My ‘story’ contains information that may be triggering for some of you. If you are triggered, do a quick healing to feel better instantly.
Triggers are gifts that the body gives us to show us where we need to heal and come home to ourselves.
When I write this, I have very little emotion attached to parts of it, if any emotion at all. You know you have healed those parts when you can talk about them with no attachment, no fear, no anxiety, no tears and no trauma.
I share this to show you that you can heal from trauma and you do not have to live with managing anxiety or fear for the rest of your life. I once believed that I would have to learn to live with anxiety for the rest of my life and was seeking ways to do manage it and that was the opening of my journey toward healing in a much more powerful and ever lasting way. There is a reason to have faith because my story and many others are proof that you can heal and be happy.
As a side note, I have suffered situational depression but I have never been on medication.
If you find my story helpful, please do leave a comment or let me know what else you would like to hear about so I can write about it.
My History
I grew up a fairly shy child, one of five. I think I suffered anxiety from a young age although wouldn’t have known that was what it was called.
Being passionate about classical ballet, I hounded my parents from around age 5 to take dance classes and started dance around age 7. Without a question nor thinking I had a choice, I was also involved in dance competitions such as eisteddfods (performances to win medals) and concerts. I used to get very nervous which only added to my suitcase of anxiety that I was ‘packing’ from a young age.
After multiple honours in exams and two scholarships I had the chance to further my dance. Dance is still a passion and I often find myself naturally choreographing dances in my head to music even though I have never been a choreographer.
Abuse by a Known Family Friend
At around age 7 I was being groomed by my best friend’s father for sexual abuse. We were seeing this family weekly. When the man was caught trying to molest me by his wife (my best friend’s mother) she took me aside and told me if meant nothing and to not say anything to anyone. It took me around 4 years to tell my mother and she did nothing.
Now, as an adult, if one of my children had told me they were sexually abused, I would have acted. If these parents get away with this, it could mean abuse passed down the line to grandchildren and other children these pedophiles come into contact with.
To add to the abuse, I would get wolf whistled every day walking home from school from age 11 by a man in a workshop / business. These also seemed to be a strange attraction that older men had to me as a teenager which I never understood but found creepy.
Bullying at School
Like many I suppose, I was bullied at school. This started in Primary School and then there were other incidents in Secondary School and I became quite fearful of recess and lunch time knowing I could be the target outside of the classroom.
My Parents had a Messy Divorce – Alienation
Around age 13 my parents divorced. I decided soon after to stop piano and dance lessons. My mother was on a campaign to alienate our father from us and my Father did little to fight for time with us based on his own trauma. My younger brother and I were still at home when this was going on, but the older siblings had move out and on to Uni.
I hid the unhappiness in weekends of alcohol and disco dancing. Outwardly I was always happy but inwardly, I was hiding demons and pushing them down. I would binge drink weekends away with friends and that helped the void but did nothing to change my path.
From age 15-16 I left the home of my controlling mother as she was starting to hurt me physically. I boarded with friend’s parents, in a caravan in the back of a family’s home for a short time, stayed with my ex-boyfriend’s mother who was very kind to me, and then rented whilst at Uni or lived on-campus if I could afford it.
I worked my holidays sometimes doing two jobs to earn money to live and to drink and have fun.
Sociopath?
I have never been close to my mother and I believe she is a sociopath and I cut ties with her altogether around 3 years ago although I also went the odd year with no contact before that because I had strong feelings of hate toward her.
I didn’t talk to my father for around 20 years from a teenager and I eventually forgave him for being absent which was only partly my mother’s doing. Even though I have contact with him now, he seems very happy with the relationship he has with us even though I only see him about once a year. I know he suffered greatly as a child from abuse and his father was a violent man. So, I consider this relationship an estranged one and accept it for what it is.
A 20 Year Long Relationship
I met my ex-husband around the age of 19 after I moved to Melbourne from living in the country. I was keen to get to the city after finishing my first Uni degree and I found a place to rent and was working.
I remember, not far into the relationship telling him I loved him and it was not reciprocated. At that age, completely naive and devoid of understanding what a healthy relationship looked like, I was devastated but the relationship continued. 6 months in and we were living together but we fought regularly. I could never understand why he was so inconsiderate. In fact, he was and still is one of the most inconsiderate people I have met in my life.
We married after being together for about 8 years. I remember the year prior to getting engaged saying that if he didn’t propose to me by the end of the year, I was leaving. So, as one might expect from a narc, he proposed to me on the last minute of the last hour of the last day of the year….New Years Eve. Today this thought humors me. It wasn’t until years later that I came to that awareness.
The Pressure Mounted
We went into business together and eventually I left the business to have the kids. He was reasonably helpful for the first child, by the second he was more absent and by the third I was doing it all. I was also running a business from home, helping him with our first business and trying to be a Mum to 3 babies under the age of 4. I now NEVER encourage ANYONE to be a ‘super-mum’. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a Mum full time and that’s all. It’s hard work and with a partner that does very little, it will eventually destroy most marriages.
Before our first was born we sought counselling and this continued after the birth. The counsellor decided I had anger issues and I was the problem so I was sent to see a different therapist. This proved incorrect and in fact it seems the narc has pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes. At this stage I had no idea what a narcissist was nor what that really meant in the true sense of the word. So, on a mission to save our marriage I saw a therapist for a short while which proved fruitless.
After further counselling, this counsellor said “well, you’ve given it your best shot”. I was horrified. Surely a counsellor was supposed to help you save a marriage, not tell you in other words that there’s no hope. In hindsight, he knew what I didn’t but he didn’t tell me I was dealing with a Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
The divorce was horrid. In and out of court for 7 years and then back into an administrative court for an intervention order.
In terms of shared parenting, the court admitted he was a narc but made no account for that in the orders.
Prior to the parenting orders, he would show up sometimes 2 hours late to get the kids or I would go to drop the kids over but he would say he did not agree to having them. I learned very early on to set strong boundaries. If he wasn’t there within 15 minutes of the agreed time, I would leave. I also decided not to let him do pick ups from my drive way as this gave him the option to show up when it suited him. By doing this, it also showed the kids what he was doing when he would show up late at the pick up place agreed to, we would wait. He was nearly always late. Sure, when the kids were young they have no concept of time but they still grew to know and would comment that Dad was always late.
Other things he would do is, bring the dirty laundry back and expect me to do it. He would put the kids in after care and they told the family report writer that they were the last ones to leave.
He denigrated my diet, being vegetarian and continued to tout that I was vegan and that they children were malnourished. He saw the pediatrician behind my back with his sister (acting like a mother), vaccinated the children behind my back, saw doctors and dentist without telling me and was feeding the kids lies about me and what I do.
Parental Alienation
I’m not really sure when parental alienation started but he accused me of it when we broke up. I didn’t even know what it was but the court didn’t believe him. Little did I know he was projecting.
He was a master at gaslighting. Aside from blurring the lines of when he said he agreed to have the children, he employed other tactics. Every Christmas without fail, and still to this day, he will ask me what my interpretation is of the court orders. They don’t require interpretation and every year I say I’m following the court orders. Then the games begin. When he doesn’t get what he wants, and now that the children are older, he manipulates them and has them stay with him more. I have learned to give up on any decent arrangement.
When one of our children was 11, he was physically assaulted by his Dad twice. This threw our family into turmoil. It caused all sorts of conflict and we were struggling to cope as the narc painted his lies and minimised the damage. No matter how I tried to protect myself and the children, he would show court documents to the children and fill them with lies about him being arrested because of me.
He then hid the children for two months involving old friends of mine and then his sister. I didn’t even know where the children were staying and my ex was trying to say I was abusive and that the children had chosen not to come home. I think this was the peak of my trauma. I spiraled. I had already found it difficult to cope with the destruction after he assaulted our son. That same son chose to live with his abusive father full time and I had no contact for many months.
Someone involved child protection after the assaults and they failed to recognise the abuse and sent a letter to my ex telling him that they told me to abide by family court orders. He tried to use this in court to take out an IVO against me. The evidence presented by my ex was so bad that the judge said that he was implicating himself in further abuse toward me and that he may be guilty of perjury. The case was then dropped.
I got to the point where I was stuttering, I was struggling to put a sentence together and I considered if it was worth living. I didn’t know if my kids were coming home, I was struggling financially and I found no sense of joy in anything. I was suffering from insomnia and I started to suffer adrenal fatigue.
Fortunately I was able to use a narcissistic abuse recovery program to shift the trauma out of my body and feel better. The results were amazing and I was slowly starting to turn things around with the children.
You Will Not Heal Unless You Do This
Self-avoidance is one of the biggest reasons why we don’t heal or we don’t heal quickly.
At times I would find it difficult to sit down and do a healing audio because I was avoiding facing my inner demons. I would be agitated, find other things to do, make excuses that I didn’t have time, would get restless legs or would even feel unwell.
In order to keep going and try to head toward full commitment to myself, I would put the audio on my ipod at night at bedtime so it was playing while I was asleep. This will work and I always feel better once I’ve done this, but it is not as effective as being awake and doing a healing session.
I learned that unless I fully commit to ME and MY healing, nothing was going to change quickly.
Then, Even Bigger Leveling Up Happened
I have come to learn that nothing on the outside changes unless something on the inside changes.
Yes, I looked at Abraham Hicks, The Secret, The Opus, and I got what they were saying but I just couldn’t work out the HOW. I understood the concept but the practice was not working.
Then, these two things happened. About a month ago I was able to look down at my body and realise that it’s just a shell. That I am not my body nor my mind and that I am the spirit within. It felt really amazing and freeing. It’s not a state that I am able to stay in but if I make myself aware of it, I can ‘detach’ from my physical being by being in spirit. It’s a strange concept and no, I haven’t left my body when I do this. I just feel separate from it.
Then about two weeks ago I was reading The Sedona Method and Hale was talking about being ‘the awareness’. I’ve understood about being awareness through the work of Eckhart Tolle but never FELT it. I finally saw myself as the awareness and also ‘detached’ from my mind. This has been an even harder state of being to recapture and I do intend to put myself in this state of spirit more often.
Such powerful healing can help with health issues when you decide you are worth the commitment to your healing.
In closing, I’d like to encourage you to show courage and start your healing journey. Yes, it does take courage to face ourselves. Parts of us on the inside are hurting and we need to face those parts, bring them forward, ‘hear’ them, feel them and shift them on.
I guarantee you will feel better.
As a sample, follow along with Hale in the video below and experience the results. The first time I followed along, I was watching the free movie Letting Go. Commit to your healing starting now…go ahead and watch.
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