I first asked to see a shrink when I was 14 because I thought I was mad, crazy mad. I cried a lot by then, which was not well received and if anyone asked my why I was crying, I never knew the answer, my mind would go completely blank. I had to have a reason to cry or I would get more to cry about but whenever I tried to form an answer to what I was crying about - nothing - nada - zero - zilch. My mind would completely empty and be still. There was no answer I could access. I remember that my mother thought the idea of me seeing a shrink was a huge joke, the funniest one she'd heard in years as I recall. She did not think it as funny when our family doctor agreed with me. She believed I was 'a normal ten anger with normal teenage hormones' and I would eventually 'grow out of it' without her 'forking out good money for some quack' to tell her what she, in her omnipotent wisdom, already knew. I persisted and the doctor won that argument, thank you Dr Wilson.
Unfortunately, when I saw this learned professional, a psychologist, he proceeded to tell me what I "should" think instead of listening. As it was 1983, Australia was about to recognise child abuse in a court of law and, had he listened he could have helped not only me but my entire family. He didn't listen though and all I came away with was more confusion, frustration and questions. It would take me another 32 years to find my answers - for myself. My mother claimed afterwards that the psychologist agreed with her completely, that I was a normal teenager with normal teenage problems and that I would grow out of it. She told everyone she met how she knew as much as a shrink.
I battled on alone and it was another 3 years before I would willingly seek out professional help of that type again. In 1984, I was in a motor vehicle fatality and lost my best, lifelong friend. I was almost 16 and it impacted me horrifically. I was a blithering mess for months and it was about 18 months later that someone recognised I needed help and support and only then because I dissolved into hysterics after hearing someone close to me had crashed their car. Even though they were okay, I collapsed screaming, blaming myself, almost dribbling down my chin. I remember being slapped and told to snap out if it but inside my mind I laughed at what I considered then to be a feeble and moronic attempt at futility. I hid inside my head where all the horrors played out.
I was taken to a counsellor who was really nice and she listened. She told me I had Post Traumatic Stress and I told her it was crap - a new fad for shrinks that meant absolutely nothing. I wailed at her that I must be some kind of freak to lose my best friend and not remember the couple of moments leading up to it but be constantly remembering things that were said to me and done to me at age 3, 4, 5, 6, 7..........what was wrong with me? What sort of person could I be? I hated myself for that.
I was grateful to her for seeing me and listening. I did feel slightly better after and I did see her again a few times but she put me off with this PTSD talk. It was another 20 years of constant remembering before I read about the symptoms and realised she had been right. For over 2 decades I lived with PTSD and didn't even know it, in fact, I had C-PTSD and it was compounded from birth to 35 years of age.
I saw about 1/2 a dozen other counsellors and psychologists over the years as well as 3 psychiatrists but none of them ever picked up what she did. None of them wanted to know about my flashbacks, tapes, horror and hopelessness. None of them understood why I felt so hopeless and behaved so powerlessly. None of them listened, they believed they had the answers for me and I believed they had them too. We were all wrong. Medication helped to push it all down and treat the symptoms but it did not address the underlying cause. These professionals kept telling me I had to live in the now but they did not hear that 'now' for me was reliving all the horror, over and over again. I was mentally, psychologically and emotionally trapped in trauma and the memories never stopped their assault on my mind. I was manacled to my childhood with chains of despair that bound me so tightly I could not be in the now. When anyone spoke to me, I was reacting to some old memory of something else.
I battled on believing I was certifiably crazy for all those years till I finally snapped and took 7 months 'off' life in 1998 after I lost my father-in-law and my Nanna a month apart. I trapped myself in my mind with my memories and refused to come out, it seemed pointless to try anymore. Eventually I came back from the void and fought again but it was only another 5 years before I was gone again. This time I was determined that I should be locked up and observed. I figured that if some shrink would see what I was like day-to-day, I may never even be released and at the edge of my sanity, that was okay by me.
I couldn't even get assessed! I got taken to hospital a couple of times by police and ambulance but I couldn't get a mental health assessment for months. When I finally did get assessed, I got the same spiel about how I needed to let go of the past but my horror was, the past wouldn't let go of me!! Without any plan or prospects, I fled interstate and still got nowhere with the mental health system. They were now referring me to a women's centre. Why could no one hear me? I was suicidal and completely alone, with no money, living in a car! But I was not in need of mental health services?
Thank God!! That is what I've been saying for the past 8 years. Thank God!!
I finally found a counsellor (and other health professionals) who listened and understood. People who supported me in finding my own answers and in stopping the constant playback of those memories. I still remember in vivid detail, countless words, images, behaviours, sounds, smells, tastes and sensations. I still remember too much but, now I have peace and the tapes have stopped. I can recall memories if I want to rather than the memories being in control as they were for all those years - 3 and a half decades in total. I have never 'recovered' any memories because I was never able to forget any. Now though, I understand my mind and I am at peace with the memories, they've done me a favour and helped me to be who I am today. They're my memories, a part of who I am and I'm not mad or crazy. My brain was simply having a very normal, neuroscientific reaction to very abnormal stimuli.
Onwards and upwards
Xxjxx
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