‘How I beat emotional trauma’
As a young man, Matthew Donnachie thought he was heading for prison or an early grave. Years of bottled-up trauma from an emotionally abusive childhood had left him with no self-esteem, problematic relationships, depression and huge anger.
Diagnosed with behavioral problems as a child—Matthew realized later he was just trying to get attention—his life spun out of control as the internalized negative script of his abuser played out. The put-downs and phrases he had heard daily as he grew up, like, “You’re not good enough, you will never succeed,” and “No one will ever love you,” echoed through his mind, driving him into a frustrating cycle of toxic relationships and dead-end jobs.
“I thought nobody cared, and then because of that I didn’t care about myself,” says Matthew, 39.
“Some days I was so depressed I could hardly get out of bed. My anger was so great I used to punch doors and walls. I was a walking time-bomb.”
Matthew tried counseling and anger management, but, “talking about the past and why I was angry just made me angrier.” In his twenties, he turned to recreational drugs to block out the mental pain. “I was heavily into cocaine, I smoked marijuana
