Once Upon a Long Ago (possible trigger warning?)
TW: mentions child abuse, SA, death
I have been hovering in the Our Stories forum for a couple of days now, hesitant to share my story for a number of reasons, but also acknowledging the purpose behind sharing. I've started my journey on the Guided Recovery Program and I really don't like talking about what I've been through, or what I'm going through, but I know that I am going to have to find a level of confidence and comfort if I'm going to work through some things and make the progress that I want to/hope to make. I've discussed sharing my story with @tyme and with @Till23 and they have been wonderfully supportive...
Moderators, I will try my best not to go into details, but if I transgress, please edit and attach warnings if need be. I'm overwhelmed with the whole...sharing thing and I haven't figured out how to attach those trigger warnings. It's also a lot, so I apologise in advance to those who sit and read it.
Any way...my brain compartmentalises it by separating my childhood experiences and my adult experiences...
I grew up in a volatile household. My Mum was prone to physically and verbally lashing out, my Dad who just tried to keep the peace by keeping my Mum level, would also snap from time to time. My brother grew up angry, and lost and all kinds of emotionally volatile. I was the opposite - I learnt to be quiet, to not draw attention to myself, to be a good student and to never set a foot wrong. I spend the majority of my childhood and teenage years hiding in my bedroom.
I remember my anxiety ramping up in my teenage years. This was when the night terrors began and I became afraid of the dark. I didn't feel safe. I would wake the whole house screaming, but the thing that unsettled me the most was that I would often wake standing beside my bed, or sitting up in my bed. I tried to speak to my Mum about what was happening - but it resulted in them being sick and tired of being woken up and their frustrations led to me getting in trouble. So, I stopped talking to them...I stopped trying to talk to anyone about what was going on.
I was highly anxious and I learnt how to hide it pretty early on in life. I'm not going to share some of the things that I've experienced growing up - some of it was horrible. I was the poster child for good behaviour, and was never an issue. I got straight A's at school, and was the kind of student who was devastated by B's. It was how I got positive attention in my family, and it was linked to my identity within my family. My brother was troubled and struggling, I was not.
I developed psoriasis in my childhood. My grandmother had it, so it was genetic. And so began the difficulties I experience with my body image. My anxiety fuelled my psoriasis and still does today.
I went on to study Law and History at University, but in my third year both my grandmother and grandfather passed away within a few months of each other. They were a huge part of my life growing up - practically raising my brother and I until we were old enough to go off to school. I sat by my Pop's side as he passed. My Nan passed from a heart attack not long after. If I'm honest, I really struggled. I withdrew even more... I left my room only to go to Uni, but I didn't really go to Uni. I went and sat in the computer lab all day, just to make it look like I was going. I didn't go to class. I started to SI and eventually they failed me out of Law for non-attendance. I didn't tell my family. I don't tell them anything.
I don't know how, I think failing out of Law triggered my need to not disappoint my parents and that encouraged me to pull myself together somewhat. Fear can be a powerful motivator. I went on to finish my History degree and then decided to enrol in a Post graduate degree in teaching. When I graduated, I went to work as a teacher and room leader in an Early Childhood Centre - I didn't have my licence and it was close to home. I worked there for 5 years until I started experiencing significant bullying from the staff and the leadership of the centre. I went to my doctor and told them what had been happening, showed her my records and she put my on two weeks stress leave. In the same appointment, I just happened to mention to her that I had a mole on my arm that was itchy. I was diagnosed with melanoma. I had surgery and got lucky and didn't have to have further treatment, but work refused to process the stress leave stating that they would fight me on it because I couldn't prove my stress was because of work and not due to my diagnosis. I quit. In doing so, I couldn't pay my rent and ended up homeless. I slept on my best friend's couch for close to 6 months. I didn't tell my family until after I'd gotten the all clear.
During this time, my Nan passed away suddenly and she was my sounding board, the person I talked to and went to for advice. She was my protector and my safe person. I basically stopped eating, and remember people being concerned because I wasn't eating and was fading away to a shadow. I'm not proud of it, but I pushed my family away. My friend took the hard line with me and pretty much got me back to a state of functioning human being.
Just as I secured myself my own little unit, a friend of ours was killed in a car accident. A car accident that we witnessed. I won't go into detail...he was twenty one, with a six week old baby and it broke me...
It also broke my friendship group. My friend, who was in the SES at the time, had support and access to mental health practitioners was diagnosed with PTSD as a result of what we had experienced that night. She withdrew completely and it felt very much like I had lost her as well. Two months after, my Uncle took his own life. I don't remember much from this time - I remember not being able to function, or even get myself dressed. I remember sitting on the lounge wrapped in my dressing gown day in, day out for two weeks. But I needed to pay rent, and needed to get back to work, so I did.
I was working, running my own personal training business out of a local gym, but I decided to try teaching - I had this degree sitting there, and a secure wage would improve my life. My life did improve after that. I ended up with a secure teaching job, and was living in a school house. But in 2022/2023 I hit a rough patch. I knew that my anxiety was a problem and was looking at holistic ways of managing it. My life coach and energetics healer had me do a childhood regression and it brought something to the surface - I had experienced child SA. I don't have all of my memories of it, but I know that it happened. This ramped everything up - it kick started the nightmares and night terrors, and I had massive and terrifying panic attacks almost every second day.
Dealing with this and with the pressures of teaching, I quickly burnt out. I couldn't see anything good and worth while in my life and had plans to take my own life. When I was presented with an alternative - move to Queensland and stay with a friend (who I had only met once in person and knew online), I took it. She knew nothing of my mental health challenges or experiences, just that I was experiencing burn out from work. I quit my job, sold my belongings, rehomed three out of four of my pets and drove myself across Australia to QLD.
In QLD I crashed again...it didn't solve my problems. The friendship was strained right from the word go and living with someone else who was experiencing anger issues and mental health difficulties set off my alarm bells. I withdrew to my bedroom and only came out for work. I spent most nights crying silently so that she couldn't hear me. I couldn't have friends because it triggered her insecurities and things became difficult at home. I eventually started fighting back to a certain degree - speaking up about how I was feeling and how her actions impacted upon me and it became nasty. I remember many times where I was afraid to go home after work. I felt so small and so broken. I tried to fix me - I did some NLP and some somatic work and started to go to sound healing and breath work sessions once a week. It got worse and I got worse.
On Christmas Day 2024, sitting on my bed in a mess of silent tears, I decided that I needed to go home. I put plans into action, I secured work and I drove myself and my dog back across Australia. We drove for three days, stopping only to sleep and eat. I arrived at midnight the day I was starting work. I moved in with my parents - which was something that I really didn't want to do, but had no other option. I lived with them for about 8 weeks before getting accepted for a rental of my own.
I've moved in and settled, and I am so glad to be home and to start to feel safe, but I am exceptionally tired. I can't explain, just how exhausted I am by it all. I have a good track record of surviving and of getting myself through, but I can't do it on my own any more. My anxiety is off the charts, and I can't regulate it. It's constant. And it takes so much energy to have to navigate a day of teaching, while in a state of anxiousness. The physical symptoms drive me insane - my psoriasis is itchy, sore and uncomfortable and now that I'm older, I've developed psoriatic arthritis. I suffer from headaches, stomach upsets and physical exhaustion. My mental health impacts upon my friendships - I still blame myself for not being able to "fix" me and make my last friendship work. I'm fighting the urge to withdraw and don't really have any friends left. I don't have my family's support in this and I am actually terrified of them finding out that I have mental health challenges and I'm afraid of hitting burn out again and going back to a place where I can't see a way out.
So, I am here...I'm in the Guided Recovery Program and I'm just trying to learn some strategies for getting through. I don't have a diagnosis because I've never reached out for help before and I've never been supported to reach out for help. For all outward appearances I'm a functional adult who is doing well in life. I'm considering diagnosis, reaching out for more help and maybe medication to help me find some kind of balance, but financially I don't know if that's an option for me.
I just want to find some peace in my life and to learn how to manage my mental health in ways that aren't self-destructive. I want to be able to enjoy the good things, without anxiety having an impact upon them. I wonder why I struggle so much to get myself, and to keep myself together, why the day to day is difficult, why I feel so much chaos inside of me that even the small emotions are big emotions, and the small set backs are big set backs when others seem to be handling life just fine...
Any way...yeah, that's me.
