Out on a Limb

By Joan De Jong

This is my story. It has the potential to empower and educate readers all over the world. They can see how and why the impact of childhood hurts continue to affect me in so many ways, whilst I lived and am still living a very full and interesting life. Readers can walk in my shoes as we go through the many lows and times of very dark depression, whilst I felt confused about family life, parenting, trust, love, relationships and sexual relationships.

My book is also an example of how the effects of war (PTSD) are felt and suffered by our serving service men and women, ex-service personnel, and their families (the flow-on effects).

I talk about how I always loved my parents but 'hated' the abuse, and I've always been concerned as to how many children are affected by many types of abuse. How many are out there now, hurting behind closed doors? Too many is the answer.

I want my book to bring awareness of how hurt is affecting children’s learning and their ability to absorb information, due to the 'shit' that is filling and, in some cases, has already filled their hearts and minds.

Then there are the parents of these children who are hurting. I believe that hurt is passed on; it is hurting people hurting people. I say, "Stop hurt NOW!"

After the amputation of my right arm and shoulder in 1999, I saw myself as a freak. I hated what I saw in the mirror; and people’s stares just confirmed that I was right.... I was a freak. I want to bring awareness of how people’s stares do hurt (still)!

I tell how I took drastic measures to change all this because I realised that I cannot change others.

Out on a Limb is an inspirational story of the challenges I’ve faced, the way I’ve given up at times, thinking and planning to end my life but never actually doing it (suicide). I tell how I persisted, how I chose to work through my dark times to finally find this happiness that I feel inside me now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bookpal Australia
• Release date: Apr 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781742841175

Book preview

Book Dedication

I dedicate this book to Auntie Doris and Uncle Lindsay.

My love and sincere thanks goes to my husband of forty years, Will.

To you Alan and Darren I say thank you so much for your support through my highs and lows; your ears heard my cry for help in May 2000 and I love you both so much.

Darren: Winners do make it happen; your example of this is always evident as you continue to help others in so many ways.

To Helen; you are always there, whether far away or here with us, and to you I say thank you. You heard my cries for help on more than just a few occasions, and I love you.

Heather: You are beautiful. Every day and night I wear clothing that you have either altered for me, or created from our own design ideas. You are such an important part of my life and I walk tall most days thanks to you.

To my little mate Fleur who had to be put to sleep on 30th December 2010 as a result of a chip fracture to a thoracic vertebra after she was hit by a car during the very heavy rains which preceded the devastating floods in early January 2011; I say thank you. You were the best medicine I’ve ever purchased. Rest in peace our beautiful girl.

To my parents (Dad deceased 13th August 2010) and mum who is amazingly active and celebrated being eighty-four years young in April of 2011; I have treasured our closeness we’ve shared over recent years and I’ve always loved you.

What a journey it’s been for me. Whilst I’ve travelled my journey, of course each of my siblings have travelled their own; to each of you I say, I love you.

I do also dedicate this book to all those who are hurting; as you read this book, may you be inspired to act now and grab hold of your negative thoughts and behaviours which are causing your hurt and inflicting hurt on others. Grab hold of them; take control, and begin to switch them from negative to positive.

There is help available. You CAN do it!

In Love

Joan

* * * * *

Contents

Chapter 1: 1951 to 1961 Childhood

Chapter 2: 1961 Ten People, new house, And Little Joy

Chapter 3: 1962 Why was Learning Difficult?

Chapter 4: Hurt People Hurting Others

Chapter 5: Sexual Abuse and the Anger

Chapter 6: Love was A Real ‘Want’ In My Life

Chapter 7: The Country Property

Chapter 8: Marriage

Chapter 9: Fear Followed Me

Chapter 10: My First Pregnancy

Chapter 11: Gain Out-weighed More Hurt

Chapter 12: Now 2 Beautiful Sons Whom I Wanted to Hold

Chapter 13: New and Loving Parents

Chapter 14: Depression

Chapter 15: Queensland and our First Home

Chapter 16: More New Schools, Work and Friends

Chapter 17: Winners Make it Happen!

Chapter 18: My Giving Heart and Busyness was Depleted

Chapter 19: 22 Years of Service

Chapter 20: We Sleep Peacefully Each Night

Chapter 21: Materialistic Loss

Chapter 22: Decisions I Made

Chapter 23: Voices No More Hurt You’ve Done Wrong!

Chapter 24: Self-Harm You Did Wrong Joan

Chapter 25: I Want The Use of My Hand Back! Transfer-of-Tendon Surgery

Chapter 26: Radial Nerve Entrapped

Chapter 27: I Must Stay in Control

Chapter 28: Please Help me Find the Right Surgeon

Chapter 29: I Knew I’d Met The Right Surgeon

Chapter 30: When my Arm is Gone, the Pain Will be Gone!

Chapter 31: House Becoming Home

Chapter 32: Amputation Admission

Chapter 33: How Could I Have Prepared for Such a Loss?

Chapter 34: Discharge

Chapter 35: But I Have Always Loved You

Chapter 36: Fireman’s Helmet

Chapter 37: Peace Day

Chapter 38: I Will Try To Live On

Chapter 39: Day By Day I Really Tried

Chapter 40: I Will Write My Anger To Mum And Burn It

Chapter 41: No More Anti-Depressant Tablets

Chapter 42: I Continued Writing Day by Day

Chapter 43: We Sold Belongings and Then our Home

Chapter 44: Back With Will

Chapter 45: A Computer! I Will Write a Book

Chapter 46: Life and Growth, Day-by-Day

Chapter 47: Togetherness

Chapter 48: Day by Day Becomes Week to Week

Chapter 49: I Was Seeing a Glimpse of My Future

Chapter 50: I’d Made My 50th!

Chapter 51: I Have Direction---We Both Have Direction---And We’re Going the Same Way!

Chapter 52: My First Retreat

Chapter 53: My Second Retreat

Chapter 54: Companioning; An Honour to be Asked

Chapter 55: Love Connects Me to Beautiful People

Chapter 56: Preparing to go Overseas

Chapter 57: I Have to be Organized

Chapter 58: LOVE, not Fear

Chapter 59: Celebrations

Chapter 60: I Feel So Grateful Final Fittings

Chapter 61: Love, Family and Friends I Belong, you Belong, They Belong, we all Belong

* * * * *

Chapter 1

1951 to 1961

CHILDHOOD

Born in a hospital in the western suburbs of Melbourne, Australia on the tenth day of April 1951, I was given the name of Joan. My brother, born twenty-two months before me had meningitis as a baby and I know that this was a very concerning time for my parents. Mum would have devoted much of her time to his care. He had survived the illness and then I was born: a healthy baby with a lump in the middle of my right arm. At that time it wasn’t really known why this lump had appeared. It was removed when I was twelve-months old and a venous malformation in that arm was diagnosed. Actually, my medical history states that I had an arteriovenous cavernous haemangioma of the right arm.

You know, when all limbs and body parts are perfect at birth, we are very pleased and grateful and we don’t give too much more thought to the fact; but when something’s not right, then it is very concerning for the parents first, then the child as he or she begins to learn about the problem. I guess I began to learn about this problem around my first birthday when the first of some thirty operations was performed. How many times do you hear someone say, ‘If only I had known?’ Well, I wonder what help it would have been to have known ahead of time about the life that was ahead of me. What changes would it have made? What changes could or would I have made? Would it have benefited me? Would I be the person I am now if I hadn’t gone through my life’s experiences of hurts and enjoyments, lows and highs, black depression and mild depression, loss and further losses, to be here writing this book now in 2001 at the age of fifty? I know that so many others have experienced similar hurts to mine and we must all remember that a hurt is a hurt whether it is mine or yours or whether it belongs to the hurting individual at that time. ‘That time’ may be a short timeframe or it might be a longer timeframe; for some of us that timeframe is a lifetime. Each individual’s hurt is relevant to that person. There is no such thing as one person’s hurt being worse than someone else’s; whether a toothache or a loss of something or someone, it is your hurt at that time.

I am so pleased that my hurts have ceased destroying me now at the age of fifty. In writing this book I hope that you and others who are hurting and perhaps slowly destroying yourselves (and others) as I was, will be inspired to begin to make positive changes for a positive outcome. It is never too early or too late to make changes; and these days there is so much professional help available to you and me. So read on, because you’ll see how I never believed that I could do it: could be happy, stop my self-abuse in its many forms, be positive, feel I belonged, love myself, feel an equal, believe I am intelligent and so much more. Oh, and believe I am worthy of love and a worthwhile person. To be able to trust was a huge issue for me and to have a good relationship with my parents without anger involved—would that ever happen?

The next ten years of my life were spent in St Albans, about ten kilometres from the hospital where my mother had since given birth to another three girls who were then followed by two little brothers. Dad’s mental health was in a bad way. As I knew as an adolescent and as I know now, his childhood would have played a big part in conditioning his thinking, emotions and behaviours, but being in the Citizen Military Forces for just two months and then joining the Australian Imperial Force at the age of eighteen (serving from May 1943 to January 1947) would most certainly have affected him in many ways. His certificate of discharge states that he spent 901 days in Australia and 458 days outside Australia. Dad has never chosen to share much at all about this time in his life (the war) so I don’t know much, other than that I always heard Borneo mentioned and his certificate states that his trade was ‘Baker 13 Aust. Field Baking Platoon’.

As the ten-year-old big sister, I learned very quickly to protect and nurture my siblings. You see, I remember very few details about my first ten years: growing up in St Albans, going to school and having fun as a child. There didn’t seem to be much fun. I can now remember the outside of the house that we lived in after going back in my late teens to see where we grew up. I cannot remember at all what the inside of that house was like, yet I spent the first ten years of my life there. Why can’t I remember anything except a few incidents that happened outside of the home? That was a big part of my childhood.

Some of the things that I can recall happening are that Dad used to chop the heads off chooks in the back yard and he was amused by seeing these heads continue to jump around until the nerves stopped twitching. I didn’t like this at all, yet I can still see and hear him calling me to watch. I didn’t like it!

My dad was always cleaning up his shed. As a nine-year-old I recall having to help him move a trailer loaded with timber. Or did I offer? I understood my father to be at the front of this loaded trailer which was resting on the A-frame. Being keen to help him, I went around to the back and believing he was up the front, I pulled down with all my strength but was soon a very sorry little girl—Dad wasn’t ready and my legs were under the weight of the loaded trailer. Oh, by the way, Santa must have already been out shopping because I received a pogo stick for Christmas that year; so while I was hobbling on crutches, others were bouncing around on my gift. I also remember the time when I peddled off from home on my bicycle, only to hit a pothole in the road. Landing with my bottom lip on the open end of the handlebars caused a gash and the blood was plentiful. A few stitches were required and I still have the scar to remind me of that eventful bicycle ride. Another time, a German Shepherd in a neighbour’s yard broke his chain and attacked me, tearing a part of my back. This frightening experience resulted in a fear of dogs for many years to follow. These are not very good memories but that is all I recall.

Both my parents were born in Australia and we had grandparents on my father’s side who were living in the same suburb as us in a little one-bedroom home. I do know the importance of a sound relationship between grandparents and children. I also know that this bonding can be so strengthening and cherished if there is unconditional love on both sides. I also know that we adults/parents should allow children to enjoy going to visit grandparents. My memories of going to Grandma and Granddad’s place are of hearing Dad saying, ‘Take off your shoes and don’t dirty Grandma’s floor. Don’t touch the fruit trees, and if you are offered a biscuit, then take one and No More!’ When we were offered a biscuit we would always look to see if Dad was watching, hoping to sneak in two. Grandma was always on hands and knees polishing her vinyl floors with wax from a tin. The lounge room was out of bounds as there were too many nice things in there, and the chairs in the tiny dining area were of course never enough to seat us all but the floor was always nice and clean to sit on. The tiny kitchen with the old wood stove was situated at the entry to the back of the house. You never really knew if Grandma was home because being all of four feet and about eight inches or approximately 145 centimetres in height, she kept herself hidden pretty well.

My mother’s mum died from tuberculosis when Mum was only eight years of age: a very sad loss for a young girl. She has never spoken much about this but my heart has always felt her sadness and loss. Though no one can ever truly fill the shoes of your mother, her gran was there and took over the role of caring for her son and his four children: my mum, her brother and two sisters. My fond memories of her are that she was a very gentle great-grandmother but a strong and loving lady who always wore her apron over her dress and slippers on her feet. She always had her hair pinned up in a bun at the back of her head. In what was a good relationship, Mum delivered bread out to distant homesteads with her father. The Clydesdale pulled the cart carrying the bread. Mum carried a cane basket in which she placed the loaves and walked on up to the homes, one by one. Then she’d be off to school after that. She talks fondly of those days and how the horse would plod on along the road or track while Mum and her dad were dropping off an order and he’d be there, waiting and ready for the delivery of the next loaf or loaves of bread.

Mum’s father we called Gay, and as kids we never ever gave another thought to that name until our teenage years when suddenly this had another meaning. We only ever knew him as Gay, and he was a nice old man who I can remember came to share Christmas dinner with us when we moved house and suburb in 1961. A very important auntie and uncle lived in my mother’s family home in St Albans and cared for Gran and Gay. As you read on later, you will see that these people played a very important role in my life.

Where are the good memories about St Albans? I don’t have many, not to say that they didn’t happen but I do wish I could have experienced and remembered them over the many bad memories of stress, tension, arguments between parents, and the tension starting to grow between siblings. If I could see and feel good memories it would mean that I would have had a happier heart. Where did the first ten years of my life go? What happened and why can’t I remember them?

As I look back now, I appreciate having parents, a home with food on the table, grandparents to visit and siblings to care for and enjoy. I also appreciate my schooling and an education; and I was very fortunate to have my great-grandmother (Gran) for a short period of my life. I am also grateful for my auntie and uncle whom I will mention as you read on, who gave me the stability and ability to trust and understand that I felt I never had at home and which was only to get worse from the time we moved house in 1961.

This is a very short chapter of my life to write about but ten years of living has to come to more than this. I feel that it would be great if I could remember my first years of going to school, having fun and bonding with my parents, brothers and sisters.

* * * * *

Chapter 2

1961

TEN PEOPLE, new house, AND LITTLE JOY

During 1961 our family moved into a two-bedroom home in the suburb in which I was born. I do remember the delight I felt when my youngest brother was born in May of that year. Dad had done very well financially to have eight children and be buying this second house. He had sold the property in St Albans and could see the potential in adding on to and renovating this house to accommodate our now-large family.

Being a shift worker, we knew to be quiet because Dad was sleeping at different times of the day and night. This was a very hard task for eight children in a small house to master. We spent a lot of time with our fingers to our lips saying, ‘Shh.’

This residential area in the western suburbs of Melbourne was and still is a multicultural community consisting of many families from Malta, Italy, Greece and more. We were the only Australian-born family in our street and most of our local shops were owned and run by these Southern European people. Many of the men spent long hours drinking coffee, smoking, playing cards and chatting at the many tables which were crowded into a couple of these businesses. I grew up with these people and their cultures. They were friendly and polite people who would stop for a chat as I walked by their homes. I recall being welcomed into the homes of a few of these neighbours.

My feeling is that those who never took the time to communicate and accept our differences always called these people ‘wogs’. We had so much to learn from them whilst they were learning from us. Isn’t it still the same now with our Asian cultures and many other immigrant communities who are integrating and playing their part in making what I see to be a multicultural and richer Australia?

We all have such a lot to teach each other and I do remember how these people would help out their family members by all living in one home together whilst they built another for the family to move into. The experience of different foods and wines were then, and still are, always adding variety and more choices, making eating out or dining at home very interesting and enjoyable to say the least. Wines just seemed to be a part of a family meal so a little glass was often offered when visiting a friend’s home.

Well, there were parents, four boys and four girls, double-bunk beds to save on the little room there was and an outside toilet. I remember the ‘dunny-can man’ as we called him back then: he used to come in a stinky truck with the strong smell of a memorable disinfectant called phenyl. Phenyl had an easily-identifiable perfume all its own which lingered long after the truck and its contents had left. As the dunny-can man went from house to house he would soon be at our place where he would pull out an empty can from one of the many doors in his truck, carry it up the driveway and step through the timber latticework door which was a part of the big gates that fenced that side of the yard. Off he'd go, down the backyard and around to the lift-up door at the back of the toilet building. He would then pull out the full can, heave it up onto his shoulder after sliding the somewhat-fresh empty one in and down the driveway he’d go, usually to an opened larger gate so that he didn’t have to bend over. Then he would gently slide the full one into the truck without any spillage (most of the time). I do remember hearing some words coming from the dunny-can man on occasions when he was forced to bend or crouch as he made his exit through the small door within the large gate. These men always seemed to wear hats and gloves. I wonder why?

I cannot remember how long it was before Dad put in two flush toilets. By this time we had a four-bedroom home. Dad had built two adjoining bedrooms on to the back of the house for the four girls, leaving four boys in a bedroom inside and of course my parent’s room next to them. So we girls and Mum of course, got our own toilet near our bedrooms while the other one was down the yard near the clothesline for the boys and Dad.

I would have been in grade five at primary school when we moved into this house. That’s what I remember of this year and I vaguely recall what this new house looked like inside when we first moved in. There was not much room and so Dad started knocking out walls and moving things around to make it a more suitable place in which to live. The exterior of the house was made of timber weatherboards: a neat-looking home in which Dad could obviously see the potential to build and renovate to give us more room. This was now proving to be a good decision that he had made.

He was a very capable man with building and renovating. When he wasn’t at his place of employment he was either working on our family home or on someone else’s, always making an extra dollar to keep us all. I cannot ever remember Mum going out to work; having eight children to wash, clean and care for wouldn’t leave time for much else. Most of the time she either had her own car or the use of Dad’s. I remember them having a Vanguard each and it was when the vanguards were sold, I think Dad began purchasing Ford vehicles. Now in his late seventies, he has a Holden Commodore.

I remember the old wringer washing machine that worked overtime. I see the clothesline, which was full most of the time. I can still see the cake or biscuit cupboard where Mum always had her cooking stored in tins that we would love to get into whenever possible, and I loved to scrape the bowl out when some biscuit or cake mixture was left in the bottom. The taste of this sweet, creamy mix was always a temptation. We would often dip our fingers into the bowl when Mum wasn’t looking, scoop up some mixture and put it into our mouths with a quick swallow, discretely wipe our fingers on our clothes and pretend it never happened. I’m sure that this is where my love of cake came from. To this day I love to go and have a coffee and with that comes a piece of cake or a slice - of course.

Mum always had our meals cooked and I remember an egg-and-bacon pie that was so yummy. Our home was always clean and tidy. We had a ‘jobs roster’, and we made sure that our own jobs were always done—well, just like any children, we would certainly get out of jobs when we could.

I remember hearing, ‘Where’s Michelle?’

There was a reply of, ‘I’m on the toilet.’

Then you’d hear, ‘Mum, she always goes to the toilet when it’s her turn to dry up!’

So, the jobs roster wasn’t always fair in our eyes but I guess we would all get out of our jobs when we could.

Dad always had jam-drop biscuits in his lunch and I could never understand why he usually wanted jam sandwiches, or for variety he would have cheese and jam, packed to enjoy at work.

He also loved vanilla slices as a treat (pastry slices with a thick custard in-between) and I would delight in telling him whilst he was eating, that it was a snot block!

‘What, snot, eat it while it’s hot. I’m not greedy, you can have the lot!’ I would love to say this. I don’t know where the ‘hot’ came from as they were always eaten cold and I actually liked them too. Horrible child wasn’t I, to say that while Dad was really enjoying his treat? I just thought as I wrote this that maybe this was one way I felt I could get back at Dad for the many hurtful things he’d say and do. When either Mum or Dad made these vanilla slices at home, Sao biscuits were used instead of pastry with the custard between and vanilla icing on top. Yum!

I remember the bag that Dad took to work and can still see him carrying it. Made of brown leather, it opened at the top with a push-in clip to undo and had a little handle with which to carry it. This was called a Gladstone bag if my memory is correct.

Coming in from school, I recall having dripping (meat fat left to set) on bread and when the tomato sauce was there, we spread it on top: a wonderfully healthy snack, high to very high in fat content. There were no ninety-nine percent fat-free products then.

The fruit and vegetable man came in his truck; he was a nice man. I remember him entering his truck from the rear where he weighed up Mum’s order and always had his pencil tucked over his ear, ready to tally up the total to be paid.

The paper was delivered daily and Mum used to go down and pay the bill weekly at the newsagency where we often saw Mr Teddy Whitten, as his was a family-owned business, I believe. Mum always supported the Footscray Football Club (VFL, Victorian Football League), now the Western Bulldogs (AFL, Australian Football League), and Teddy was an integral part of that team and the game of football back then. Yes, Mum always had her football and still does. It would take something pretty important to stop her being at a Doggies game with the cheer squad, her granddaughter and all. In the football season she was at a game most Saturdays, come rain, hail or shine.

* * * * *

Chapter 3

1962

"WHY WAS LEARNING

DIFFICULT?"

It is in the year of 1962 that my first memories of school start and it was with Mr Dunstan as my teacher in grade six. He was a tall man and a very strict but approachable teacher. I remember the mornings and how we had to either line up out the front of the class to have our shoes checked or Mr. Dunstan would check us as we entered the classroom. We knew to always have our shoes polished and I was very particular about mine; but one classmate that I recall was always sent out to clean his and then punished by way of extra homework for not having done them at home. Some of us just never learn though, because I can just see Andrew with his head down, heading out to return with shining shoes. Or maybe he just never had any polish at home.

We also received a little bottle of milk for morning tea and if this was actually cold when we got it, then we were so thrilled. Warm milk was usually what we got though, and if the crows got to it first then we didn’t get any. They would peck through the foil tops; mind you, I don’t know where the teacher on schoolyard duties was. You would think that he or she could have cared for our milk a little better. It was fun to wash the foil tops and thread string or wool through the centres and watch them twirl in the wind, rattling as the wind got stronger and the twirl became faster.

We always stood up and said our mathematical tables from 1 × 1 = 1 to 12 × 12 = 144. Repetition was the way we learned and it seemed so easy to just stand up and allow this stored information to be released. As I wrote that last sentence, the realization came to me that repetition learning is something that stays for life, not just in a subject such as arithmetic. I am able to see this because I have repeated many habits, both good and bad. I have relived the bad experiences over and over, both in my mind and through talking about them with many people over a number of years. How many people have I told the hurt, lonely, fearful and unresolved story of my past to? How many times when I believed I couldn’t cope with sorting out my feelings and that someone else had the answers for me, did I run, looking for help? Far too many times, is the answer. But my life has been one big learning experience and as we go through this book you will see how it has taken the best part of fifty years to allow me to see that I HAD ALL THE ANSWERS INSIDE ME!

Basic Mathematics and English were the subjects that I felt competent at; I have always enjoyed learning the English language and grammar. I also enjoyed playing rounders (a sport using a bat similar to that used in cricket but half the size and played in a similar way to softball). Then there was basketball, which I loved as I felt I was good at it. Other than these there wasn’t much at all that I enjoyed about school and grade six. I don’t remember having a special friend as such but I do remember liking a boy in our class who I thought was cute.

I also have very clear vision of sobbing as I left my little brother Colin (the eldest of three younger boys) at his first day at school and feeling so sorry for him going out into that big lonely world. That was the feeling I had in me and I would have been thinking, I hope nobody hurts him. I want him to stay safe. He was always so quiet and I knew him as a loner because that was how Mum and Dad described him. I wonder now if he too would have been able to feel safe, secure and as though he belonged, if we were not so accustomed to the arguments and verbal abuse that constantly went on in our family home. There was physical abuse too and we lived in constant fear of the strap that was kept in the kitchen and was used too frequently as other siblings listened in from outside the closed door to the bedroom across from the kitchen, where our loved ones were not being merely punished but humiliated and belittled.

There was a loss of self-worth and anger building inside of the one or ones being belted (usually one of the boys, with pants down over the bed) but also for those listening and wanting to stop my father. I kept filling up with anger, frustration and a sense of absolute loss and confusion about who I was and why I was. I hated hearing this abuse behind closed doors; I cried for my brothers. I wonder now if this was Dad’s way of releasing his frustrations and overall not coping with being a father to eight, a husband, a brother, a son, a friend and a comrade who had returned from the war when others had not. His scars were deep. And the flow-on effects were obvious to me already.

By now, I was well aware that my father had been overseas in World War II, but as I said earlier, he never discussed this with us. We were just told by him that he would not talk about it. Photographs of him in army uniform hung in the lounge. I knew that the war was a horrible thing and that it must have been an awful experience to have gone through. I knew it must have affected Dad badly.

Then he spent time in a ‘Nut-House’ as he called it. I do remember as a small child, walking along Mum’s side as she pushed the pram (other children being there), going to visit Dad in the nut house. I now know of this type of institution as a mental or psychiatric hospital and a place where many people need to spend some time receiving medical and psychological help for whatever length of time is required. It does not mean that all the people in there are nuts, which to a child is pretty scary.

Dad only told me recently at the age of seventy-nine how he spent some seven months in there. I never knew how long he was in this place but I had remembered for many years him telling me how he gave thanks then and still does give thanks for a man by the name of Mr Swan who called him aside in there one day and said, ‘You went to war to fight, son, didn’t you?’

Dad said, ‘Yes.’

Mr. Swan responded by saying, ‘Well, life is like that. Go out and do it. I believe in you.’

And Dad said to me, ‘I did, Joan!’ He made a choice. Perhaps the use of the word ‘fight’ wasn’t the best but Dad knew what he meant.

I recall being given a koala bear that Dad made for me whilst in that nut house and because of the emotions attached to it I did not keep it once I left home. Wouldn’t it have been different if the whole event was explained to us; if someone said, ‘Daddy isn’t well; he will get better and be home soon?’

Who was Daddy? Who was Mummy? I don’t remember those words or names being used in our home. It was always Dad referring to Mum as ‘ya mother’ or just ‘Mother.’ Mum would usually refer to Dad as ‘your father.’ Memories of all this are ones of loss, confusion and fear of something that just seemed to be another part of a life in which I was behaving like an adult whilst I tried so hard to understand why all this was happening.

Dad always had his ‘pill bag’ and took sleeping tablets and/or other medications for this and that. Mum would always say that she wanted to get to talk to his doctor because she didn’t think that he had all the problems which Dad seemed convinced he did. Dad never seemed to allow Mum to be included in his medical matters. Taking the amount of tablets and medications that he did made him a very cranky person first thing after waking up, and we knew to keep out of his way. We were often told that he couldn’t sleep because of us kids. ‘Couldn’t you keep them quiet?’ we would hear him say to Mum.

I remember talking to my dear aunt and uncle. They could then (and my aunt still does now) see so much of what was happening in our home and they too were frustrated at the stubbornness of my parents who just couldn’t get it right in their relationship. They too, loved and cared about my mum and dad, just as I did. I know to this day that it is thanks to you, my dear Auntie Doris and Uncle Lindsay that I didn’t go into the drug scene or prostitution. My uncle has been my strength since a young age, and he is now my higher being who still gives me strength and guidance since his death in May of 1992. I have previously and on many occasions thanked you both; but it is now my opportunity to say, thank you Auntie Doris and Uncle Lindsay from the bottom of not just my heart but from my gut that tells me just how dear you are to me still. My auntie does still have an aura of love and understanding surrounding her always; and I see her on my visits to Melbourne twice a year. You are two beautiful people.

* * * * *

Chapter 4

"HURT PEOPLE HURTING

OTHERS"

The hurt went on constantly between our parents, with the use of such negative and put-down words and statements to each other. Then there was the pulling of us children between these two who could only see the faults in each other. Then out of habit they insisted on putting each other down to us so much, that more confusion set into our heads, our hearts and our guts.

You see, as children we just expect love, warmth, security, peace and understanding. We need to be able to trust. We like to feel safe and sleep peacefully at night. A child is not educated on how to handle his or her parents who either don’t love each other, or if they do, certainly don’t know how to show it. They just continue to speak so rudely and hurtfully to each other, all or most of the time. Fancy being robbed of a childhood after your parents produced you. Your mother went to the trouble of carrying you for nine months and then experienced the joyous birthing of ‘her/their child’. That child didn’t have a say in whether she or he came into this world, and then he or she is deprived of the security that normally derives from healthy touch, hugs, comforting words and the love that brings security and warmth, trust and most of all, the chance to know these feelings and emotions through the examples shown by his or her parents. I used to think, Wow! Is this love? How come my parents fight all the time? I also wonder how big a part jealousy plays between parents and how often a child suffers the effects of this jealousy.

I had a mum and a dad but always wanted a mum and dad. Something was missing. I know now how that want, that longing for what the child in me never got manifested and took over as a real loss.

Dad was always busy or just didn’t want to sit inside in the lounge with us kids. Or was it Mum that he didn’t want to sit with? Was it triggers that he’d see on the television that would upset him? Whichever way, whatever his reasons, he was never there. He was either actually working (which he did a lot of—he provided well in that area) or he was out in his shed. He never sat inside with us; actually, we never saw him sit or stop much at all. Was this busyness one of his coping mechanisms and was it really working? Who knows? This is where we need to look at the whole picture because for each gain, there seemed to be loss and losses.

I wanted so much to change things, to change my mum and dad so that they could firstly stop all the hurting of us kids. But I also wanted them to see that there was a happier way for them to live; that they were wasting their lives. I believed as a child that my mum and dad could be happy. How many children have this want, this real desire to fix it? How many children feel it’s their fault in some way?

I began about then, at the end of primary school and nearly twelve years of age, to really take on a protective role towards my siblings. This role went on for many years until the age of fifteen; really until they had all left home, even though I wasn’t always there.

The desire to help my parents change didn’t stop as I gathered information on their childhoods and tried to understand more of why they were like they were. I guess I was trying to excuse them, trying to maybe find some ways that I could forgive them and have the mum and dad that I wanted. When I could, I went to counselling. This was probably through the church or something similar; but I was told that I couldn’t change my parents. I remember one lady telling me that the best I could do was to get my pillow and ‘bash the shit out of it’ to help me get rid of my anger and frustration. It was good to have someone just listen to me although of course I only told them what I felt safe telling them.

One of my biggest frustrations over the next five years was hearing my father say to me, ‘You will never understand.’ He would often add ‘girlie’ to that which was a real put-down to me because I felt that I really wanted to help everyone and just stop all this hurt; but I was not being heard. I was so tired of it all! I did understand such a lot. I would cry myself to sleep on many nights, often under the blankets so that my sisters wouldn’t hear me. I cried for all of us.

Well, 1963 was my first year at Technical School and we were placed in forms 1A, 1B, 1C, and so on, depending on the level of your grades. I was in 1C and I remember how much I enjoyed English, Cookery, Dressmaking and Art. As for Mathematics, Science and History, I hated them and felt like a complete dummy in these subjects. My concentration span was very limited and I always wanted to do well but just couldn’t get into the subjects where I felt dumb. The fear of even going into the mathematics classes is still so real to me, even though I felt I had a good grasp of basic mathematics. I never felt that I was as good as my peers and that strong feeling of not-belonging grew stronger from there.

In my first year of secondary school I had a second lot of surgery on my right arm to remove a ‘lump’ as I knew it then. This lump was up higher than the first and about three centimetres in diameter. I remember feeling the knife cutting into me as the local anaesthetic wore off. That is an awful thing to experience.

Oh, I just remembered, there was also