Hi,
I'm very new to this as it has only been in recent years that I have been able to open up about my story. I am a 55 year old man who grew up in England but "escaped'' to Australia in the late 80's after my 21st birthday.
My mother was a violent narcissist (living with her own trauma of being an adopted child) and my father a white collar criminal, living with Asperger's, obsessed with financial gain and status.
At 10 years old I was sent to boarding school and remained in that system until I was 16.
The life I lived until I was 17 was highly traumatic, social workers first found me alone in my home when I was 2 years old, so neglect was one of my first problems.
Violence was extreme and even more confusing as the perpetrator was my mother. She would regularly physically abuse me.
Verbal abuse was constant with belittling and name calling the norm, this combined with emotional and physical neglect lead to me living "on egg shells" not knowing whether I would get an overly loving and apologising mother or a violent fiend.
I was sent to boarding school at 10 and was groomed from my first term by my English teacher and finally molested at 12 years old, this went on for 6-12 months. My father would not believe what I told him was happening at school. At 13 I went to secondary boarding school and had a violent housemaster who would regularly cane me and then I got bullied from 14-16 years old by other boys at the school.
I went to 7 schools. I was asked to leave 2. I left school with no qualifications.
From 17 - 21 I saved as much money as I could with the view to go overseas and "escape", having done a short trip to the south of France when I was 17.
I arrived in Australia when I was 21.
From 17 until having my first child when I was in my early 30's I buried my trauma. I partied hard (I used a variety of recreational drugs that I fortunately never became addicted to) and worked even harder. I was mostly self employed after blagging my way into commercial kitchens and working as a chef. I ended up freelancing writing recipes for magazines and becoming a food stylist. At 25 years old I had my first recipe book published and the following year got a segment on a cable TV cooking show. I was over achieving and yet was never satisfied by any of my achievements. As a side to my food writing career I was running large illegal rave parties and using MDMA regularly.
After meeting my future wife (Australian) we ended up living in Japan for a couple of years and set up a cooking school there, we came back to Australia to get married at the end of the 90's and then had our first child in 2000.
When our first son was born all my trauma experiences flooded back and year by year the full horror of what had occurred to me started to sink in and affect my day to day life. I didn't seek professional help until I was in my 40's as i didn't know what was wrong with me. Although diagnosed with Complex PTSD by my first psychologist, his experience with childhood trauma counseling, upon reflection, was limited. I was sectioned in 2016 after a suicide attempt and violent police intervention.
During Covid my psychologists limitations became apparent and I sought out better professional help.
I now have a childhood trauma social worker who is helping me by using the Internal Family Systems model of therapy.
Since 2010 my wife and I have been running a business providing home care to older people wishing to remain at home rather than going into residential care. We now have 130 employees and have gone through various significant stresses of running a healthcare business for the vulnerable during a pandemic and 2 city wide catastrophic floods, which has obviously been stressful at various times over the 13 years.
We have 2 adult children, one traveling overseas and the other finishing his education. My wife and our sons are my rocks and I am very fortunate that my wife's family are very kind and loving too.
I am tired and frustrated that I haven't got better control over my negative emotions yet, the anxiety and catastrophising can get out of control and I'm still trying to master the IFS techniques to ease this. I am also tired of the shame that comes after an emotional outburst.
It can be hard telling my story and people telling me what an amazing life I have had and how I should write a book especially as most of the things people think are "amazing" hold little value to me. The only part of my life I am truly proud of is keeping our marriage together, despite the immense difficulties, and raising two men who are confident, well educated and happy.
I hope one day I can manage my emotions well and not live in constant fear and anxiety.
Emergency, police & ambulance (24 Hrs)
Connect with a lifeline crisis supporter (24 Hrs)
Suicide callback service (24 Hrs)
Kids helpline (24 Hrs)
13 YARN