgie, has had moments of jealousy since we got Noel the cockatiel. If Noel dares to toddle near her, she has a tendency to let off a string of budgie expletives and try to pull her tail. I have just had to assure Dancer that she is valuable and just as loved. If I go into retreat, I hope I am just as loved as during the times when I am flitting from event to event. There is nothing that anyone can help me with. I just need rest, to come up from the tidal wave of 2015. To scan this spine and cleanse my heart and mind.
Rain doesn’t last forever, but its effects are felt deep in the soil. I am coming out of a haze even I cant fully comprehend. I think that is what keeps us silent about these times. We find it hard to articulate what is going on within us. After having a baby, we were once kept in hospital for quite a while. Sundays were a day of rest. School holidays were spent in unscheduled splendour. Maybe it’s time to just be and let the days unfurl again.
I have an extraordinary daughter and she and I share an extraordinary bond. It hasn’t been an easy road, for either of us. It is a dreadful dichotomy, to want a child so desperately, and yet struggle when she arrives. I filled in the requisite questionare when I was pregnant and the alarm bells rang when the matron in the maternity ward saw it. Not only had I had major trauma in my life, but also a damaged body and little help. I couldn’t drive a car and was in a wheelchair in the later part of pregnancy. I felt more alarmed by my score because the matron was filled with histrionics. “How will you cope when you shall be mostly alone when she arrives? What will you do?” she trilled. Crap! How shall I cope and what shall I do? I began to ruminate on these frightening themes. It didn’t help that I had no experience with babies. I could barely recall being a child myself! More people doubted my abilities than believed in them.
I did IVF to have her, and that was an Odyssey in itself. I never thought beyond getting to the epu and then the dreaded tww. That was all my brain had space for. I felt so little, and vulnerable. I had to buy my pyjamas and dressing gown from the kidswear section as despite my enormous belly, I was petite and short. Very short. After my maternity visitation, I booked in for counselling after having been told that I was a prime candidate for perinatal and then postnatal depression. You know what was uncovered during these sessions? I had prepared myself for the pain that would unfurl on my damaged spine and kidneys… I had prepared myself for most matters. What I did have an issue with was boundaries. I had allowed people to run rampant in my life. I felt so fragile after IVF, and vulnerable now. I almost had her at 19 weeks, and it created major anxiety, even after the rupture sealed and labor stopped. I left hospital after several weeks, on high alert. As a result, my life and pregnancy became a free-for-all. All I wanted was peace and silence and I was getting little of either.
When my rambunctious daughter arrived, I didn’t tell anyone save her godparents. I needed time with her alone. Oh yes, noses were out of joint, but at that stage, I was past caring. I didn’t want throngs of people touching her. I needed to get to know her! When the staff took her down the hall for her routine tests, she would roar until she was wheeled back in and then not a peep was heard. She always was a little firebrand who not only knew her own mind, but spoke it.
At home by myself, it was tough. I could barely walk for months, and she had colic. She rarely slept and only stopped crying when in my arms. I was exhausted though enthralled. I tried every available product on the market to ease her suffering. Whenever the colic pain eased, I would search her face in desperation. I wanted her so much; did she not know? The other young mothers I knew all had routines set down for their newborn and they slept. I fell into postnatal depression, and sought appropriate help once again. It made all the difference. I stopped ruminating on my fears of being enough for this wondrous child.  By six months, she was a gurgling, happy little munchkin. I was making myself a coffee after settling her to sleep in her crib at the end of my bed. I heard a giggle, and turned around to see my 8 month old grinning at the door of the kitchen. I dropped my cup in fright. She had managed to climb out of her crib, landing on my bed, and then walked to the kitchen. Even as an embryo, she was in a hurry, doing what a 7 day old embie might within 48 hours. I came to know her personality, and she mine.
She hated being in her pram and I found out that she was extremely flexible in rather a stressful manner. I was walking up the hill to a nature reserve, where my car was parked. I heard a strange clunk coming from underneath her pram though persisted with my voyage. To my horror, I found the wheels of the pram had run over my daughter! She had gotten free of the restraints and stood up in the pram! I ran to retrieve her and she was laughing, delighting in the game!
Then there was the memorable time in a play centre. We were attending a playgroup Christmas Party. Only one harangued girl was on the counter and the place was bedlam. I heard my toddler call out, “hi mummy!” To my horror, she had climbed through the third level’s netting and lifted herself through a large hole in the roof. She was now standing on the flimsy net with nothing around her on the outside. Hurridly I crawled through the levels, and retrieved her by her feet. She thought it was terrific.
At four, I thought I had struck gold. I had discovered a meditation cd for children which carried her into the land of nod. Delighted, I put it on every evening. I pressed ‘play’ one night, and got the fright of my life. She had changed the meditation cd for rock music, and put it at full volume. She hid the calming cd and I haven’t seen it since.
I reflect on the tumultuous early days and am sad that I was so filled with fear. Heck, half of it wasn’t even mine! The colic ended, and whilst she was still a very wakeful baby, I let go of any notion that I could control it, and went with the flow. I slept when she did. If I had my time over, I would expunge any anxiety that I was too damaged to do the job of child-rearing properly. I would accept more help. I would try harder to stand out rather than fit in with what everyone else was doing. My daredevil insisted that I chill out, and I grew to understand her capabilities when it came to climbing and general mayhem. She has never fallen, and whilst I have anything to do with it, she never will.
Josh has postedtwo courageous stories over at his blog. Stories I wish he hadn’t had to endure…
Supporting a friend through AA as a teenager, I met many women, young and middle-aged, who found themselves in the grip of alcoholism. The beginnings of this cruel disease were pretty pedestrian. A bottle of spirits shared at a party with mixers, wine shared with friends at dinner, sipping a glass of alcohol whilst studying late at night. It’s not like you need it, right? Only if it’s there. Hard times hit, and the anxiety chews away at your mind. Adrenaline racing and unable to sit still, you reach for alcohol. Perfect, huh? It is a depressant, thus ideal to soothe a raging mind. Ah, that’s better! You remember how you relaxed the previous night, and instinctively reach for another bottle. Able to function during the day, you look forward to your nightly elixir. Trouble is, it is hard to gauge the damage being done internally, and the horrific rebound affect the alcohol shall have on your mind. Depression and anxiety heightened, you need more. You have heard the recommendations of having several alcohol-free evenings each week, and also the advice to never have more than two standard glasses… As the ice melts in your glass, you quickly refill. Automatically, in response to a nagging thought that if one glass felt good, another will feel better. Here is Part 1 of Hannah’s Story.  With a heavy heart, I bring you Part 2. It has given me pause for thought and made me question why so many social events revolve around alcohol, why we instinctively reach for it after a hard day. Hannah’s story could be so many of ours, in particular women. We are good at concealing our struggles, to our own detriment. I commend Josh on his bravery and also his generosity in sharing the above.
The Development Effect is a new business, set up by two remarkable women. Their modus operandi is to inspire, give back to their community and empower women and girls. I was privileged to be asked to talk at their inaugural event a while back. I sat alongside Michelle Cashman, an extraordinary singer/songwriter. Michelle has been there. You know, ‘there,’ that horrid place of loneliness, depression, anxiety and chaos not of her making. Not only does she write songs which reach deep into your soul, she creates podcasts to uplift others who have been through the fire. Her blog can be found here. To listen to some of her incredible songs, follow this link. When you are going through the fire- the heat searing your flesh- you tend to wonder what the point of it is. Often, there isn’t a point. When your flesh has cooled and you are alone with your wounds, it can give you leave to demand that your pain mean something. To be able to write, sing and talk about the fire gives it such a meaning. You will inspire others, and they in turn will inspire. Perhaps the fire itself is a pointless and cruel pit of flames. Perhaps that doesn’t matter. What comes after, that is what is important.
I mentioned to our friend that we were going to Vaucluse House, so my daughter could take part in an Easter trail. To my delight, this friend wanted to come along. It takes guts to do the opposite of what your mind is demanding. We watched my daughter and her friend playing amongst the ancient trees, and had a Devonshire tea afterward. It was a perfect afternoon. Next time you feel like isolating, or are pressured to stay inside a home with people that make you feel unwelcome, do the reverse. 
RAPHAELA ANGELOU 