Wendy Andrews from Queensland, Australia #emerges proud to tell us how it took somatic release therapy for her mind to catch up with the wisdom of her body, years after a traumatic experience. Wendy’s experience is not uncommon, although not yet widely recognised. It’s through sharing our stories such as Wendy does here, that we can raise awareness and give hope to those who may still be stuck in suffering…

Wendy says;

I want to write about what was, for me, a very powerful healing session, and its follow up session, recently. I’ve been clearing away the detritus of my past for almost thirty years, using mainly, emotional release work in listening partnerships. The labels I’ve used to find information and research are Complex PTSD, panic disorder, and agoraphobia. I experienced childhood sexual assaults and started having what were treated as ‘epileptic seizures’ in my late teens, but which turned out to be a body response to trauma overload.

“My intention was to increase the sense of capacity for stress in my nervous system, to grow the ‘window of tolerance’, as it’s referred to, using Somatic Experiencing, with Raquel DuBois. I’d had two sessions with her in person, and then switched to Skype.

“I started by noticing what was going well, for instance, I talked about the chaotic things that had happened in my home over the previous few days and how I wasn’t reaching overwhelm as quickly as I would have in the past. It took a few days to reach that point, rather than a few minutes.”

“A memory had come to my mind a few times and I mentioned it, because, as unrelated to anything as it seemed, over the years, I’ve learned to trust what ‘pops up’. I’d gone in to have my wisdom teeth removed, somewhere around the age of 18. I had a general anaesthetic in a small surgery one Saturday morning. I’d only briefly met the dentist once before. The way I remember being told afterward, I’d had to be given extra paralysing grains by the anaesthetist as it wasn’t working properly but eventually I went under (I do remember excruciating pain in my thumbs as I counted down).”

“The next thing I knew, I was being brought around. Apparently, my nails had turned blue and the operation had to be aborted, even though they had all the tubes down my throat, and were about to take out the teeth. Because of the extra paralysing grains, I was in intense pain for days, as though every single muscle had been overworked and I could only sip drinks and soup as my throat was so sore. Luckily, my Mum looked after me. She was always kind when we were sick….though neither she nor my father enquired further into what had actually happened.”

“Raquel had me notice what I was feeling in my body. My mind was telling me I was ‘wasting my session’ with this random story but she suggested staying with it a little longer. I started to have a very strange but familiar feeling creep around the back of my skull.”

“It wasn’t the ‘whooshing’ out the back of disassociation but rather, kind of like a blankety helmet enveloping my head and pain in the base of the skull. It was becoming very hard to form words and I felt I was looking at Raquel through very hooded eyes. ”

“I was reminded of other things going on around the time of this dental surgery experience. I was on epilepsy drugs and spent many days in my teacher training lecture theatre, with its low banks of fluorescent lights, fighting off these similar feelings, seeing a white ‘aura’ appear around the lecturer, and now it was there, around Raquel. ”

“I felt my body start to ‘give in’ to the ‘seizure’, felt my jaw start to tense, and my forearms…..so we dialled it back a bit….and I was amazed that I was able to…..still be there with it but not going to that old familiar place of fighting off the clenching and then giving in to it and eventually ‘passing out’ (I could always hear though, as far as I could tell, so used to think I was ‘doing it for attention’ somehow).”

“Raquel, at one point, had me count backwards from ten, the way I did with the anaesthesia. I could only get to nine and started to shake and cry. My head felt very, very strange, like in a fog. Her take on it was I was ‘in the anaesthesia’, that I had had a near death experience and this was the survival energy AND the anaesthetic stuck in my body….and we were helping it move out!!”

“I think I had a big release, possibly with tears and trembling, I’m a little unclear at that point. But I slowly felt myself returning to ‘normal transmission’, until I was laughing and ‘fine’. I had a HUGE realisation that the anaesthetist had SAVED MY LIFE (and so did my blue fingernails). I’d never had it mirrored anywhere that I’d been in a life and death situation. But when I looked things up afterward, yes, blue fingernails were a sign of either cardiac or respiratory failure.”

“This whole experience definitely created greater capacity in my nervous system because the very next day, I had to go and have a tooth removed and I handled it like a boss. I stopped them when I needed to and trembled and cried AND I was able to self soothe through the pain and the triggering trauma of them doing painful things in my mouth, even though I hadn’t been able to bring outside support with me. I didn’t need to use pain killers of any kind, and it was a big tooth!”

“Soon after that, I attended a meditation class and it became clear that when I put my attention on breathing and especially the experience of emptying the lungs and briefly being in that space of ‘no breath’, panic would usually surface right at that point……which must be VERY reminiscent to my body of ‘respiratory failure’, of literally having no breath inside me and not being able to get any! ”

“It all made so much sense, the years of panic attacks brought on by elevated heart rate, the difficulty in meditation every time my focus is on the breath….my body is triggered, even though my mind was unconscious, my body remembers.”

“And bless its cotton socks, my body has been trying to heal on that all these years, taking me to the place, over and over, where it can attempt to offload the ‘inability to breath’ and the survival energy stuck there…..and my mind has sensed the panicked feelings and freaked out, doing all it can to pull me out of that dangerous situation. My darling body. At the end of that session with Raquel, I actually FELT how miraculous my body is, how SENTIENT, how IN MY BEST INTERESTS it is. And I feel excited, once again, about life.”

I have since had another session with Raquel, dedicated to clearing more where my body released the stored energy in a very gentle way. And I am happy to say that I can now walk my dog around the block without going into a hard-to-breathe meltdown. Other situations where my heart rate rises, like being in social settings, I now only have what I think of as common, garden-variety anxiety, not what feels like life-threatening panic. I’m so grateful.”

Thank you Wendy, for speaking out to bring awareness to this vital subject on so many levels ❤

Does Wendy’s near death experience resonate with your own? 

Would you like to share your story in Nicole’s book #Emerging Proud through NOTES to give HOPE to others? 

Please contact us here 

Or maybe you have a personal story to share about overcoming early trauma?

For Mandy’s KindaProud book:  #EmergingProud through Trauma and Abuse 

Please contact Mandy at: ambrieleve@gmail.com

Pete Cossaboon from Alabama, US, felt like he had nothing left to live for; until a long conversation with an ‘Angel’ made him realise he had the power to create his own reality. Here Pete tells us his story from suicidal to transformation Mentor…

I had a choice.  A very clear and distinct choice.  In my right hand was a bottle of Southern Comfort.  My left hand had a plastic ziploc bag of four bottles of pills filled with antidepressants and anti-psychotics.  I already had the CD in the player in my red PT Cruiser sitting in the garage of my favorite music.  I was standing in the half stairwell that went from the living room into the garage.

All I had to do was climb into my little car that was always there for me.  Just sit down, put the key in the ignition, swallow the pills with the alcohol, and just slowly slip away.  All of my problems solved.  My suffering and pain that had been present my entire life gone.

But I had a problem.  I knew my daughter would be the one to discover my corpse.  I couldn’t do that to her.  I just couldn’t.  Also, there was a tiny voice.  Faint yet persistent that kept telling me that there was something cool around the corner.  The voice kept saying that I was going to miss out on something.  Something beyond my current level of comprehension was out there.  A collection of moments and experiences like pearls on a strand that would die with me, never having the chance to be alive.

At this point in my life I had lost everything that my ego told me that I was.  I was losing my home, I was almost penniless, I had lost my career, I had lost my friends, my wife was divorcing me and because she could provide a much better life for her, my daughter was with her.  I was even about to lose my freedom.  There was nothing that I had worked for, nothing that I had used as my definition of me left.

It was all gone and it was all my fault.  I had even lost my own self respect.  I couldn’t stand my own reflection in the mirror and had to shave looking out of the side of my eye for six months until I could fully look at my face in the looking glass and see the soul that dwelt inside me.  How could I even continue to breathe when the enemy was myself, the me that I needed to take in air for?

I could do it out of love.  Love for my daughter, love for the possibilities that that little voice kept telling me were out there.  Did I know what those possibilities were?  I didn’t even have a clue.  I couldn’t see or imagine anything except for the pain that I was currently in.  And I was so tired.  So tired of existing.  So tired of pretending that everything was okay.  Worn out from never letting anyone know what I was going through.

I began my fight for life that night.  I called the suicide hotline four times and each time they hung up on me.  All I said in my drunken voice was, “I need hope.”  Then I would hear a dial tone.  I slowly typed suicide help into my phone and pushed on the number that showed up.  A male nurse in some emergency room in some hospital in Tennessee talked to my for almost three hours and helped me to stay alive.  I don’t know what number I dialed or who that angel was but I am here today because he was there for me.

I realized that all of my fears except for one had come true.  A few months after this night talking with a new friend, I said almost exactly that to him.  He asked me if I knew why and I said no.  Then he made a statement that began me on my path to enlightenment.  He said, “They came true because you have been focusing on them.”  A light in my head went off.  I realized that I had been placing an order with the Universe by concentrating on all of my fears.  I thought that if I could figure out how to deal with my fears that I could conquer them.  Instead, like a magician, I conjured them.  I made them true by my attention to them.

From that moment I began my path towards mindfulness.  I became aware of the me behind me.  I started to open my eyes and see who we truly are, what we truly are, why we are here, and what is possible for us.

Many of those pearls on that strand have revealed themselves to me since that night and they have been beautiful, enchanting, and not at all what I expected.  Find a way to survive.  Look for someone to help you.  Never give up.  Things do get better when you allow them to.

Does this subject resonate with your own experience? 

Would you like to share your story for Kelly’s KindaProud book, #EmergingProud through depression, anxiety and suicidality? 

Please contact Kelly to find out how by contacting her at:  kelly@positivityprincess.com

About Pete:

Pete Cossaboon, known as The Angel Encourager, is an Angelic Intuitive Medium.  Since 2014 after going through a radical shift in his own personal Spirituality, he has been helping individual clients, a few pets, and groups to tap into the wisdom from the Archangels and transitioned soul energy.  His clients have experienced physical, mental, and emotional healing leading to an increase in joy, peace, tranquility, happiness, and all over wellness.

Believing there is so much beyond “The Secret”, an avid follower of Abraham Hicks, Tony Robbins, Oprah, Ellen, and so many other teachers, Pete has taken the knowledge and intuition from mentors on this Earthly plain and from the higher realms to bring radical Love to this world.  His Spiritual connection combined with his voracious appetite in studying quantum physics and his degree in Mathematics has given him a view of the world that makes his teachings relevant and timely.

Believing this world is starving for leaders, he has taken on the role of mentor to teach and heal a world in pain and suffering.

See Pete’s website HERE

Does this subject resonate with your own experience? 

Would you like to share your story for Kelly’s KindaProud book, #EmergingProud through depression, anxiety and suicidality? 

Please contact Kelly to find out how by contacting her at:  kelly@positivityprincess.com

‘#EmergingProud through disordered eating, body image and low self-esteem’

As Jenny quite rightly acknowledges; life is a constant growth journey until the day we transition; it takes real courage to admit that transformation is an ongoing process.  Here Jenny expands on her previous #EmergingProud blog, to tell us where she’s at…

Still in my own personal transformation story, I have been inspired by Amy’s story to share a little more of my own journey and publicly acknowledge my ‘binges’.

A binger at times throughout this lifetime, and also at times a secret binger. Through hearing Amy’s story I am truly owning my binges. I read years ago that our weight can be related to our emotions and have had experience of that being true for me when rather than concentrating on the weight I have delved into the emotions and hey presto, realised the weight had dropped off. Times when that hasn’t happened have meant that there is still more to dig and delve for to release or it’s my body’s way of protecting me in the future for when yet more challenging life experiences take a hold.

Where 20 – 25 years ago I believed binges to be hormone related, on reflection they have often been at times of emotional turbulence in my life. Whilst they were to an extent hormone related, it often feels like my binges are connected to past lives of starvation and poverty, lack and scarcity, fear. My belief is, the underlying cause of past life traumas are the actual core root of my binge addiction. I say this for me personally, because whilst I did years ago for a while have a body image issue, now I do not carry any of the guilt or shame, body image or failure feelings, with no compunction I simply know that I do not need to do this ‘binge’ yet still I do!

I ask myself, why?

In the throes of many, many life challenges on all levels I am not surprised that I still continue to binge at times. Though not as much in volume as in years gone by, still a binge now is way more than is really needed. I find that once I start eating during the day I seem unable to stop. It’s because I want to, and not because I need to…I have even stopped mid flow typing to go and get some prawn crackers that I do not need! Many a time I have eaten a bar of chocolate between the shop and home, all of about 30 yards and never divulged this secret binge.

Because I believe our emotions are important feelings to be honoured I do my best to check in with myself to work out what is actually going on for me if I can at these times of excess. Changing my mindset from the ‘norm’ of society’s ‘you must eat three meals a day, calorie counting, these foods are the best, and on and on…’ to one of tuning into to my body and listening to what it actually wants me to feed it, and at what time can help me to stabilise some of the binges.

Working through these self-sabotaging binging bouts may feel soul destroying at times and finding the strength to overcome them, being in human form, is not always an easy task 😊

Jenny Tollinton

Saltburn-by-the-Sea

Does Jenny’s experience resonate? Would you like to share your own experience for Amy’s book?:

# Emerging Proud through disordered eating, body image and low-self-esteem

 Contact Amy at: info@soul-shine.org.uk  to find out how

Thank you to Jenny for speaking out to normalise these challenges, and to everyone who is bravely and vulnerably sharing; that is so necessary to create our new perfectly imperfect world ❤

Changing her own perception of what was happening for her emotionally helped transform Mary’s existence as a labelled ‘mental patient’ to living a joyful life as the energetic Soul she knew she was; and consequently, more able to heal in ways that have been helpful to her. Here Mary shares her journey from ‘dismal diagnosis to spiritual emergence.’ 

“You may be right, I may be crazy, but it just may be a lunatic you’re looking for.”

– Billy Joel

In 1998 I was given the label “Bipolar Disorder,” after a perceived psychotic episode.  I was frightened, engulfed by stigma and compliant to the existing mental health system because I was terrified of losing custody of my two young children.

I lived episode-free until 2016 when I was hospitalized after traumatic events for a stress-induced breakdown.  After release, I noticed that the antipsychotic medications I was placed on made me feel sicker than when I had arrived.  This time I emerged from the experience not fearful, just curious, with a new attitude toward my “illness.”

I asked myself the question, “How is it that I, someone who is diagnosed with a “serious mental illness,” has flourished for thirty-four years in a career guiding thousands of college students (accumulating 1400 sick leave hours in the process)?”  Add to that raising two children as a single Mom while earning my college degree, authoring four books and converting my home to a certified National Wildlife Federation habitat.  My answer: In reality, I am not the least bit ill or disordered. As a matter of fact, I am perfectly well.

This epiphany and much historical, scientific, social and cultural research prompted other important questions:

What if…
…”Mental illness” in all of its forms are the body’s natural defense mechanism to re-establish the mind-body-spirit connection in response to trauma, emotional anguish and information overload from a crazy culture?

How different would life be if…
…We who are labeled stopped thinking that we had an illness and embraced our capabilities instead? 

…We exited that proverbial road to recovery and started a life path to our future by returning to that place of our perfection before someone told us we were flawed? 

…We shifted our focus from what society perceives as “wrong” with us (experiencing human emotion) to what is right about us?

…We simply found a better way to help each other?

The current accepted mental health system in the U.S. has progressed from an intentional helpful entity to a frustrating tangled web of documents, regulations, government and legal policy, insurance and pharmaceutical companies and confused providers and consumers. This system has taken on the definition of insanity that once described the people it was trying to serve.  It is dictated by a collection of diagnoses; scary terms and adjectives to describe human emotions and behavior written in a language that has evolved and become outdated.

In September 2017 I sat down for the last time across the desk from a psychiatrist who was only doing his job when he asked me the routine questions regarding my symptoms, sleep patterns and side effects. After answering, I enthusiastically started to mention my latest accomplishments of accepting an offer for a dream job and sending my latest manuscript to an agent. He interrupted with “You seem too happy; we will discuss increasing your medication at your next visit.” I thanked him, and left with kind parting words knowing I would never return.  I smiled with relief that my journey back to my joyful (manic in his world) loving, compassionate self was complete.

On the drive home, I mentally replaced my Bipolar label with ones more accurate and deserving that others who know me best have bestowed upon me… Inspiration to Your Children, Celebrator of Life, Serving Heart, Optimist, Valued Friend.  I immediately stopped thinking, talking, writing about and acting like I had an illness; focusing my energy on my attributes and passions, choosing to tell a different, more important story filled with hope and discovery.

It’s time to rewrite the language, wiping mental illness out of the vocabulary, telling the gift as opposed to symptom-oriented experience. To reassure each other that we exist as thriving, feeling, living, and not disordered human beings. That we are well and all deserve the chance to shine.

Since emerging, I have shared my story with others who all have a similar one of being diagnosed with a “mental illness” or know someone close who has.  It is time to help each other transform from this epidemic.

This month, I celebrate 20 years since I was labeled.  During that time I came to realize that it was journaling, quiet reflection, and the support of those who cared about and listened to me that were all I needed to realign.  Through my organization, Capture Life Writing, I now use this formula of the power of words, human connection, Myfi (unplugging and reflection) and nature to bring others to emotional and mental wellness, the process that brought me from dismal diagnosis to spiritual emergence and perpetual joy.

I now live the mission to eradicate the current cultural consensus of mental illness.

Mary’s Blog:  www.capturelifewriting.com

Would you like to join the army of Hope Warriors #EmergingProud and share your story? CONTACT US HERE to find out how…

“We need the trauma-speakers to save us. Because they are the closest to the truth of all of our lives. Because they are reminders of our misplaced humanness. Because they are the most connected to the feelings that we are all burying – the individual cries for relief, the ancestral unresolveds that thread through each generation. It may seem counter-intuitive in this armored world, but those who have the courage to own their pain, are actually the ones we need the most.” ~ Jeff Brown

YES WE DO!! This is the aim of the KindaProud pocketbooks of Hope and transformation; to all who have, and are, daring to speak out authentically, vulnerably – THANK YOU  You are all helping to create the new gentler world with the strength of your vulnerabilty (the counter- intuitivity that is refered to above)

The KindaProud faces of August 2018…

Would you like to join these beautiful faces and share your story of hope to help others?

Please contact the KindaProud Rep for which your story resonates…

For Nicole’s KindaProud book, #EmergingProud through NOTES (Non- ordinary transcendent experiences) 

Please contact us here 

For Amy’s KindaProud book:

#EmergingProud through disordered eating, body image and low self-esteem

Please contact Amy at: info@soul-shine.org.uk

For Mandy’s KindaProud book:  #EmergingProud through Trauma and Abuse 

Please contact Mandy at: ambrieleve@gmail.com

For Kelly’s KindaProud book:  #EmergingProud through Suicide

Please contact Kelly at: kelly@positivityprincess.com

Kam Sokhi from West Sussex, UK has transformed her life by healing emotional wounds from the past that she was trying to control through food; it was only through facing this that Kam was able to emerge through her darkness which has led to her empowering others to do the same. Here, Kam bravely tells her story to give hope…

I was just an ordinary 13-year old when my older sister and I made a pact to lose weight.

I became very competitive.  My sister, ‘the golden child’, got all the good grades and I felt I’d never match her. My dad would tell me I was stupid, I’d amount to nothing and that I was a failure! The only thing, in my mind, I could do better than her was to lose weight.

Living in a strict Indian household, we were never really allowed out; it certainly was not ok to wear makeup or have boyfriends. If I dared answer back, I’d get a good beating. My dad had no problem exercising his control over us either verbally or physically. Life was all about religion, our family and our education.

Now I could control how much I ate and I found I was really good at it. I’d feel so proud I’d only consumed an apple and a litre of diet coke for days. I became sneaky at hiding food and obsessed with exercise. I was getting noticed at school because I was so thin; I was ecstatic.

It didn’t matter that I hadn’t had a period for two years, or that some days I’d swallow a hundred slimming pills AND tens of laxatives. I’d binge and purge. An average binge would last for hours and I could eat 10 chocolate bars, 5 ice creams, 7 packets of crisps, not to mention the rest. I weighed 5 stone at age 15 and was wearing children’s clothes. My bones were protruding and my hair fell out, yet when I looked in the mirror all I could see is was a fat, ugly person staring back at me.

At my lowest point, I considered killing myself. There were times when I self–harmed and the relationship with my father became worse. I began rebelling: smoking, drinking, dabbling in drugs, sometimes running away from home.

Then, I was busted at school. My best friend dobbed me in to my parents; told them I was throwing my lunch away. Things began to change, the doctors visits started, as did a year of psychiatric hospital care with an eating disorder specialist. These interventions inevitably brought my bulimia and anorexia to an end.

But in the years to come, my obsession with food and exercise continued. I felt I was never perfect and continued with strict eating regimes. I’d categorise foods as good or bad and if I ever ate anything from the bad list then I would ricochet into self-loathing. My laxative abuse was still prevalent, as was the occasional habit of taking slimming pills or going on detox diets. I was in my thirties now and still very self-conscious about my body image, not ever going swimming or dancing in public.

The pivotal moment in my recovery was meeting an iridologist who told me I had to give up sugar. She’d explained, I’d been replacing the sweetness of life with sugar, though if I started to love myself the weight would drop off! I had no idea what she was talking about and it would be ten years till I fully understood what she meant.

As I was a chef I thought I’m creative, I’ll just create some new recipes and I’ll be fine. In fact, a whole new world opened up. I started a clean, healthy way of eating and even started a Facebook page, sharing recipes. I started experimenting, making raw desserts. For the first time ever, guilt free eating with no self-loathing afterwards; it really was a revelation!

I also suffered from food allergies. This was yet another challenge. Being vegan as well, you can imagine how regimented and strict my life was around food.

Through the IPE eating psychology coaching course I’ve found the healing I’ve so needed. I discovered that being fast, rigid, strict and militant in my eating habits, is a reflection of how I conducted my life in general. I learned that weight gain is a form of self-protection and that self-confidence isn’t going to magically appear once I’m thin; after all, being skinny made me just as miserable. Being happy in myself and with my body image by healing the emotional wounds from the past, is the key.

Now, it’s time to give back, to help other women find freedom from the guilt and shame felt around food. My commitment is to empower you to become the best version of yourself, to find confidence and peace within, no matter your size and transform your view of life, yourself and your relationship with food. I’ll guide and support your weight loss journey and help you sustain that weight loss while being healthy, respectful and loving to yourself physically and emotionally.

What a great gift is that!

Warmly, 💕

________________________________

Kam, Eating Psychology Coach

CHEF-NLP-NUTRITION

Empowering women to become

The best version of themselves

🌺🌽💖🍅🌷🍄🌱🌞🌈🍎🍒

_________________________________

Does this subject resonate with your own experience? 

Would you like to share your story along with Kam for Amy’s KindaProud book,

#EmergingProud through disordered eating, body image and low self-esteem? 

Please contact Amy to find out how by contacting her at: info@soul-shine.org.uk

The Warrior Awakens

If we plant a seed in a desert and it fails to grow, do we ask what is wrong with the seed? No. We must look at the environment around the seed and ask, what must change in this environment such that the seed can grow? (Deegan, 1996)

I’ve written this piece essentially as a survivor of repeated childhood abuse; abuse that left me with intense feelings of fear, powerlessness and shame; abuse that seemed to infect the very essence of my being (my soul) and abuse that almost succeeded in annihilating my sense of self and left me feeling worthless, unlovable and that I had to apologise for my very existence.

There’s been an endless debate going on in my head about where to begin this particular piece of writing – at the beginning would be the obvious place which for me might be the day I came into this world as an innocent & helpless tiny baby. But my story of healing really began on the day when the warrior within me, my spirit, woke up.

Being a keen gardener, I like to compare that warrior to a seed, a seed which over the years, had been bruised and beaten and denied the sustenance it needed to grow. At times it had gasped for breath, and searched desperately for water so that it might at least remain intact, but the environment around it was often barren, and yet somehow it had managed to survive those years in the wilderness.  That brave and resilient seed had waited patiently as it held on to hope, held on to a dream that one day, given the right conditions and with the right help, it might take root and start to grow into a blossoming & colourful flower.

Of course, a seed doesn’t just turn into a beautiful flower overnight, and most cannot begin to grow without help. This is where a gardener is necessary, to nurture the seed, so that it will blossom and flourish. The gardener must pay attention to its needs, plant it in the right soil, water it and ensure that it is fed – basically love and care for that seed until it has spread its roots and is able to love and care for itself. A gardener must also have the courage to take risks, to perhaps place the young seedling outside, away from the warmth and comfort of the greenhouse, despite the risk of a frosty night or insects which may destroy it.

Over the years, I had existed and survived by looking outside of myself, too frightened and ashamed to delve into what lay beneath my skin. I had grown up in an ordinary family, the youngest of three siblings. I’d attended ordinary state schools, gained average grades in exams and  travelled for a while in a few other countries. I gained a degree in European languages, found employment and got married. I gave birth to two beautiful and unique daughters and at the age of 35, I became pregnant with my third child – to the outside world (and to me) then my life would probably have appeared straightforward.

But, I had a secret, a secret from childhood that I shared with only one other person. I was made to believe that the consequences of sharing this secret with anyone else would be devastating, that no-one would believe me, and that I would be seen as wicked as well as crazy and so whenever I was asked about my childhood I became so overwhelmed with terror and shame that I remained silent – or rather, I was silenced.

Somehow I skilfully managed to hide that secret until the age of 35 when I gave birth to my 3rd child (a son) and where, during labour, an ordinary internal procedure would be the trigger for those memories from childhood and that secret to rear their ugly head and manifest themselves in a truly distressing way. Shortly after my son’s birth, and in need of some support I came into contact with statutory mental health services – and a journey that was to last 18 long and at times desperate years began. And so, I write this piece also as a survivor of the Mental Health system.  I specifically choose to use the word survivor here, because at the end of those 18 years, above all else, I felt re-traumatised, my sense of shame had risen to a toxic level and I felt I had been silenced once again.

I feel this way, because instead of helping me to explore, make sense of and understand the reasons and causes of my intense distress, the psychiatric diagnoses and labels I was given simply left me feeling that the very core of me was being questioned. I felt my experiences of abuse were being ignored & somehow irrelevant, I felt more ashamed and guilty, and I felt I was to blame for responding to trauma in ways that were judged as negative, irrational, inappropriate, destructive & harmful. Although from my perspective I felt I was reacting sanely to an insane situation.

By the time my son was about to celebrate his 17th birthday I had become one of those infamous revolving-door patients – I was simply a set of numbers from the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. I had slowly become dependent on doctors, nurses, locked wards, cocktails of medication and ECT and believed that this was the only way to keep me alive and existing.

What I didn’t realise during those 18 years however was that the power imbalances that exist within the MH system especially those between doctor & patient, mirrored the powerless situation I found myself in as a child and over the years, misuses of power had posed a very real threat to me – to the extent that in childhood I often feared for my life.

My responses to that threat manifested in ways such as almost complete disconnection both from myself and the world around me, self-harm, suicidal thoughts and attempts, the abuse of alcohol and cannabis, anger and at the same time meekness and submissiveness as well as an intense need to please others. And rather than seeing those responses as sophisticated coping mechanisms that I was using in order to survive, they were seen as symptoms of an illness, a disorder or a syndrome, symptoms that needed to be got rid of with the use of medication and electricity, by a mental health system that seemed intent on medicalising my distress.

And so after almost two decades of being caught in the MH system the abusers words seemed to have come true – I believed & felt that not only was I mad but I was also bad.

By November 2013, my spirit felt completely broken, I felt disempowered, dehumanised, re-traumatised, hopeless, isolated, ashamed, terrified, guilty and angry, but most of all I felt desperate. I believed the time had come to leave this world for good and I put together a solid plan to end my life – I chose the method I would use and a comforting place where I would spend my final moments. I did my best to write a meaningful letter to each of my children in an effort to explain my actions.  I organised my finances so that my family would not have to worry about the cost of funeral expenses and I wrote a will.

But that warrior that seed – essentially the essence of me – would not allow me to carry out my plan.

On the 6th November 2013, it was decided that I should come off, overnight, the cocktail of psychiatric medications I had been taking for 17 years, and my world was turned upside down. Whilst this rather brutal decision was made for me and I had no choice in the matter, it proved to be one of the most defining moments in my life so far. Little did I know it at the time, but the moment had arrived where I would now have to search for a gardener and the right environment where that seed could be nurtured.

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

(Albert Camus)

 Four years later, it turns out that the head gardener was me, and although exhausted, I am grateful that I am still here to tell the tale. I am now living and not just existing, I remain medication free, I parted company with statutory mental health services three years ago, and am slowly managing to confront and deal with the damaging effects of that toxic secret with the help of a private therapist.

It has taken every ounce of courage, strength, determination and passion that I possess and I am gradually finding ways to nurture that seed within me, allowing it to spread its roots, to grow and to flourish. But I haven’t done it alone, there have been “other gardeners” (my children, my friends, my work colleagues, my peers and my therapists), whose courage, strength and love have created an environment around me that has helped me to feel safe, empowered and connected.

There is one more gardener who I must not forget to mention however – without her courage, strength and love I would not be here today, writing this piece. That other gardener is the little Sue who kept that seed alive with her bravery, sheer stubbornness and outright bloody-mindedness, and managed to survive the abuse she was subjected to.

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Does Sue’s inspiring story resonate with your own? 

Would you like to share your transformation story for Mandy’s KindaProud book, #EmergingProud through Trauma and Abuse? 

Please contact Mandy to find out how by contacting her at: ambrieleve@gmail.com

Poem:

 Stay strong through your pain

grow flowers from it

you have helped me

grow out of mine so

bloom beautifully

dangerously

loudly

bloom softly

however you need

just bloom

(Rupi Kaur, 2015)

References

 Deegan, P. (1996), “Recovery and the Conspiracy of Hope”, A Keynote Address at the Sixth Annual Mental Health Services Conference of Australia and New Zealand, Brisbane, 16 September.

Rupi Kaur.  (2015), “Milk and Honey” Andrews McMeel Publishing, Kansas City, Missouri.

Does Sue’s experience resonate with your own? 

Would you like to share your transformation story for Mandy’s KindaProud book, #EmergingProud through Trauma and Abuse? 

Please contact Mandy to find out how by contacting her at: ambrieleve@gmail.com

To book CLICK HERE

Find out more about the venue HERE