TRAUMA - My Story

There has been a hidden ‘driver’ to why, for so many years I hated myself. I am not 100% cured of this predicament. I am getting much better though. At least I know where it stems from.

When I was 4 years old, my brother was born and he was very sick. It started with my Mum getting pneumonia while she was pregnant, which resulted in my brother being born early.

I was whisked off to the care of my grandmother as well as with the help of my Aunt and Uncle plus their 3 children.

What happened is not as important as how I interpreted what went on.

There was no debriefing, no discussion, nothing about anything that happened.

I was left in the care of people who caused me great damage, especially on an emotional level.

The duration was for about 6 years.

When the time came for whatever was happening to be revealed, I remember quite little.

I do remember what I made up about the whole experience -

That it was my fault.

That I was unlovable.

That bad things happened to me because I deserved it.

There is no blame towards the people who were involved. My grandmother lived through the two great wars and the depression. To survive, her generation swept everything under the carpet. I get that.

So when she found out. It was easy to do just that. Sweep everything under the carpet.

I did this exact thing for over 30 years. I told no one.

Yet, the self hatred grew and grew and grew.

In the end, I believe it is what got me really sick.

The self-hatred and internal secret of loathing that I had kept from everyone.

I got so good at pretending that I was a kind, loving and generous woman, when deep down inside I knew the truth which was that I was a very, very bad person.

It has taken me another 20 years to begin to truly love myself. To focus on my good qualities and to call out the self-deprivation thoughts.

There is that fragmented part of me that still thinks that what happened so long ago was her fault. It’s really a matter of habit than anything else.

I know that I was the youngest involved so I didn’t start it, create it, make it happen. I wasn’t the perpetrator. I was the innocent young one.

Yet, there is a part of me that 100% believes otherwise.

It is that part of me who has had many addictions including bulimia, excessive shopping and material greed. I am not a hoarder. I buy and give away, buy and give away to ease the pain of being a horrible person.

My health issues include bulimia, as I said, but also grave disease (hyper-thyroid), undermethylation (inability to detox), toxicity (I don’t like to get rid of anything), allergies, Ebstein Barr Virus, to name a few.

The thing is, the more I learn to love that young girl inside of me that doesn’t want to receive, who doesn’t feel worthy of love, especially not mine. The more that I love her and engage with her without quickening her process to stop thinking of herself as the bad one, the perpetrator, the one who hurts people, including herself. The more I let her be, the more she is learning to trust me and the less health concerns I seem to have. They are just starting to dissipate.

It’s that little girl inside of me that helps me to be the coach that I am. She helps me to open up to the world and to be myself, the traumatised, neurodiverse person that I am. You see, she is my hardest client and I love her dearly. It is through not needing to change her that has helped me to support others to find their own way down their own unique path.

The benefit of being a little girl that had no one to debrief some pretty shitty stuff to is that I have lived for a very long time with the secret that I have hated myself for a very long time. I’ve lived a life that has been pretty farking hard as a result, internally, that is, and I am still here to tell the story.

Not only do I get to tell this story today. I can tell it without blame for anyone, including myself…

… and that is a miracle.