Nowadays it is better understood that it’s wise to give teenagers a bit of slack – a moratorium on their behaviour, to some extent, since their sulky contrariness usually serves an important purpose in their development. But my parents had grown up in a far more conservative society, and I suppose they didn’t know how to handle me.
I blossomed into a slim, peroxide-blonde babe with the deep tan all SCEGGS girls aspired to. ‘You look quite Negroid,’ said my mother when she saw me sunning myself in the back garden. ‘It’s most unattractive.’ I suppose her early days as a white colonial child in a country populated by dark-skinned people had instilled deep prejudice.
I liked to wear my naturally wavy hair straight, but we did not have hair straighteners in those days, so I managed to contort my body sufficiently to lay my hair on an ironing board, cover it with a cloth, and steam it with the iron. Now I marvel at the hand–eye co-ordination that required – although I did burn my arm from time to time. But my breasts were not co-operating; they remained small and bud-like. I stuffed my bikini top with rolled-up school socks, but going in the surf with such poorly improvised augmentation led to an excessive amount of water-retention, shape-distortion and subsequent embarrassment. Sadly, the invention of the Wonderbra was a good few years away.
I was still a virgin at this point. I was fairly ignorant about sex, but I had an inkling that it might be the route to my desired destruction, so when I met a 35-year-old heroin junkie who lured me into his flat, I put up little resistance. It was a horrible, painful experience, out of which I got nothing but glandular fever and gonorrhoea. I suppose it was rape. What was the age of consent back then? I don’t even know. I don’t want to know. It was just terrible, but I thought I deserved it, and worse. I told no one, but when I became dreadfully ill our family doctor informed my parents of the truth about my ailments. I gave no excuse. My father came to me as I lay sick in bed. ‘You were supposed to keep yourself clean until marriage,’ he said, with such cold fury I could barely take it in. ‘You are no longer my daughter.’
Without further discussion, my parents kicked me out of the house.
(Long silence.)
What was that like for you?
I remember the feeling very well, because I still experience it every time someone rejects me, even in some relatively small way . . . You’d think after all these years, all this work I’ve done, that I’d handle it better . . .
Oh, it takes as long as it takes. Tell me, in your mind is there a relationship between ageing and rejection?
(Extremely pregnant silence.)
Oh my God . . . that’s it! Why didn’t I think of that? Since our society is rather negative about people in middle age and beyond, the better, the younger I look, the more likely I am to avoid the pain of being rejected on the basis of my age. And, since rejection is terrifyingly painful for me, of COURSE I’m going to do everything I can to appear youthful!
Good God, doctor, you’re brilliant.
Chapter Four
THE DEVIL, DRAG QUEENS AND DANGER
I’m wondering exactly how you survived your charity swim . . . I don’t mean physically but rather how did you manage your anxiety?
I did my best to keep it at bay, mainly by sleeping as much as possible whenever I wasn’t swimming. I suppose everyone thought I was a bit antisocial, but the whole experience was pretty terrifying and I had to soothe myself as best I could. There I was, in a boat on the Irish Sea – it was 7am and I had been asleep for only three hours. I was shaken awake to take my turn swimming for an hour in the cold and murky waters. Not that I could really complain. After all, I was wearing a wetsuit, whereas the real, professional swimmers were just in their Speedos. But several of the team had already been stung by Lion’s Mane jellyfish and had huge red welts to show for it. I was nervous and frightened but, most of all, I hoped I wouldn’t make a fool of myself by being unable to complete my hour’s swim; that would have been the worst. I told myself that, compared to some things I’ve endured in my life, this would be a breeze.
Hmmm. Interesting reframe. You’ve started to turn trauma into triumph – good sign.
At least the sun was out. Jenny, the team member who had been swimming ahead of me was wigged about Lion’s Mane sightings and exited the water early. With a fair bit of trepidation, I took over and began to swim, as slowly as I could to begin with, so I could warm up and assess the situation. Luckily, the visibility had improved so I could see objects in the water at a range of three to four metres. But there were several Lion’s Mane jellyfish in my vicinity. ‘Breathe, Pamela,’ I instructed myself. ‘You can do this.’ Picking my way between the critters, I kept a watchful eye out for trailing tentacles and swam as conservatively as possible. I was shocked to note that some of the beasts actually seemed to be swimming upside down, so their nearly invisible stingers were pointing up towards me.
I thought of my favourite book: Homer’s Odyssey. The protagonist of that story has always inspired me. In my mind, I would cast myself as Ulysses, braving the treachery of the sea. I would pick my way between these floating islands of danger, and find a way to survive. I could do this. I had already been stung by a Portuguese man-of-war, off shore in the Caribbean some years ago. It wrapped itself around me and, although I immediately went into shock and experienced excruciating pain, I had managed to get ashore and treat myself. (I half-seriously begged Billy to pee on the angry swelling because I’d heard that urine assuaged the pain but, understandably, he refused so I had to make a dash for some vinegar!)
Before my Irish Sea swimming hour was up, I encountered dozens of those hazardous, flame-red creatures. But I picked my way around them – sometimes having to keep my arms at my sides, turn my head sideways, and simply float away from danger. Those beasts tested me just like the Sirens, Circe and Cyclops challenged Ulysses. But thanks to all those who have rejected, abandoned and ill-treated me, I’ve learned to act calm in the face of threats.
Hmmm. In a sense, that swim was a metaphor for your whole life. But as a teenager, were you calm after your parents kicked you out? And how did you manage to look after yourself?
Well, I wasn’t exactly left to fend for myself on the street – my parents would not have wanted that. Instead, they put me in a kind of hostel, several miles away, run by Catholic nuns. God may have been there, but He wasn’t with me, and He couldn’t help. He had abandoned me, along with my father. Now I was a child of the devil. I had even killed people. I was supposed to continue attending school by myself, but that was well-nigh impossible; instead, I just got into more trouble. Nobody cared, anyway. Nobody insisted that I spend the night in the hostel – in fact, the rule was that if you did not get home by midnight you had to wait until morning! My parents never intervened. They visited me occasionally, but they’d really given up. And they were about to take off on another sabbatical year abroad, so they were gone for over a year after that. They did make arrangements for me to see a psychiatrist, but he behaved in a seductive manner towards me, which only compounded my problems.
In some ways, the fact that my parents had completely turned their back on me actually seemed to be a relief. Completely lost, I spent more and more time wandering around the shadowy streets of King’s Cross. I felt at home there because it was well-known to be full of bad people. Yes, I belonged in the shadiest part of town. I was befriended by some of the inhabitants: criminals. The con men, drug pushers, heavies – those people actually seemed kinder and more understanding than my own family. I had a particular boyfriend who, although a con man, treated me like a kind father. All right, he had other girlfriends (who were all sex workers) but I was able to overlook that. Hmmm. I’ve just realized he must have been a pimp. Anyway, in my mind, I deserved nothing good; in fact, I deserved to be ignored, hurt and ill-treated. Looking back, it was extraordinary that I never became a drug or alcohol addict, never engaged in prostitution or turned to crime myself, and that I managed to survive. I was alienated from my sisters and former school
friends and, when I learned that one of my very best school friends had been killed on a motor scooter, it barely registered.
Depression is often experienced as numbness, an inability to feel anything . . .
Mmm, I suppose that must have been it. I was sort of going through the motions, but not very effectively. When it was time for my final exams at school, even though I had been largely absent from school, I managed to pass. I couldn’t tell you exactly how, although I do remember staying up all night in a King’s Cross coffee shop to read King Lear for my English exam, then putting on my uniform and going straight to school in the morning. Somehow, despite the mess I was in, I knew I had to keep my options open.
I managed to get into the Bachelor of Arts programme at the University of New South Wales, but I had no scholarship so I took jobs working in King’s Cross night clubs. I worked as a bartender at Whisky a Go Go, a job I soon discovered required therapist skills just as much as cocktail mixing. It was the time of the Vietnam War and the young soldiers came over to Sydney for some R & R. Americans, Australians . . . they were all so incredibly young to be experiencing that brutal world of jungle warfare. They cried bitterly into their Mai Tais and it was hard to know how to comfort them, although I did try. Given the casualty rate in Vietnam, I knew most of them would be dead before the year was up.
Later I became a cocktail waitress at Les Girls, which was a club where drag artists performed, a bit like La Cage aux Folles. It was my first experience of people who were transgendered and I was intrigued by them. Given my background, the whole environment seemed outrageously wicked – in a fun way – and I loved it. I thought the ‘girls’ were hilarious, bitchy and fantastically glamorous – especially Carlotta, the star of the show. A couple of them took me aside one night and gave me a full make over. They were warm and maternal, and I’ve had a penchant for false eyelashes ever since.
When I took a job at the new Caesar’s Palace nightclub, I became more aware of the society of organized crime that surrounded me back then. In those days, Sydney was a bit like Chicago in the thirties, with mafia-like bosses running things in a way the police could not control. Heavy-set men with foreign accents would enter the club and sit doing business throughout the night, and there was a sinister vibe to the whole scene. I couldn’t work out what was really going on but, whatever it was, it was brutal. In my off-the-shoulder, sequinned mini-toga, I once hid behind a partition and witnessed a fellow waitress being thrown through the glass ticket-window. I was quite relieved when I was fired for doing my homework on the sly.
You’re telling this story without emotion, as if it had become ‘normal’ for you to experience such things . . .
Yes. Again, I suppose I had become numbed to it all, beyond feeling anything, no matter how awful or crazy my life became. And I was terribly tired . . .
Another common symptom of depression . . .
Yes, although to some extent perhaps I was courting exhaustion because I did have to support myself. I worked in those clubs until 3am every night except Sunday, so it was very hard to follow my university programme. Truthfully, I was fairly disinterested in continuing the degree, since I had discovered that the drama course was disappointingly theoretical, with little chance to act. Also, I had become involved with a thoroughly nasty German man I met at Caesar’s Palace who was a good deal older than me. But I think I understand why I chose such a cruel, inappropriate man . . .
Cruel. Hmmm. Well, when women are conflicted about their fathers – especially if they have been abandoned or rejected by them – they may unconsciously try to repeat the experience by choosing someone who similarly ill-treats them in an attempt to gain mastery over the experience. It’s a complicated, thankless task . . .
Mmm, I must have been attempting that at the time. I’m lucky that, over the years, I’ve had an opportunity to heal from the abuse Helmut perpetrated on me; it was far from pretty . . .
I’m wondering about the emotional aftermath. You still have many feelings about that time? Post-traumatic responses that linger? Tell me a bit about the nature of his cruelty . . .
Well, I mean, the man was a thorough sadist. He tortured and beat me with great regularity, slamming me against the wardrobe, and abusing me verbally, mentally and physically. I took all this punishment meekly; after all, wasn’t this exactly what I deserved? Even my own father had abandoned me – that just proved I was worthless. Helmut commanded every ounce of my attention and energy. I dropped out of university and spent my days and nights trying to please him. I gave him the money I earned at the nightclubs and believed I loved him.
Given your deep sense of unworthiness, that is understandable . . .
In fact, I nearly ended my own life over that man. One night, when I came home at the usual late hour, I found him in bed with a dark-haired beauty. I ran off into the night and cried for hours, sitting poised for action by the cliffs at Vaucluse – a famous ‘lovers’ leap’ that was conveniently located in my very neighbourhood.
Help me to understand what stopped you, saved you . . .?
It would have been so easy to end my agony in one fatal leap; in fact, too easy. I suppose I felt I did not deserve respite. I suppose it seemed to me at the time that ending it all would have been a reward. I needed to stay alive in order to receive more pain and punishment; I had not yet paid full price for my essential badness. The next day Helmut insisted the woman in my bed had just been in my imagination, and he returned to the business of beating and threatening me. It’s hard to believe I stayed with him for about a year. Every now and then I would come to my senses and try to leave, but he had warned me he would always find me – and hurt me even more.
That must have been a very, very frightening time for you. And you were so young, with no one to talk to. How on earth, do you think, did you manage to survive it?
I’m not quite sure. More importantly, how had I transitioned from goody-goody teacher’s pet and star pupil to a disgraced, depressed and desperate young woman, tolerating a horribly abusive relationship – in just six years?
You must be aware that the trauma of abandonment by your parents left you with a self-hating, self-destructive sensibility, and probably severe depression . . . And no one seems to have helped you at all?
Not really. In my capacity as psychotherapist, I’ve often treated highly troubled adolescents, and I have been very glad to be able to help many women who have survived physical and mental abuse. I believe my own experience of it all has helped me understand what they were going through. The cycle of violence, the essential lack of self-esteem that leads one to tolerate it, the misguided beliefs that one can change one’s abuser . . . these were all things I myself had to come to terms with and heal from. Many people think I became a therapist because I needed to understand my unusual husband, but that’s not true at all. I became a therapist because I had witnessed the power of psychological healing in my own self, my own life. And I am enormously grateful to the therapists who eventually helped me to heal as well as to the writers of certain important books. Yeah, my journey into mental health began long before I embarked on studies to enter the field. It was my inspiration for eventually becoming a healer myself . . .
Well, that’s common. Many of us are . . . wounded healers. But, again, I’m wondering if any one person helped you at that time?
As a matter of fact, it wasn’t a human being who saved me initially, although I am thankful to my friend Robert, a young man I’d met on one of my rare appearances on the university campus, who learned what I was going through and tried to help me get away. No, something else saved me: drama school. I don’t really know how or why I managed to apply. I was so incredibly lost, and felt so powerless, I am amazed I actually filled out the application form for the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), a widely respected programme that produced most of Australia’s best actors. Of the thousands of people who applied every year, they took only forty applicants, so my chances were very slim. I was offered an audition
slot and prepared my monologue in secret because I knew Helmut would not allow me to do anything that was unlikely to benefit him. But when the appointed day arrived, he instructed me to do his washing and I was too afraid to disobey. The following day I called the office and pleaded with the registrar to let me reschedule. Luckily she relented. I managed to sneak off and performed my heart out for the stern panel of theatre experts who would decide my destiny. Somehow, I must have known it would be my escape.
The day the letter arrived announcing that I had won a coveted place at NIDA was the day a tiny light became visible in my future. Deep in my heart I began to believe that I might be worth something after all. With Robert’s help, I stealthily packed a bag and sneaked off to a safe haven he had arranged for me. I never looked back. I would never again allow a man to ill-treat me. I would survive and thrive.
Chapter Five
SURVIVAL
Where have your thoughts taken you this past week?
Well, revisiting my experience of physical and mental abuse really made me think more about my time in the Congo. I went there in 2012, to the Democratic Republic of Congo, because the people at Merlin, a wonderful charity with a long-term approach to health care in war-ravaged countries or disaster areas, asked me to go and help draw attention to the situation there – especially the amazing work being done by local health workers whom Merlin supports. In the Congo I heard terrible stories from women who had been brutalized by men . . . Beyond shocking . . . In such a situation, my professional skills were barely adequate, but at least I felt that, because of my own history of violence at the hand of a man, I was personally in a position to understand the terrible feeling of shame that lingers in one’s psyche. Of course, what I experienced was nowhere near as horrible as what Congolese women faced. If I told people some of the things I heard they’d just want to throw up . . .
The Varnished Untruth Page 8
