Christmas Art

These things I carry with me...

I can't remember ever loving my dad. My earliest memory of him is from when I was around 4 or 5, and I was standing in his backyard while he was beating a rabbit to death with a shovel. I'm not sure he was even angry, that was just the kind of thing he would make us watch him do. Sometimes it was a threat or a "punishment". Sometimes it was just because he could. When we were a bit older, sometimes he would make my brothers join in. They would have a "choice" to hit me or the dog with a stick. I remember one of my brothers had tears rolling down his face while he flung a stick around. It's disturbing to think back to that time and it's difficult to talk about. It was terrifying then and it terrifies me now.

As Christmas approaches, I find myself re-experiencing some of the terror I felt throughout my childhood. I'm having nightmares every night and I'm waking up disorientated and distraught, remembering the weight of his body crushing me down.  I've never been able to forget the Christmas Day when I was almost 9 years old. I was unwell so he put me in his bedroom with a movie. He came back in while other family members were eating lunch. That's when he raped me for the first time. 

I know that I am not alone in struggling around the holidays but it can still feel really isolating and overwhelming. It's a time of year when there are so many more social events, but I feel withdrawn and 'not myself'. Most of the people in my life can't even begin to imagine the depravity of my childhood and so I end up feeling a sense of separateness. There's a time and a place for a rape story and it's not at a Christmas party, you know? 

So I try to 'take back' this time of year in small ways... I try to stay in the moment with my children, and it is actually nice to be around their excitement and joy. I feel like I am in a better place than I could be and I am grateful for many things. There's a little analogy that I sometimes share with my students about disruption and the potential for posttraumatic growth, and it's about the process of seedling development and how there's no seed that breaks through the soil without disrupting the soil. So you start with disruption, but you end up with growth and perspective. I think this year, thinking about those kinds of things helps to step out of the helplessness a little.

I've been wondering how I get myself out from under the weight ... the literal weight that I feel when I remember that first rape, and the sheer terror of all those years.  I've been working on a few different art pieces, but I don't know how to depict the darkness and the heaviness without falling completely into it. Instead I have tried to focus on where I would go in that moment if I could get out from under the heaviness. 

Stuck Points

Trigger warning: This post has graphic details of one of the nights I was raped when I was 17. I tried to go back to see it from the perspective I had back then, to give full voice to my experience and to try to understand my reactions a little better.

I’m sprawled across someone’s bed, fully clothed. My shoes are on. The room is spinning and it takes me a moment to figure out where I am. Scott’s room. I can see a pile of CDs on the bedside table, a mess strewn across his floor. I can’t really move. There’s rap music vibrating through the ceiling from upstairs. I’m not even sure how I got here, but I am really drunk. It feels kind of like I’m floating. I wonder if anyone’s looking for me.

When I wake up again everything is much quieter. The light is still on but there’s no music, no laughter. I am inside the sheets and I seem to only be wearing my bra. I’m not alone. I try to sit up and Scott reaches across me and holds me by the arm, “Nah, it’s okay. You can stay.” He tilts his head and smiles at me. It’s more like a smirk. He seems so sure of himself and I’m not sure at all. Did I lead him on? Did we already have sex? I don't speak at all. Inside my head I am screaming at myself, "What are you doing, get him off you!" I can’t seem to move my legs. He keeps a firm grip on my wrist and it’s hurting. I’m kind of dizzy. Really drunk. He puts his fingers inside me. I don’t try to stop him. I don’t do anything. He’s really calm and I think, "I must have agreed to this." Then he manoeuvres my body, turns me over onto my stomach. He’s penetrating me from behind. I can barely keep my eyes open but I notice the black satin sheets and the chunks of vomit in my hair. I don't think I feel anything but numb.

I’m not sure how I get home. Later I’ll call Katie and tell her we had sex and that I’m so confused because I don’t even like him "like that". I’m so ashamed of it. We’ll never mention it again.

This memory has been one of my sticking points ... It's something that I could never really bring myself to talk about because it felt like it was evidence against me. It was proof that this was 'my pattern' and that I was stupid or reckless or naïve. The self-critical part of myself wonders why, after this happened, I still considered Scott to be a friend or at the very least wasn't more suspicious of him. 

He was the essence of casualness, both during his assault and afterwards. His self-assuredness made me question myself. It gave me the impression that what happened wasn't so bad, I must have been overreacting. If I hinted around at it and other people couldn't figure it out, it must not be all that important. It felt as though it were in a 'grey area' because I'd been drinking. I think my NOT labelling it was my way of protecting myself from the ugly truth. If I didn't say the words I didn't have to face their impact. We'd been close friends since we were 12, and I thought that if I made everything normal then it would be. That's how he remained in my friendship group. Silence, denial and that same 'everything is just fine' smirk of his. I see all of the insidious ways it affected me even when it was buried.

***

A month or two after this happened, we were both at a mutual friend's 18th birthday party. My family had gone away on vacation, but I had chosen to stay behind because I had exams coming up that whole next week. The plan had been that a couple of my friends would be staying at my house too, so that I wasn't alone because I had a restraining order out on my ex-boyfriend. Things didn't end up going to plan. The self-recrimination comes in because Scott was really insistent about giving me a drink. I didn't drink the whole thing because I realised he was being weird about it... but then, I still left with him. I wanted to leave the party earlier than the friends who were supposed to be staying with me because I wasn't feeling well. Scott offered to share a cab, with the intention that we were going to drop me off first and then the cab would take him to his house.

I passed out in the cab, and I remember my head on his shoulder and I don't really remember much else. I don't know if it was a blank or if I literally woke up at his place. I remember standing out the front saying really adamantly, "No, I'm gonna call the cab back. I need to go home. I can't be here." Then there was a back and forth where he said, "I just need to make a quick phone call and then I'll walk you home. That's fine, you can go home."

So I remember waiting outside and I was feeling confused and panicked. I'm pretty sure that's when I first had the thought that perhaps my drink had been drugged, and that maybe it wasn't the first time... and even though I had that realisation, I was still there waiting for him to come back to walk me home. I don't know how to forgive myself for that. I didn't feel safe with him, I'd chosen to leave a party with him, and suddenly I was in a "fooled me twice, shame on me" kind of situation. I can't know for certain, but I'm fairly sure he was calling the others to tell them of a change of plans. Someone who I had once trusted and considered to be a friend, set me up to be gang-raped and I didn't see it coming.

I know that what I’m dealing with is an illusion of control and I want to work on the self-blame and the internalised responsibility that I have used as a coping strategy. I remembered a response that I had written to someone else years ago when I was in my early 20s, so I searched for it to see what advice I'd have to say to someone struggling with similar feelings. This is what I wrote back then:

I'd like to gently challenge this idea you've expressed that your experiences of sexual assault fall into a grey area. The sentiment that there is such a thing as 'grey area' consent doesn't make any logical sense to me. Either someone has consented, actively and willingly without coercion, or they have not. It is not possible to give half-consent or to be half-raped and therefore there is no grey area, regardless of the relationship or what led to that moment. All this to say that from my outside perspective I can clearly see that what you endured really wasn't your fault, you did not do anything in the lead up to deserve his horrific actions. You certainly do "deserve" to be here and to be supported as you navigate your way through this. It's always much harder to apply this same compassion or logic to ourselves though, isn't it?

Sometimes I find myself thinking about self-betrayal, self-blame and fear as us potentially being afraid of our own power. What happens when we feel empowered? Typically positive things, but it can be difficult to empower ourselves in the aftermath of trauma. On the flip side, it can be really easy to slip into a belief that we had more power than we really did. 

In so many ways the feeling or belief of self-betrayal could also be framed as a way of trying to maintain a sense of control. "If only I'd…" In reality we were in a situation/s that we had no real control over. We were at the mercy of a merciless other or others. Feeling powerless and helpless is a terrifying feeling that we understandably all want to avoid. Who ever wants to be vulnerable? But perhaps it is walking into the heart of that frightening, dark place that we begin to truly heal. Easier said than done in many respects, is my experience... but I think that is exactly what you are doing here in a forum of survivors who can relate and understand and hopefully challenge the notion that you are in any way to blame.  

For me, accepting that it wasn't my fault always leads back into not having control... at those times, in those circumstances.. When I self-blame I don’t have to deal with the true reality of my childhood or the multiple rapes I have survived since. If I am to blame, then I can somehow “rape-proof” my life with reassurances that it won’t happen to me again because I won’t let it, right?

It's interesting to me that I seem to have circled back to a similar stuck point, it seems it has always been easier for me to intellectualise an idea rather than truly take it on board as something I can feel wholeheartedly. I do feel like I am a step closer than I was back then, my past no longer has the same kind of power over me that it once did. I post this today with the knowledge that there's nothing so dark that we can't even speak of it. 

November

As a bit of darkness comes back to my edges it feels very real. If I allow myself to sink into it, will I find all of the unexpressed, unwanted and unknown thoughts and feelings from a moment in time that I’d rather stay well away from? Every November I find myself circling back to it in the deep stillness of the night. I play it over and over, the vivid and the murky memories, never really sure what I’m searching for. What is it that I’m unwilling to claim? What is it that I’m unable to let go of? Today may not be the day where answers will come, but it feels good to write about it.

I've been trying to find my place in it all, coming back to wonder whether certain things I did or didn't do in the lead up to the gang rape somehow contributed to how it all played out. Actually, what I would really like is to find a way to forgive myself. I thought that I had, but this year's 'theme' seems to be all about self-recrimination.

I worked on a mixed-media painting this week, with the intention of stepping toward the part of myself that I feel resistant about. When I thought about what I don't like or don't want, the feelings that come up are vulnerability and shame. I don't like that I couldn't find a way out of that situation. I don't like that I wasn't in control. I don't like that I was overpowered, outnumbered, exposed.

I wondered about what the barrier looked like and it wasn't a wall. It looked like water. I am terrified of water. Water feels like not being able to breathe, it feels like being held under. It feels like being water boarded with beer. It's the plan they had to dump my body in the lake.

When I painted I thought that I would find self-compassion, but instead there is a lot of displaced anger.

Broken Places

“In the broken places the light shines through.” - Leonard Cohen

This is a quote that's been on my mind lately ... In the broken places the light shines through. I really like this concept of having to allow yourself to break if you really want to get to the light. I think it speaks of finding hope in darkness, or that there's always light even if you can't see it.

I'm not a stranger to the dark, but still I resist it. I've been wrestling so much with anxiety lately; it's a deep sinking feeling in my stomach, habitual shallow breathing, a desire to escape. It feels like any time that I am not intentionally practicing mindfulness I catch myself racing away from difficult emotions. Then, of course, the more I avoid things the greater the fear and anxiety and dread grows. Avoidance seems to have become a driving factor and it's not a great place to be. My heart knows this would be an easier process if I could accept that this is where I need to be right now, but my head is angry and frustrated that I am not where I would like to be. I am really working on trying to create space to just be however I need to be. So I've been asking myself what it would be like if I could let go of some of the aversion and self-judgement. Can I be with this feeling? What can I learn from it and how can I grow?

I experiment with a lot of different guided meditations and Tara Brach often talks about how we all have strategies of trying to control things and how we often live in a trance or a virtual reality made up of our own self-centred, self-conscious narrative. She talks about a phrase 'real but not true' ... it's a real story in our minds and it feels real in our bodies, so it's real ... but it's not the only way to view reality. The thoughts are happening, the feelings are happening, but it's not the truth of existence. So the invitation is to just notice how it's an idea in our mind and a feeling in our body and to just be present with that and then to bring compassion to that.

"So often we make a commitment to change our ways, but stall in the face of old reflexes as new situations arise. When gripped by fear or anxiety, the reflex is to hold on, speed up, or remove oneself. Yet when we feel the reflex to hold on, that is usually the moment we need to let go. When we feel the urgency to speed up, that is typically the instant we need to slow down. Often when we feel the impulse to flee, it is the opportunity to face ourselves. Taking a deep meditative breath, precisely at this moment, can often break the momentum of anxiety and put our psyche in neutral. From here, we just might be able to step in another direction." - Mark Nepo

When I deepen my attention to where I'm getting stuck I find I seem to be triggered by the experience of feeling more visible in my professional life (perhaps imposter syndrome issues), but at the same time I am seeking to be heard or seen in my private life (this blog, reflections on past traumas).

I think sometimes the normalcy of now can sometimes trigger off a feeling of separateness or a feeling that I can't yet describe. It's not that I don't feel grateful for the life I have or that I'm not connected to those I am close to, but the stark contrast between then and now can sometimes feel difficult to reconcile. It's like there are two tracks playing at once ... In one track I feel so present and alive and lucky; I live a privileged life and it's filled with laughter and hope and messiness and love. The other track is all the stuff I thought I'd left behind; it's kind of like the movie you don't want to watch alone again, but it comes back as nightmares or intrusive thoughts and visual images ... and the storyline you tell yourself is that there aren't many people in your life who could begin to imagine what that was like. It creates that sense of separateness and it's really hard to not buy into that narrative because it's kind of true ... in the sense that it feels true to me. 

So that's what I'm practicing ... It's a work in progress. There have been moments where I really have been able to just sit with those feelings and allow them to be there.  What I notice is that all of my feelings are right under the surface, ready to spill over, ready to just be felt. It starts to feel less reactive (anxious) and more about the core feeling or the underlying issue itself (lived experience of past fear).

What feels right here are the memories. 

It's the feeling I had when my dad towered over me or dragged me across the floor, it's the sudden gap where everything is just dark ... the familiar thick buzzing in my head, the sound of terror before everything goes black. 

It's the feeling of being a little girl in a store room at the stables, playing with the kittens while a fat, repulsive man looms in the doorway preparing to rape you. The smell of hay. It's knowing that no-one outside of that room is going to help. Trapped and nowhere to turn.

It's the feeling of being ambushed. Of being outnumbered, of being held down. The knife. The hands everywhere. The slobbering in my mouth. The taste of beer and blood. The flash of the camera. The laughter. The music. The viciousness. Not being able to breathe. The blackouts; the moments where I don't know what happened to my own body. The flicker in his eyes when he had me in the room alone. The tone in his voice when he told me what he'd done to the girl in my class. The terror. The guilt.

All different moments in time. All in the past.

What also feels right here is the reality. I have already survived this. At times I have thrived. I can tell it again and I can tell it with strength. I don't want to just paint over it again ... I want it to mean something and I want it to be heard. There are things in my present life that are bringing these feelings or memories to surface, but I am safe to feel this. How would it be different if I accepted that this is difficult for valid reasons?

This time will pass no matter how I approach it, so at the very least it would mean that I could get through this particular season with less resistance ... but I may also emerge from this with possibilities that I can't even begin to imagine yet.

A lot of love ...

Last night I was cuddling my girl when she told me, "I saw you smell Max's hair and I felt jealous. You're my mumma and I love you more than he does ... but actually you do smell my hair a lot too!  I guess you have a lot of love for both of us." Oh my heart. Aside from the fact that I'm some kind of weirdo that smells my kids' hair all the time (It's good shampoo!), I love her little insights and that she feels able to share vulnerable feelings. 

Sibling rivalry has levelled up in our household lately.  A couple of weeks ago I heard Amelia tell her two year old brother to get out of her room in accordance with article 16 of the rights of the child act (the right to privacy apparently). They were on their own sorting it out while I tried to compose myself, and by the time they had any parent support to help solve the problem it had escalated into a much more primitive fight. 

Then I discovered that someone had made some modifications to our Willow Tree figures. I couldn't stop laughing, and what interested me the most is how the fine motor skills don't match up. Amelia's actually really incredible with her ability to paint or draw (even on 3D objects) and this was certainly not on her level. Max's drawing skills aren't too shabby for a 2 year old, but there's no way he'd be able to do this. Obviously it was the 5 year old!

When I finally stopped laughing, I asked her about it. She was so committed to her lie, "Well, I actually saw Max with that purple texta ... He's drawing on everything lately!"
"Oh, well that's interesting. I'm not sure he's clever enough to draw faces like that yet."
"Well, they don't look like the kind of faces I draw. He's drawing on everything lately!"
"I wonder why he would draw faces ..."
"Maybe he wanted them to have faces?"
"Did you want them to have faces?"
"Yes." 
😆 On the bright side, they're all happy!

 

My Story

I sit at the front of the church staring forward in defiance. The minister's words float by me; I focus on the way the light streams through the window creating colourful patterns on the carpet near the coffin.  I am not untouchable. My father is sitting next to me and he's got a firm grip on my right knee. His hand creeps further along my inner thigh.  Still I stare ahead. My body is filled with palpable dread and shame and rage. I try to swallow it, but I'm betrayed by the tears streaming uncontrollably from within. He's still touching me when he hands me a tissue.


**** 

I'm not sure exactly how old I was when the abuse first started. My parents were separated and from an early age I spent most weekends and school holidays at my Dad's place. He was very controlling and sadistic. We used to have to change out of the 'dirty' clothes from my mother's and there were unusual rules to follow. His house was always immaculate. We weren't allowed to talk to each other or play, so we'd often spend our days sitting on the couch in silence. The t.v was on but we wouldn't speak. Sometimes I was allowed to read or draw, but other times I would be 'punished' cruely for those same activities.

In contrast, my mother was unpredictable and 'absent'. She loved us and we had a lot of freedom to play, but she struggled with her own mental health and traumatic history. She considered herself to be somewhat of a gypsy or a free spirit; by the time I was nine I had lived in as many houses. That's the age that the turmoil really began for me. My step-father left her for another woman. My sister was two months old. Two weeks later our house burnt down to the ground and we barely escaped with our lives. 

My mother had several breakdowns and I became her confidente and her care-taker. Sometimes she would go out "for a couple of drinks" and just not come home for weeks. I would try to cover for her, dropping my youngest siblings off at day care on the way to school and lying about where she was. We had a few short stints in foster care, but when we were home I was in the parenting role. 

I think these different roles are a contributing factor to where things got a little muddled for me.  I lived in two entirely different worlds in each of my parents houses, and then I went off to school where I thrived ... I hid the extreme darkness that I was living with, and I believed that I wasn't really as good as people thought I was. I was terrified people would find out who I really was. 

And who was I really? I was a little girl. A little girl who had several predators in her immediate family.

This photo was taken right after my nan's husband had sexually assaulted me in the garage downstairs. He used to play rough games, and part of the 'game' was to tell him when it started to hurt. Usually he'd laugh after I said, "Stop," and continue hurting me for a few more seconds. This time he didn't stop. 

I was sexually abused and raped repeatedly most weekends for the next five years. My dad would take me to the horse stables where his 'friends' would take turns alone with me in an empty room. I don't have a vivid recall of exactly what happened in that room most times, but I remember walking out with a thick buzzing in my ears and a foggy kind of weight. Sometimes my dad would give me money in front of them all and they'd laugh. I have always loved horses and find there's something really healing about being around them; but to this day I fight back an instinctual terror from the smell of hay.

My first horse, Mouse. I treasure the journals my maternal grandmother left for me.

When I was 12, I had a friend staying over at my Mum's house. We were getting ready to watch a movie when my Dad showed up drunk. My Mum let him in. He pulled out the phone cord and sat with us while the movie played. I don't think I watched a single second of the movie. We were all going to bed and he still refused to leave. I lay awake on the top bunk listening to him rape my mother. A rage came over me. I was so incredibly ashamed that my friend could hear what was going on. I can't remember how I got from my own bed to my mother's room, but I flew at him and told him to get the fuck off her. I never went back to his house again, and he never showed up drunk again.

 A couple of years later, there was a new boy at my high school. He was sitting by himself outside of the basketball court and he seemed completely miserable.  My friends thought he was a little weird, but I felt sorry for him. By the time I realised that their instincts had been right, I was in too deep and didn't have the skills to navigate safely out of that relationship. 
He would talk obsessively about things that really disturbed me; massacres, weapons, suicide, murder. I remember sitting in his bedroom trying to pretend I wasn't scared while he played with one of his knives. It reminded me a bit of the 'mind games' from my childhood. 

I planned carefully how to leave him, and I broke up with him in a public space at school. I had been reaching out and had the support of teachers, friends and a counsellor. He continued to harrass me.  I'd had a restraining order out on him for about nine months when he ambushed me outside of my own home with a group of his friends. I was 17.

I don’t know what you think at a time like that. I remember the silhouette outline of the tree, the way the bricks looked from that angle ... the realisation that there was blood pouring from somewhere on my face ... the sound of my own heart thumping in my head. There was a hose connected to my front tap, and they used it to hose me down with water. I think I thought that would be the end of it, but someone had found my keys in my bag. They let themselves into my house, and forced me inside. I was gang raped.

**** 

I barely survived, not only the rape itself, but also the year following. I escaped to another city, but in doing so I also removed myself from any support system. You would think that after a violent trauma my body would have been incapable of conceiving, but a few months later I found out I was pregnant. I can't say I chose to keep the baby because by the time I realised, it was kind of too late to make any other decision. I can't say that I was excited or that I really came to terms with the idea of being such a young mother, but I was scraping by. I was working in a child care centre, I was pretending I was okay, I was making new friends ... But I was numb. I was barely exisiting. I didn't tell anyone from home about being pregnant because I was ashamed and I was afraid my rapists would find out.

One afternoon after work I was standing at a bus stop and a complete stranger, an elderly man, looked at my swollen belly and then at me. He cleared his throat and spat at me. Muttered something about babies having babies. I didn't say a word; that brief moment in time just solidified all of the shame and self-blame that I was carrying around. It was maybe a week later when I started experiencing cramps and pain at work. I went into premature labor and my son passed away a few hours after he was born. If you can imagine all of the invalidating things that could possibly be said in a time of grief, it's probably something that was said to me. The girls I was living with even 'helped' take down the nursery before I was home, and reminded me constantly that it was probably the best thing that could have happened given the circumstances. Hello years of therapy and an inability to speak openly about my grief!

****

Despite all of this, I have the most amazing life. I'm blessed with a supportive husband, two amazing children, incredible friends and a career that I am extremely passionate about. I'm sometimes not sure how I managed to get to such a positive point in my life; I used to believe that this was in spite of my early history, but I'm beginning to realise that it's maybe because of it.  Each time I share parts of my story, I tell it a little stronger ... I'm a little more comfortable with my own vulnerabilities and a little less ashamed of the things that were done to me.

I share this now as a way of being more transparent, of working through my trauma with a different lens. I'm trying to come to terms with my own fragility; my own imperfections and weaknesses. Our experiences can break us, at times they do ... but if we can find insights or understanding from those experiences it can also be breathtaking, empowering and humbling. 

"The Fire Within" - Book Study reflections

Wow, what a powerful gift this book is; I was originally going to 'Flipgrid' or tweet my responses, but I have way too much to say! I am really appreciative that so many people have bravely contributed their personal journeys of adversity and opened up a discussion on the impact their trauma or difficult experiences have had on their professional lives.

I'm actually posting this on my personal blog rather than my teaching blog because it feels like it gives me room to be more authentic with my responses without 'oversharing' with people who aren't in that same space.

As a trauma survivor, many things resonated with me from the first few chapters. I love the silver lining analogy; our stories and life experiences shape who we are, and if we can find our way through the hardships then there is so much we can give to others.

Mandy, thank you for your incredible courage in sharing your story and the powerful ways you have transformed your pain into something beautiful. I absolutely love the quote chosen to open Chapter Two, "It's okay if you fall down and lose your spark. Just make sure that when you get up, you rise as the whole damn fire," - Colette Werden. You certainly have risen!

Short version of my story (may trigger): My parents were separated when I was quite young, which was probably my "saving grace." We spent most weekends with my father and he was violent, controlling and cruel. Some of my earliest memories are of sexual abuse and I was raped repeatedly between the ages of 8-12. I went to many different schools, but it was always a place of refuge and safety for me. We had a little more space to "just be kids" at my mother's house, but we lived in poverty and she was inconsistent and unstable. At best she was "absorbed in her own world" and at worst she was lashing out or in the midst of another breakdown. She was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder when I was in my early 20's, which helped me to understand a lot. My first boyfriend was a younger version of my childhood abusers, and after I ended the relationship he arranged for his friends to help him gang rape me. I was 17.

So that's kind of my WHY. It's how I came to be who I am today and why I am driven to working with children and families living with adverse circumstances. As teachers, relationships are at the heart of what we do and we are in a really unique position of being able to inspire and empower our students. Who better to connect and respond, to love and to teach our at-risk kids than those who have lived through that experience and truly "get it"?

Like Mandy, I was also compliant at school and went under the radar by doing whatever my teachers required of me and achieving above expectations. I'm very lucky to work in a school that is trauma-informed, but I always feel compelled to point out that our at-risk students are not always so obvious. 

This artwork was drawn by a student living with trauma.
I think this is the lived experience of many children (and adults!).

Many children living with trauma compartmentalize their experiences as part of their survival, and I believe that is part of how I functioned and managed to get where I am today. It also has the impact of not being completely "seen" or appearing to be more competent or capable than one actually feels. That's something that has followed me into adulthood and I could really relate to Mandy's reflection that "nearly every time someone finds out about my past, they ask how I turned out so normal. I always laugh... normal is relative. I play normal very well, especially on the surface." I think that one of the powerful things about this book is that you're opening up the doors for connection and authenticity: We can still be professional while reflecting and sharing the human side.

Inner-world play: A link between resilience, trauma and giftedness?

"The seductions of seeing ensure there is that which remains unseen. Evading visibility is its own fortune. If to behold is to possess, to be looked upon is to be fixed in another’s sight, static and immutable." - Jenny Xie, Eye Level: Poems. 

This beautiful quote reached me right at a time when I needed it the most, a time where I am seeking to understand my own mind and the depth of which I experience life.  One of the reasons I started this blog was because I have the growing realisation that my internal world is amplified; and perhaps there is some dissonance between what I feel or experience and what I express outwardly. At times the stark difference between my internal and external world feels so separate or paradoxical that I feel that I am not completely "real" with others or that I am fooling them by pretending to be something I am not. I am beginning to understand (with a lot of therapy!) that not being completely transparent doesn't mean that I'm being fake or that I'm not being myself, but that I still have a bit of work to do in integrating these compartmentalised views of self.

My therapist shared with me some research she did years ago on play in young girls who had been exposed to varying levels of trauma.  She observed in a subset of girls that there was a correlation between high levels of exposure to trauma and advanced cognitive skills shown in the pretend quality of their play. So if natural ability is there, traumatic experiences or exposure may provide an intense impetus to get that internal world and creativity developed very quickly. She explained it as a happy irony; that part of that resilience comes from retreating within and preserving one's sense of internal world, and that this fantasy life becomes a creative and healing protective factor. I find great comfort in this.

Growing up, my imaginary scenarios were as real and as vivid to me as anything going on in my real life. I knew that I was pretending, but I experienced all of the sensory and visual imagery with just as much vivid detail as things that really happened. That extensive inner world was a place to escape from all of the trauma and I do believe that in some ways it helped me to get through some of those experiences.

My earliest memories of play are from when I was around 4 years old at my mother's house. I collected twigs and pebbles and whatever else I could find, and I created elaborate mini villages with huts and canoes and stick people. Sometimes the weather would destroy the world overnight and I'd come back to rebuild and start the game all over again. Other times my brothers would come along and join in, but it would never quite be the same and I'd send them away for "not following the rules!"

We weren't really allowed to play at my father's house, so I think at around the same age I started playing out imaginary scenarios and games entirely within my mind. I think those "games" started out similarly to how you would play with actual dolls or props, but by the time I was 8 I was creating an entire world.  I called this place Miiran, no idea why but I later learned two things: 1. that the name Miran was derived from the Slavic element miru meaning 'peace' or 'world' and 2. translated to English the Yoruba word 'miiran' means 'other'. I loved that completely coincidentally I had given my imaginary place a name that literally meant an other world of peace.  I continued to elaborate on this "game" until I was about 12. It was where I went to feel at home, and perhaps the only place where I was truly safe.  

I wanted to share this part of my mind so I have been working on a painting to visually represent a scene from this place. I had never really considered that this imagined world had any connection to trauma or resilience, it was just how I passed time or boredom! I don't know how much of this other world was inspired by books, but it never actually occurred to me that this wasn't something that everyone did. I was an avid reader, and whenever I stumbled upon something that had elements of an imaginary world (The Secret Garden, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Bridge to Terabithia) it just confirmed to me that this was a normal thing. It's taken me a few weeks on and off to add layers to my painting, but I finally feel like I've been able to replicate what I see in my mind. So here is my favourite part of that imagined world:

When I first "discovered" this calm space I was about 8 years old. The 'game' started as imagining that I went to sleep and somehow woke up outside of this abandoned log cabin in a completely secluded place. Initially there was never anyone else there and each time I 'went back' I would make changes or build upon this space. Over time the imagined physical space of this place grew larger, there were small islands and then entire countries with characters or people who were made up/indigenous to this land. Sometimes I focused more on the setting and other times it was all about the story lines and interactions between the people and I had an entire made up language that I created/"learned" from the indigenous people over time.

At some point I changed the way I could ‘get in’ to the game, and I created an imagined portal that could be accessed through my next door neighbour’s swing. If I was not physically able to be in that space, I would have this visualization exercise that I would use to remove myself from my physical body and kind of transport myself/’fly’ along the physical pathway (the roads/map in real life that I would have had to follow if travelling in a car) to get back to the swing. Even after our house burnt down at 9 and we moved to another town, I would still have to “travel” back to that swing to get into my world. I often used a similar visualization when I was being raped to transport myself back to the bed at my Mum’s house, but I never tried to take myself into that imagined world during those moments. Perhaps that was my way of keeping it as a completely separate and safe space.

Obviously there are a lot of elements of escaping or putting myself in control, but I never really made the connection that the years that I played this particular ‘mind game’ coincided with when the abuse was much worse.  There are things that I have blocked out or that I don't recall with full clarity, but there are also many things I have always remembered happening; details I was also aware of in very real time. Whenever my dad was driving me to the horse stables I knew the fate that awaited me. Whenever I heard him coming towards my room at night I knew what was going to happen. So I am just now making the connection that perhaps my imagined world was a way for me to disassociate from some of the things happening.

I am not sure why I couldn't see the significance of this imagined world earlier, but I think that reflecting on it now and discussing some of these concepts in therapy is helping me to begin to gain a sense of appreciation for that part of myself. I like the idea that somehow this imagined world of mine still has real meaning and significance.

Future Scenarios

Maasai warriors greet each other with the phrase, "Kasserian ingera." Translated it means, "And how are the children?" I work in a school where, like the revered Maasai warriors, we ask this question of ourselves every day. Caring for our children and their well-being is at the heart of everything we do, and it can be no other way.

Many of my students come from adverse backgrounds; trauma and stress, intergenerational cycles of poverty, family and community violence, neglect, lack of resources, parents with drug and alcohol addictions, and mental health issues. Late last year, 84% of our students in Years 3-6 said in an anonymous survey that they had witnessed or been directly exposed to physical or sexual violence in their lifetime and 68% said that they worry that nobody at home or school cares about them. As a staff, we were collectively shocked and saddened by these staggering statistics. Behind this data are the faces of the real children that we come in to bat for every day. Since then we've worked hard to take strategic action to continue to improve the well-being of our children.

My main role at school is to teach STEM, which basically means I get to do all the fun stuff... and what that really means is that I get to guide our kids through student-led, hands-on inquiries about the real-world things that matter to them. Our school formed a partnership with some outside businesses and connected our students with STEM professionals, and from there we somehow found ourselves with outside recognition and media attention. It has been so inspiring and rewarding to witness the personal transformation that each student has had with this program. They come from a climate of poverty that engenders an environment of powerlessness, disinvestment and deprivation... and suddenly they have an authentic audience and a powerful message that their voices do matter and there are people who believe in their ideas. There was a real inequality of opportunity and that's what we're trying to shift with this program.

I am so proud of these kids, but even more important than that is that they are proud of themselves. They believe in themselves and they have confidence and they have hope. Working with future scenarios and solving problems that will help to improve their futures and their world has been empowering for them. Young people often have very little control over what happens in their lives and the idea of a future can be quite an abstract concept, particularly when you need to put a lot of energy into simply surviving. Anything that disempowers you in the present will detract from your ability to see into your future.

Solving current issues has helped to pave a pathway that allows them to picture the future they want and it's spurred on by a vehement belief of how things ought to be. They're on a mission!  The future scenarios are a stimulus for action and this work empowers students by inviting them to take more control of their future. Having a shared vision with their peers has also helped to build a sense of belonging in the school community; they're building relationships and friendships and there's a real feeling of them being "in this together" with this shared goal of changing their futures for the better.

I am so appreciative of the zest and empowerment that this project has created. One of my students reflected that she had never really known how to answer the question, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" because she didn't really feel like she would grow up. It didn't seem real. She said she still isn't sure what she wants to do with her life, but she feels like there is going to be a life. Her future matters and RIGHT NOW matters too. That was a really powerful moment for me, and it's feedback that lets me know that we're on the right track.

Something I have found difficult to articulate about my own experiences is that sense of a not having a future. Like many of my students, the concept wasn’t real to me as a child. It’s a time in your life where you really do have limited control over the things that happen to you. Without a sense of future you are perpetually stuck in a feeling of hopelessness, like you have no control or agency over anything. That sense of a foreshortened future hasn't made me live my life any differently (though perhaps I took more risks than I otherwise would have!), but it has certainly been a pervasive part of my landscape.

When my husband proposed to me I struggled with wondering how I could marry someone and plan for a future when I didn't even really believe I had a future.  I don't know that there is a specific or tangible fear, it's more a feeling of perpetually waiting for "the other shoe to drop" or a belief that you can't really count on something that might not happen. I had to tackle it from a very hypothetical perspective, "how do I feel right now, and if there was such a thing as a future what would I want it to look like?" 

I guess that's what I'm working on with my students: "If you had the power to change something, what would would it be? What would your future look like? What kind of action would you need to take to get there?" I hope that it is one of those opportunities they will look back on when they are 30 or 40 and say "remember when..." (By the time they get there, technology will have advanced so much that will probably have a great laugh about what they thought was ground breaking and novel!)

So if you asked me today how the children were, I feel like I could say, "All the children are well." I can't wait to see where the future takes us.

Art by Galuh Edelweiss Sayyidina, 8-yr-old artist from Indonesia.

Mother's Day...

I love my quirky kids... My daughter's teacher asked her to draw her mummy for Mother's Day. Instead she drew an Egyptian mummy in a tomb. 😂😂

Today my beautiful children have wrapped me in all the love their little hearts can muster. In spite of my failings as a human being; the times I’ve been so mind numbingly bored at home with a newborn or exasperated with a toddler who has experimented with play-dough up his nose. The times that they're bouncing off the walls, the times that my house seems completely trashed, the times that I'm so exhausted that I just want to cry...in spite of the not so perfect moments, they just see love. They see the story-time snuggles, the outdoor adventures, the dinner conversations, the laughing, the wiping of tears, the cheerleader, the confidant... the person, however flawed she may be, who loves them more than life itself. That’s what they see. 

How lucky I am that they see that. That these little people love me as unconditionally as children can. Let today be a celebration of all those who choose to love and nurture someone outside of themselves, mothers or not.