Down From The Attic: Journey from Trauma to Awakening

By Daryll Mitchell

‘Down from the attic’ is a symbolism in my life, from hiding my guitar in the attic when young, and my guitar playing coming into the light. From things only in my head coming into manifestation.
‘Down from the attic’ is getting out of your head. Getting out of being enclosed within the four walls of your thinking. Coming down from the attic is getting into our body and into self-awareness, into gratitude and into being in nature.
After three dads, two marriages, and witnessing the death of a friend in 2021, losing four other friends in 2021/2022, living through the longest lockdowns in the world in Melbourne as a result of the pandemic, missing family, while going through a marriage separation, one could expect some levels of stress, hardship and loneliness.
This is a book of insights, part biographical, part spiritual guide and how I am sane, happy and healthy.

Former Principal of Renascent College of natural therapies, guitarist/songwriter, motorcycle enthusiast, photographer, and vegetarian.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781471689567

Book preview

The beginning

I don’t remember being born although I certainly remember being young. In fact, I remember standing in my cot as a very young child and have faint memories of the different houses we lived in before moving away from my birthplace in Gladstone, QLD.

I was born in 1955, a very simple time compared to now. I remember being able to walk a mile or two to primary school when I was in grade two, taking my brother without any hesitation and without any concern from our mum, well at least I wasn’t aware of any. Things were very quiet in Gladstone, QLD and walking to school was a very simple matter, and most of the time I don’t recall seeing many other people on the way. The memory I have of standing in a cot was in a funny little place that wasn’t very big, and maybe it was a flat. I don’t quite remember, but the strongest memories I have as a young child we’re living in Harbour Terrace in Gladstone, which had a view over the sea. It was a two-bedroom house with a small kitchen and dining room and sloping backyard that had a tennis court that was overgrown.

My brother and I used to come flying down the hill in a little, tiny, metal, pedal toy car, much to the horror of our Mother. She would hear the screams of joy and often wait for the crash and invariably now and then we would end up on the ground. But we thought we were tough, dressed in our cowboy outfits and ready to take on the world.

Our days were filled with play, as much as we could because the only entertainment we had generally was outdoors, so if we weren’t flying down the hill we were climbing trees or chasing each other or running around getting into mischief. Obviously, many years go past when you’re a young child, but for me I don’t have memories of each and every year, I just have faint recollections of times here and there. Lots of them but none of them seem sequential.

My mum and dad for whatever reasons separated or had difficulty in their relationship. Mum told me that my father liked to drink, liked to party and liked to get around town with the boys and potentially with other women. My father was a musician, played saxophone and clarinet and played in one of the local big bands. He was a charming, handsome man and was very talented, and an excellent dancer as well. I recall moving to our grandparent’s house in Hunter Street up on the very top of a hill in Gladstone, and what seemed a massive backyard with roses and vegetables, a chook house, and a large Poinciana tree that my brother and I used to climb. I still recall my grandmother attacking a snake with a Dutch hoe, because it was outside the window in her strawberry patch. Gran was not tall but obviously tenacious and no snake stood a chance when she had her Dutch hoe in hand.

I still recall with horror my grandfather chopping the head off a chicken and then I watched it run around the backyard. I couldn’t believe that a chicken could still be running around without a head. My grandfather used to snore very loudly and this beautiful little house had three bedrooms, and even as a young child I still recall that my grandfather and grandmother slept in different rooms, because Pop would raise the roof when he was asleep. I used to love living and visiting this house and later when I was a young adult I went back to visit. I had great memories and great recollections, although probably wasn't greatly aware of the reasons why my mother and Father were separated, and at the time I had many concerns but I don’t seem to recall what they were now.

I know I looked forward to my dad coming and taking me out for a drive and often he would sit me on his knee and let me steer his Zephyr. I was reminded as an adult by my mother that apparently many times my father would decide, and then simply just not turn up. I don’t recall this and I guess in many ways as we unfold our understandings of trauma and loss and separation and abandonment in modern times, we come to understand how if something is traumatic, a lot of the time it is hidden away in the brain, because of the fact that it is too painful to think about or deal with.

Moving away from Gladstone to live in Townsville in far north QLD was a very brave move by my mum when I look back at it now. She had a tiny little Ford Escort and the roads weren't very good and the drive was very long. I remember at one point something happened and we ran off the road into a paddock, narrowly missing trees. I don’t know how this happened or why it happened, but I remember that I burst into tears, and when I recall that memory I think it was fairly evident that I must have been on the edge by the separation of my mum and Dad. Driving to a town away from where our friends, Grandmother and Grandfather, cousins, Auntie and Uncle were, and having a near miss in terms of a road accident obviously brought me crashing down at the time.

It amazes me that we have key memories in our life, some that are traumatic and some more joyous. Probably the brain wants to remember the good things, that makes sense, and put away the things that aren't pleasant. We don't have the skills to deal with it as a young child, and I certainly didn’t.

Starting a life in Townsville was a very odd thing to do and I don’t recall how we integrated. I just know that we moved into a little flat above another flat and went to Mundingburra State School. I still remember how difficult it was moving to a bigger city, starting from scratch and going in to school on that first day, and in many ways, I have felt in my life that I have been a stranger in a strange land over and over again. I know people in my life who are born and bred and grow up and live and die in the same place. Not me, I seemed to be the nomad. I have lived all over the place and feel in many ways that I don’t have roots, and make my home wherever I am. The longest I have been anywhere is in my time here in Melbourne.

Growing up in Townsville was difficult, it didn't seem to have the heart and soul and certainly family connections and love and support that I felt with my relatives and friends in Gladstone. Townsville was and is a major centre for the military, a massive Army base, Air Force Base and Navy base. My view on Townsville was that it was full of army guys, aboriginals and hardworking basic Australian blokes. No room for a sensitive, artistic, heartbroken and confused young man. As a young person growing up in Townsville we were very much at the dictate of authority, the expectations of culture and the morality of the church and society. In the 1950s and 1960s it certainly was not a progressive time in north QLD, not a time where people could speak out or have radical ideas and indeed no great social change.

I remember many times being at odds with people at school and found certainly when I went to high school at Heatley State High, being in the first class in 1968, was a difficult time. The classrooms were still being built. I remember the painters were still outside working when we were in class, and that when I moved to the new wing in grade nine, they were still finishing it. I always felt that the school was being completed as I was going through my different years there. We had different Principals, different Vice Principals and Heatley State High in many ways was a fairly rough school. It seemed to be a place where the disenfranchised and the no-hopers would end up, although of course in amongst that there were some lovely people, some very intelligent people, some hardworking people.

I recall a lot of times having to defend myself, learn how to fight, and many times stick up for my brother or others who were being victimised by bullies. My time at school was an emotional drain, a difficult time, a time where I needed desperately to be loved and cared for, and didn’t feel in my family life that that occurred at all. The truth was that both of our parents (Mum and step-dad) worked hard to earn a living to support us.

As I talk about the high school it was at this time in my life that my mother, my step-father who was ex S.A.S., my brother and myself moved into a new house in around 1967 in the suburb of Cranbrook. In the greater area of Aitkenvale in Townsville. At this time of course in 1968 I was attending the first class at Heatley State High. My time in these teen years