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Terrace houses, Paddington, Sydney
Book Launch
After an absence of 17 years from the place where I was born, grew up and started my working life, the launch of:
"Agnes: a childhood betrayed and a childhood reclaimed." was a rewarding and joyous event.
‘Crippling’: Woman’s past horror uncovered 64 years later
Read the original article here
It took 64 years for this Aussie woman to uncover the awful mystery of what really happened to her, and it was a moment that changed everything.
I have survived most of my life by forgetting.
They call it “disassociation”. My unconscious mind absorbed the childhood trauma I suffered to protect my existence and my sanity … for 64 long years.
As a child, being abused mentally and sexually meant there was no time or space to evaluate which memories might be useful or beneficial to me in the long run. Any threatening memories were simply banished beyond my reach. Repressed as quickly as you might pull your finger away from a flame.
I was in my teens when I lost the ability to pay attention in class. I couldn’t read, stuttering and stumbling over words. I knew something wasn’t right but couldn’t put my finger on it – I just knew that I was permanently rocked with fear and gripped with crippling anxiety.
I did anything I could to avoid being exposed – developing tricks to avoid reading in class; playing the class clown to distract from what I saw as my glaring inabilities.
I was 17 years old when I woke up in a boarding house for the elderly in Coogee with no money and no idea how I got there. I was 19 when I was raped and fell pregnant, living in a home for unwed mothers run by the Saint Joseph nuns in Croydon. For the wellbeing of my baby girl, I decided to offer her up for adoption.
I went through life afraid of everything; the gaps in my memories became huge, gaping holes. Any effort at recalling the past left me crippled with self-doubt.
After two failed marriages, I found myself living in Mallorca, Spain. I was 64 years old and still very much marooned in the dark.
I decided that once I was financially secure again and resettled in a peaceful space that I would finally take time out to contemplate what had gone so badly wrong in my life.
While others, I knew, were enjoying a happy retirement, here I was, back to square one.
It was then I finally discovered the merits of therapy. Until then, my constant state of fear had meant that by not asking questions, I kept myself safe from threatening answers.
I went on to try a series of healing techniques, from unfamiliar hands on massage tables, knocking at my head and neck and chanting in incense-soaked rooms.
I came to know the worth of a good professional Freudian psychiatrist by getting involved with an English psychologist, who made such an accurate diagnosis I ended up supporting her.