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The Gift of Depression!

"My Little Scrap Book"

By Bob EdenPublished 5 years ago 9 min read
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My Story 'The Wounds and Lessons of Childhood”

I was born in 1952, in England, very premature and delivered by cesarean section. My mother never forgave me for the scar on her belly. I was about 2lbs at birth and was not expected to live, but I did. I AM a survivor!

Not sure why I chose my family. Mum was prone to violent outbursts of rage so if I got in range then I got hit whether I had been good or bad, so basically I got the crap beaten out of me for many years. So the message I internalised at that time was “Mum is often beating me, therefore she does not love me, I must be unlovable and it is all my fault!” and also “The World is not a Safe Place!”

Dad was a mythical being who was always at work. He came home after I went to bed and left for work before I came down for breakfast, so the message I got from Dad was “Dad never spends any time with me, therefore he does not love me, so I must be unlovable, and it is all my fault.”

When I was six, Dad disappeared completely—he had a nervous breakdown and committed himself to Fairmile Hospital in Wallingford. I went to see him when I was nine and by that time he was institutionalised, just wandering around muttering phrases that he heard. He did not need electric shock therapy, he just needed a holiday!

To take the spotlight off my crazy family, Mum a Rage -aholic and Dad a Workaholic, I became the people pleaser and totally abandoned my needs to please others, a habit that I took into adulthood!

When I was about three it felt like someone had given me a wheelbarrow and so I started pushing it. I was young and strong so it was Ok! But as I moved through life, more junk was dumped into it, like my childhood abuse, socio-cultural conditioning , the indoctrination of the education system and all the rest of our societies constraints, until such time as it got to heavy to push anymore. That time was 1984, when at 3 AM I had my first panic attack and began my dance with depression.

I couldn't understand it, I could not think my way out of it. I had a great job with Esso in research, was living the ideal magazine life, wife, two kids, detached house, holidays in France, so what happened? And so the cycle of medications and psychologists and psychiatrists began and continued for many years.

Skipping back to childhood to keep things chronological. “When did I first start disbelieving in me?” My earliest recollection: I was about five years old and woke up one Sunday morning, got dressed, and put on my favourite tee shirt, The Red One! So I went down for breakfast and Mum looked at me and said, "Go and change, put on your blue tee shirt, you know that is your favourite!" I got up, puzzled and went upstairs and changed, very confused, but MUM must be right and she is very big and I must not make her angry. That began a process of similar events and slowly I chopped more bits off me to fit into society, a habit I carried well into my forties!

So, how did I dig myself out of this hole?

My family and I emigrated to Australia in November 1989, for a fresh start? But after 13 years of working so hard, we realised we had become strangers and that our marriage was as shallow as the rest of my life. After a lot of soul searching we agreed to part and Pam and the kids went back to the UK. I stayed, I knew at some level this is where I AM meant to be. I must have cried for 6 months but had great support from friends I met in the Folk scene in Perth. Got a good job in automotive research and started rebuilding, but still with the old survival behaviours in place! My intellect was having a ball working in research, I was developing a following in the Folk Scene and playing in many bands in Perth and began touring in WA when work permitted, but my heart was heavy and I was still fighting with depression, it would be many years before I turned that fight into a dance!

Living in Freo, I got involved in personal growth and eventually became a counsellor. The first course I took was an ACA twelve step course for Adult children of Absent Parents which was very helpful up to a point where you have to surrender to god, I knew then that this was a parting of the ways. Next I did a course on anger management because Mum had all the anger, so I never learnt how to deal with it. About 1993, I came across John Bradshaw's work on the Inner Child and Family of Origin and was so Impressed that with my partner we bought all the tapes and used to run weekly group sessions. John's work opened the floodgates for me as I began to understand what my dysfunctional childhood had produced. I suppose it was at this time started to develop my sense of “Noticing” or “Awareness.” Depression was still rolling in and out and one day I realised that medication only lasts for a couple of months and then produces the same symptoms it is supposed to cure and with my continued research into depression and mental illness I realised that not one psychologist or psychiatrist has ever cured any one, all they can do is work with the mind, medicate the pain and provide coping skills to handle the pain.

I think it was Jesse Greene in Freo who gave me this phrase: “If you don't hand it back, you pass it on!” I let that bubble for a while and then one day I sat down and wrote THE letter to Mum!

Dear Mum, I am writing to you to tell you how it felt for me growing up in our family. This is not about blame, just telling you my story, look forward to hearing yours, your loving son Bob.

And so I sat down and wrote and wrote about how I hated being hit so often or how she never came to school sports days, how she kept reminding me of the scar on her belly, any way. what I thought would be one or two pages turned into another WAR and PEACE but at least I got it all out. I posted this epic to Mum back in the UK and that was the hardest thing I had ever done, but I knew it was the way forward for I was being torn apart by “I hate my Mum for what She did to me, but you have to love your MUM!” This quandary was tearing my soul apart!

Six months later I get a reply.

"I am so sorry Bobby, you must think I am the worst mother in the world."

I replied, "No Mum I am just sharing my story, tell me yours!"

Time passes, a lot of it, then finally a letter from Mum arrives and she shares her story. She was born in 1924 in Germany between the wars, her Dad was an alcoholic, and her mum was a control freak, and her cousins joined the SS or they were shot. It was a pretty horrific childhood and then I realised that Mum was just passing on what had been dumped on her and with that understanding I was able to move from hate back to a place of love, and I felt so much lighter for that. A couple of days later, once I had stopped crying, I phoned Mum in England to learn that she was back in hospital with a second bout of bowel cancer, so I contacted the hospital and managed to speak to MUM and that was the first time and the last time we spoke as Mother and Son as adult to adult, so with tears at both sides of the pond we talked! Two days later Mum passed away and I was so glad we had come to a loving closure.

A few days went by and I AM feeling much lighter but there is still a little niggle in my shoulders, still a heaviness there, then BOOM! Dad ya Bastard! So I got out the note pad and wrote a letter to DAD. Dad had died awhile back, not sure where or when, so I put the letter in an envelope and addressed it to DAD in Heaven and burnt it! Feeling much lighter now!

It was 1995 or 6, my mind was having a ball but my soul was crying. Depression was still ruling the roost. I was performing at Araluen Festival and there was a kombi for sale, so I bought it for 3 grand, got it back home, fitted a pop top, and set it up for the mobile life and I was ready! I remember going to my boss and saying “Chris I fear that if I lose this job I will die, so I quit.” He was aware of my state of dis-ease, his reply was, "great, yeah Bob I kinda get that!"

I put my house on the market and anything that would not suit the Kombi life, I sold or gave away, the first item being the TV! YAY! Whilst waiting for the house to sell I planned my tour of the Folk Festivals and once the money was in the bank I was off. Don't get me wrong, I only realised about 35 grand from the sale of the house but it did fund my first tour. So I set off across Australia. 40 days and 40 nights springs to mind, it was the first time in my life that I had to spend time with me. It was a true right of passage. I would arrive at each festival a week or so early and join the volunteers who set up the festival and in the evenings I would sit with others around the campfire and share the music that I love. In this way, the people running the festival got to know what I was about musically! Next year, when I applied to perform at these festivals I got accepted as a paid performer, and so the wheel went round, about 8 times over 10 years. At the end of each tour I would generally return to Freo and Volunteer on the Leeuwin 2, a sail training vessel and sail up and down the west coast of Australia. Eventually “MOO” the kombi died and I found myself in QLD. Got a job working on the boats in the Whitsundays and eventually became a commercial skipper and then a briefer. I AM now retired, living on my boat with my family, Barnaby and Charlie and I AM Content. I have created my dream for I AM Master and Commander of My Life.

I spent the first 40 years of my life chopping off bits of me to fit in and the remainder going back and gathering them all up for I now know that all of me is OK. I realised that I AM the only expert on my life and that the pain of depression was the pain of humanity having to live in such a crazy society and so I started the dance which is now over. My basic steps have been:

  1. Empty the wheelbarrow
  2. Question everything that does not resonate with my heart.
  3. Deprogram myself from all the conditioning, especially codependent behaviour
  4. Re-establish my belief in me
  5. Follow my Heart
  6. Trust my In-Tuition!
  7. Giggle a lot!

Simple really, any questions?

depression
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