Counselling, then and now
Without Prejudice
He's the same man that I saw 24 years ago. He knew me and that I had seen him and his partner, a woman, when I was at the end of the world. Ready to jump off the edge and not understanding why I was seeing this gentle couple who talked to me of pain and grief and processes.
I hated the world then, hated its emptiness, I felt scoured on the inside, empty, dead, inert. I wanted to sleep and sleep and wake up in a normal world and not this strange nuclear wasteland I was forced to live in. Even as I slept I knew it was true, the horror could reach inside my sleeping brain. Never being able to escape, the fact.
I wished then I drank or took drugs. I wanted to block out this horrible fact, cry, beg, fall on my knees before a God I didn't believe in. My Mother had lost her faith when Jamie died. I never saw her cry. Not once. I saw Dad cry, it was terrifying. My world had stopped at 5 and with a wisdom beyond my years I knew the dead are dead and they don't come back.
They sent us away with a teacher then, up to the Adelaide Hills. Little kids that not only lost their brother but Mum and Dad as well. 3 months we were there. Up in those hills of cool green. I barely remember it except for the fact the lady we stayed with smacked me. I had never been smacked in my life. God did Mum tear strips off her when she found out.
I didn't remember him at all. He could have been a complete stranger and not a man that I had spent session after session with. It's such a blur. But that's ok. The brain sends down a curtain of softness to blur and coat the full impact. Thank God for that curtain. When the real pain comes, uncovered, it is more than you can bear. The "Monster", I call it.
We talked and he remade my history from then to now. I told him I asked my violent husband to leave 5 months after my 1st counselling session. It was so easy to do after counselling and so hard before. I barely remembered the man seated before me in his happy blue sneakers and green printed socks. And yet he had changed my life with a few short words then. They were
"Why do you feel sorry for everyone else?"
"why don't you feel sorry for yourself, he's a grown man and he doesn't seem to feel sorry for you"
Those words would change my life and break me free from the past and on to a better future and I am so grateful to him, but I still don't recognise one thing about him.
I have come today to try and understand why after all these years I still hate men. I don't want to hate them, I just do. I mean loathe them with a lip curling disgust. And the abuse that I don't want to talk about. We quickly get through my history, married 20 years, no, I don't see him, haven't in forever and I let out the fact I never ever missed him.
Then I was engaged to N for 10 and was madly in love with him, he that was 12 years younger but he loved the alcohol more and was honest enough to admit it in the end. I have no regrets at all over N. and I did miss him. He wasn't physically abusive but of course alcohol is another abuse and I felt that I could somehow "fix" him.
He didn't want to be "fixed" but in so many ways was so good for me. He loved me and wasn't ashamed to show it. We were dizzying in love. He called me " The Darling". He cooked for me and healed me. He gave me back my self esteem, he adored and worshipped me, he thought any word that came out of my mouth was a pearl of wisdom.
I had to let him go in the end, my perfectionism would never allow again a man with a "problem".
But I will never forget him.
I was at the petrol station a few weeks ago, feeling very chuffed with myself for having new tyres put on my little old Corolla. A man looked over at me and as ever I studiously ignored him. Since I've lost all this weight men do this. Before that I was completely invisible and if they didn't admire me then why should I let them admire me now?
But this man leaned towards me almost too fervently and said two words,
Thomas Neville.
He also said,
"You don't remember me, do you ?"
I had to agree. I am singularly unobservant about other people.
"Liam", he said, " I put in your bathroom fan when you and N had the house in Noble Park North"
Then I knew, well I still didn't recognise him one bit but I knew the name and the "Oirishness" of him. I remembered he was a lovely man. An electrician, lovely wife and family. That N and him and Decco had all been boyhood friends in Palmerstown, Dublin. Played soccer in the streets as lads and called it kick a boot. All training to be the next George Best.
Then it was just like the scene from the Dan Fogelberg song,
"Same old Lang Syne"
But I wasn't talking to my old lover and it wasn't snowing. I was talking to his old friend and it was hot, the hot Tarmac of the petrol station in Dandenong South. I knew N was married, a nice girl. Last year. I was delighted for him.
Liam and I spoke of N and reminisced and said goodbye after exchanging numbers.
N gave me his old car when we parted. I had always coveted it. It was an old Bluebird station wagon. I had named it Cedric after one of my old bosses when I worked in credit. And the fact that I was still doing up an old car and bumping into Liam made for plenty of thought as I drove home. It seemed almost surreal.
He's the same man that I saw 24 years ago. He knew me and that I had seen him and his partner, a woman, when I was at the end of the world. Ready to jump off the edge and not understanding why I was seeing this gentle couple who talked to me of pain and grief and processes.
I hated the world then, hated its emptiness, I felt scoured on the inside, empty, dead, inert. I wanted to sleep and sleep and wake up in a normal world and not this strange nuclear wasteland I was forced to live in. Even as I slept I knew it was true, the horror could reach inside my sleeping brain. Never being able to escape, the fact.
I wished then I drank or took drugs. I wanted to block out this horrible fact, cry, beg, fall on my knees before a God I didn't believe in. My Mother had lost her faith when Jamie died. I never saw her cry. Not once. I saw Dad cry, it was terrifying. My world had stopped at 5 and with a wisdom beyond my years I knew the dead are dead and they don't come back.
They sent us away with a teacher then, up to the Adelaide Hills. Little kids that not only lost their brother but Mum and Dad as well. 3 months we were there. Up in those hills of cool green. I barely remember it except for the fact the lady we stayed with smacked me. I had never been smacked in my life. God did Mum tear strips off her when she found out.
I didn't remember him at all. He could have been a complete stranger and not a man that I had spent session after session with. It's such a blur. But that's ok. The brain sends down a curtain of softness to blur and coat the full impact. Thank God for that curtain. When the real pain comes, uncovered, it is more than you can bear. The "Monster", I call it.
We talked and he remade my history from then to now. I told him I asked my violent husband to leave 5 months after my 1st counselling session. It was so easy to do after counselling and so hard before. I barely remembered the man seated before me in his happy blue sneakers and green printed socks. And yet he had changed my life with a few short words then. They were
"Why do you feel sorry for everyone else?"
"why don't you feel sorry for yourself, he's a grown man and he doesn't seem to feel sorry for you"
Those words would change my life and break me free from the past and on to a better future and I am so grateful to him, but I still don't recognise one thing about him.
I have come today to try and understand why after all these years I still hate men. I don't want to hate them, I just do. I mean loathe them with a lip curling disgust. And the abuse that I don't want to talk about. We quickly get through my history, married 20 years, no, I don't see him, haven't in forever and I let out the fact I never ever missed him.
Then I was engaged to N for 10 and was madly in love with him, he that was 12 years younger but he loved the alcohol more and was honest enough to admit it in the end. I have no regrets at all over N. and I did miss him. He wasn't physically abusive but of course alcohol is another abuse and I felt that I could somehow "fix" him.
He didn't want to be "fixed" but in so many ways was so good for me. He loved me and wasn't ashamed to show it. We were dizzying in love. He called me " The Darling". He cooked for me and healed me. He gave me back my self esteem, he adored and worshipped me, he thought any word that came out of my mouth was a pearl of wisdom.
I had to let him go in the end, my perfectionism would never allow again a man with a "problem".
But I will never forget him.
I was at the petrol station a few weeks ago, feeling very chuffed with myself for having new tyres put on my little old Corolla. A man looked over at me and as ever I studiously ignored him. Since I've lost all this weight men do this. Before that I was completely invisible and if they didn't admire me then why should I let them admire me now?
But this man leaned towards me almost too fervently and said two words,
Thomas Neville.
He also said,
"You don't remember me, do you ?"
I had to agree. I am singularly unobservant about other people.
"Liam", he said, " I put in your bathroom fan when you and N had the house in Noble Park North"
Then I knew, well I still didn't recognise him one bit but I knew the name and the "Oirishness" of him. I remembered he was a lovely man. An electrician, lovely wife and family. That N and him and Decco had all been boyhood friends in Palmerstown, Dublin. Played soccer in the streets as lads and called it kick a boot. All training to be the next George Best.
Then it was just like the scene from the Dan Fogelberg song,
"Same old Lang Syne"
But I wasn't talking to my old lover and it wasn't snowing. I was talking to his old friend and it was hot, the hot Tarmac of the petrol station in Dandenong South. I knew N was married, a nice girl. Last year. I was delighted for him.
Liam and I spoke of N and reminisced and said goodbye after exchanging numbers.
N gave me his old car when we parted. I had always coveted it. It was an old Bluebird station wagon. I had named it Cedric after one of my old bosses when I worked in credit. And the fact that I was still doing up an old car and bumping into Liam made for plenty of thought as I drove home. It seemed almost surreal.
