Psychics...Psychologist.. and all other healers...

Yes I really did visit a psychic for the first time in my life today. I've always been so hesitant entering into that world, as I don't want to be told I'm going to die! (even though I know this is a fact for us all.. but I don't want to be told again and again!)

But it wasn't like that at all. She told me within 5 minutes of me explaining why I was there, that I should start a blog !! And at that point I was thinking.. oh goodness I just paid $60 for her to tell me what I'm already doing!

She did say a whole lot of other stuff too though.. which was good reinforcement that I'm on the right path. Which makes my soul feel peaceful. Its amazing how much my soul will scream if I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Whether that be my job, dating the wrong person, scrolling facebook for too long!

She said I need to use my stories and make things out of them.

She also cried, as she told me she knew someone when she was little whos mum had Huntingtons Disease and just how awful and terrible is. I always get scared at this point in conversation with people.. as it can go in so many ways...people can go into telling me that there are herbs that will cure it (hmmmm) that I am the lucky one not having the gene and it was "meant to be" (ummm no) that my mum "chose her illness" (oh please!!!!) or to just breathe (ahhhhh!!)

 I will never forget the time I sat with a psychologist after my Aunt had just died from HD and he told me to close my eyes and breathe! I wanted to punch him. But no I didn't do that. I sadly closed my eyes and breathed like a good client. And then felt violated and had a whole bunch of new issues to deal with after leaving. I left wondering why I was so bloody obedient and didn't tell him NOOO!!! (we could analyze that to death...power, power, power!)

So anyway.. what can happen in "helping" sessions when I see people and talk about Huntingtons Disease, is I end up educating people. I have to explain the disease over and over. Which is exhausting!!! I really don't want to explain it to another single person, but I know I will probably always have to. I sent an article to a therapist once for him to read before I went in, to avoid having to tell him the story. And he said he didn't understand why I would want him to read it. Right.. so if you have a client coming to visit you from another country would you not read up about that culture before they entered the room? Yes. Well if you have a client coming in to see you who has a disease in their family would you not read up about that disease before they come... YES!!

So helpers...read, research, reflect...be aware of your power...and whatever you do...do NOT tell people to breathe.

So fortunately this psychic didn't tell me to breathe (and I didn't punch anyone) She pulled out a beautiful card from her fancy love pack of cards and she told me to be creative.

That I can do.

"You cant use up creativity, the more you use the more you have" Maya Angelou

When my mum died...coming out of the closet

So many people have shared with me over the last few months their pain-filled stories. Which has reminded me how much sharing stories creates safety for other people to share their stories. I wonder in our culture how many powerful healing stories are hidden away in closets. Are there unwritten rules about "appropriateness" of story telling? Or are there just safe private story telling spaces? I wonder how big a role shame and fear have in keeping us all quiet about our real stories. Someone said to me the other day how great it was that I was now "out of the closet" (and not in a sexuality way.. that's a whole other story!) But in regards to opening up and sharing.. And yes it is great. It was a dark closet there for a while.

So this story is about some of the pain that can keep me in that closet .. And what happened to me when my mum died.

I tend to live with a level of pain in my heart. Being overly empathetic to everything and everyone doesn't help! I've tried so many ways to get rid of this pain, including taking anti depressants at times, as I've been so desperate to have a rest from it. I can get exhausted by its persistent intensity and it's need for attention. But honestly, trying to get rid of it never really works. Numbing it numbs everything, which then makes me feel like being a robot. So one of the tools that works the best for me, which I always come back to, is sharing stories. Sharing my own story, listening to other peoples stories, and reading stories feels like connection. Pain cannot live so intensely in connection. And really what is the point in having all these stories and experiences if I don't share them. It feels like wasted pain (and i'd be greedy to keep all that pain to myself!)

I used to share my story a lot. For 10 years I talked at Huntingtons Disease conferences around Australia and the world, telling my families story and trying to connect and improve supports for people, especially for young people. When I grew up with Huntingtons Disease I literally thought we were the only family on the planet living with this illness!  The world has grown and connected so much since then. The internet allows people to connect and share stories much more freely, which reduces one of the biggest killer to the human spirit... isolation and loneliness. If isolation and loneliness get a hold, I know what happens to me. They take me on a very dark downward spiral tunnel. They hurt my spirit and my heart. Its very hard for any light to get in down there. I have to work very hard to stay out of that dark tunnel. Telling my story is one of the ways I connect to life and light. Darkness can not exist when there is light, even just a little light.

When my mum died 3 years ago I stopped talking and sharing so much. Maybe I needed to stay in darkness for a while. I lost my confidence and passion to make change. I felt lost after experiencing the reality that Huntingtons Disease actually kills people. I mean I "knew" that. But that's very different to experiencing it. For so long this disease just took my mums abilities. For each loss in her decline there would be a new wave of grief, I was so used to that. But her spirit was always alive, even if her body and mind was leaving.

Huntingtons Disease is cruel. Over a 20 year period the person who carries the gene is unable to emotionally function as well,  decisions become jigsaw puzzles, involuntary movements take away independence (ill never forget the huge grief my mum faced when she lost her license at 42, that marked the end of freedom), there's a lot of dropping things (cups, food, pants!) eating food becomes a life threatening experience, walking becomes a dance, toileting skills are unpredictable and communication requires the skill of very good listeners. The losses are slow, endless, and inevitable. And yes, I always knew she would die one day ..but when it happened it felt so final and abrupt.

People would say to me (out of very good intention, so no judgement here if you said this to me!) but people would say "oh it must be such a relief your mum has passed away". I can understand these words from a logical perspective, because of course it would seem like a relief. Who wants someone they love to be stuck in a nursing home bed for years on end. No-one. So I get it. And 3 years on yes I now feel some relief. But at the time, every time I heard this, a piece of my heart would break. To the point I just didn't want to bump into anyone or talk about it anymore. I didn't feel relief at all. I just felt like I wanted my mum back. I didn't want my mum to die. I wanted her to get better. I wanted the magic cure she waited so patiently for.

Every time I came back from speaking at a conference she would ask the same question from her nursing home bed "cure?" and I would respond with the same devastating answer "no mum" In 1995 they discovered the gene for Huntingtons Disease and there was a lot of hope around this time that there would be a cure. She held that hope for that cure for nearly 20 years, until her death.

I think after my mums passing I had to step away from talking about this disease so much. My heart and spirit felt traumatized. Every time I would do a talk at an event I'd have days of recovery and I felt like I was stirring up painful toxic poison in my heart. So I stopped talking at events and stopped being involve in the HD community. I needed to be with my mum who was now gone, and that felt like a silent space. I needed time to be with her in new ways and reflect on her death.

There were so many times during her illness that she would ask to die. So many times she asked me to help her die. It was absolutely heartbreaking over the years having her ask to die and there was nothing I could do, other than comfort her and listen. There were so many times I wanted to help her die but couldn't. There were so many times I prayed and wished she would die.

But when she did die... I felt no relief. I just felt overwhelmed with emotion and a huge loss of both of my mums. I felt the loss of my "well" mum I had as a kid. The mum who was just a normal mum. The one who did normal mum things like read, cook and play with us. The mum who came to all our school events, volunteered at the canteen. The mum who stood up for us when we were bullied and fought against injustices. That mum died when I was 15. But there was no funeral for her.

But when my "unwell" mum died I finally got to see her again. I got to celebrate the mum she was, and honor her and all the love she gave us. AND I got to celebrate the courage, humor and beauty of my mum who had Huntingtons Disease. Both of these women lived with great strength and love. Both of them showed a huge capacity to live with courage in the face of illness and always found the capacity to find joy. Celebrating and acknowledging that felt like a relief.

And now being able to talk and share stories again feels like a relief too.

"Those with the capacity to feel great pain are also those with the capacity to feel deep joy. Those who fall hard rise gloriously" Glennon Doyle Melton

Significant men day

OK peeps, a quick fathers day post. Today is going to be freakin awesome for some and shit for some!

I know in my house over the years fathers day has invited so much misery into my home! There's so much love and pain that fathers can bring (because as we all know they too can be human, imperfect and not forfill our hopes!) So as well as bringing joy, this day can also invite anger, disappointment and letdown to the celebration! Do we really need another party like this?

A friend gave me a great idea a few years ago to try side track this in my house, as really all those difficult visitors are not really helping anyone create a fun, loving day! She suggested that I turn fathers day into "significant men day"

What a creative idea and relief!

It's so cool to know we can actually give ourselves permission to change these days in our homes to suit our families needs at different times (even if commercialism says differently!) We can honour and love all the men out there who are caring about the kids who's fathers have left, suicided, died, been violent, who have drug addictions and suffer from mental illness etc. We can honour these men who fill the gaps when our fathers cannot fill this role, for whatever pain or reason.

If we widen the idea of fatherhood to include all the men who have walked into our lives, who have helped shape us, teach us and who have cared about us in life changing ways, then maybe we can all truly celebrate this day in joyful and inclusive ways 💜

And if all else fails.. its spring .. Now that we can all definitly celebrate 😊

Teenage parenthood - The turning points in life

 Teenage parenthood - The turning points in life

Do you remember those pick a path books? My life often feels like one of those books. Where I was heading down a certain path but then something happens and before I know it I'm on a completely different path! Becoming a mum at 15 felt like one of those moments.

It was one of the many turning points in my life.

 I grew up in an alternative family and community in a place called Dondingalong. My parents had 100 acres of land and we lived in a tent and shed for a long time, while my dad built a house from trees on the property. Their goal was to live a self sustaining life on the land .. and somewhere in there they came up with a grand idea to turn their 4 kids into a band. Well at 14 rebellious me was so not going to be apart of helping create that dream. Which I have to admit I've regretted over the years.. as being a musician now looks so cool!

 However back then it did not look cool at all. While my brothers got busy practicing their instruments and creating bands I just wondered what on earth I was doing in this bizzare family and hoped that my real parents would find me soon. As surely I was adopted and this could not really be the truth of where I belonged!

To survive living with this family (who I now love very much 😉) required me to spend alot of time reading books! Books became a haven, as there I could hide, be safe and be free in other people's stories. I would dream about the day I would live in a normal house, with a normal family, doing normal things. I wanted to create my own story and dreams for my life.

At 14 my search to find love in boys increased  (yes, yes if I only I knew then this was always gaurenteed to fail!). Somewhere in me thought freedom and belonging would happen here. It seemed like a good, easy option to access being loved and to belong somewhere.

Everyone else at school looked so cool. They were great dancers, musicians, actors, they were beautiful, skinny and smart. They did performances and plays! I didn't feel like any of that. I would watch all the funky kids at school and feel like that would never be me.  So surely I could be good at boys, sex, drinking and taking drugs. Yes that I could definitely master!

And I was kind of good at it. I always had a boyfriend or three and there was always access to alcohol and drugs. I can gaurentee you though not many of my early sexual experiences were very loving. They were more like drunken degrading nights on a beach or someone's backyard, where I would wake up the next day not remembering alot and quite often be ignored by this guy!

Eventually my dream guy arrived though. I found the worst person I could find (tick) my parents would hate him (tick) he always had an ongoing supply of drugs (tick) he was older than me (tick) and he had already left school (tick). Wagging school became my new hobbie and spending days at the river with him stoned. I'd lie to my parents about where I was going on weekends, go camping with him, score drugs and have sex. It was a very self destructive but addictive path.

 Looking back I wonder what on earth I needed as that young girl. What could have lead me to a different path at this time. This relationship had become my main focus and this decision had long term consequences. My parents did everything they knew how to stop it. But the more they tried the more determination was ignited. It was dangerous and thrilling. My life felt pretty shit and rebelious me didn't care about alot.. especially not myself.

My parents eventually found out sex was a part of my life (super mad!) and my dad took me to the doctor to get the pill (ahhh humiliating!) The doctor gave me the pill and we waited for my period to come so I could start taking it.  Weeks went by waiting for that period...it never came.

The idea of being pregnant terrified me but I was always so certain that would never happen to me. Contraception wasn't a priority for me, as invincibility had become my very close friend and convinced me risks were worth taking! But...

I brought a pregnancy test from the chemist with my mum after school one day. We drove back to our house,  it was just my mum and I at home. I remember walking into the toilet, in our beautiful timber house my dad had built, with the pregnancy test packet, pee-ing on that stick and slowly watching that positive cross come up. I stared at it for a very long time. Fuck.

My mum was waiting for me in the kitchen and I showed her the test. We starred at eachother across the table (where not that long ago time- tables were the challenge!) And we cried and cried.

Eventually I rang my boyfriend to let him know. We quickly started talking about how we would build sandcastles at the beach with our baby and how we could do this. We created stories in our head of how this would all be ok  (Those sandcastle fantasies on the beach were so far from the reality that unfolded in my relationship with him).

At 15 with a positive pregnancy test in hand, huge adult decisions were now required.  I needed to make decisions that would effect the rest of my life. With no idea what I wanted to do with my life, who I was or what I loved, I had to face this. Whilst everyone at school was deciding which subjects to pick for year 11/12...  I was now deciding did I want to be a mum?

My life soon became flooded with family and friends passionate opinions about what I should do. Devastation hit and alot of peoples fears were stirred up. A decision needed to be made pretty quickly about whether to have an abortion or not. I retreated from all the chaos to the safety of my room to think a lot. The idea of an abortion was so overwhelming. It felt more overwhelming than having a baby.

After alot of thinking I walked into my parents room one night to tell them I was keeping the baby. I was so scared. I told them I wanted to try and that I would adopt the baby out if it got too hard. They agreed to help me as much as they could and supported my decision. However my mum was already starting to become unwell with Huntingtons Disease . So this support was always going to be limited. However determination soon kicked in that I could do this and my life quickly had a new focus.

Over the coming months my life became about attending doctors appointment and anti natal groups with women twice my age.. often alone...as my boyfriends lifestyle did not change so much.  He continued on his self destructive path as I prepared for my life of motherhood. I will never forget being 15 and looking at the women with their husbands in those classes..and thinking there is something REALLY wrong with me. But smart me was going to shake that off, keep attending and learn as much as I bloody could!

Honestly, at this stage in my life there was any part of me that was ready to become a mum. I had no real sense of my own identity, what I loved or who I was was. But I did know this baby needed love and I was going to do everything I could to take care of it. Which meant leaving my self destructive life behind. Being pregnant to someone who had serious drug addictions and mental illness was going to be very hard territory to navigate. But I would weave my way through it.

At school I told the principle that continuing school after year 10 wasn't possible due to becoming a mum. Shame became a huge part of my experience of telling people. Reactions were strong and feeling like a disappointment was big. I often felt like yelling at adults that this was never my dream, but I'm not sure I ever really had a dream, or that anyone had ever spoken to me about my dreams. But this was now my reality, so help me.

I improved my attendance at school, as getting that year 10 certificate now felt so important to my babies future. I finished school seven months pregnant, unable to fit any school uniforms and very glad to be getting out of that system and leaving behind the shame and exposure. Being pregnant felt very shameful and stigmatizing. I felt like a bad person, irresponsible and doomed to a life of misery. Determination was going to smash that negative stigma though and create the best possible life for my baby.

A caravan became my home for the next few months and my dad built me a shack on our property to live in. Creating my home in preparation for having a baby became my next task. I started thinking about how I would pay for the baby and what my future now looked like as a mum. My mum was starting to get mentally unwell with Huntingtons Disease, so we spent alot of time together during this time,  we took care of eachother and watched alot of Oprah whilst we waited for my birth.

I turned 16 in Dec 1994 and my baby was born in Feb 1995.

My birth was traumatic. After 24 hours of labour and thinking death was close by, a baby boy was born by cesarean. I thought being 15 and pregnant was hard. Being 16 and having my legs in stirrups while male doctors try pull a baby out (that was stuck in my pelvis!) was a whole other level of hard!

My new challenging path of learning how to breastfeed and care for a baby had been born. My 16 year old body felt like it suddenly belonged to everyone else.  The body that was once a developing, partying adolescent now had a whole new role.  There was always a pad to change, suppository to insert, stitches to check, and a baby to breastfeed! It was incredibly confronting and exhausting to suddenly have all these doctors and nurses in my life... And to now be responsible for keeping this little baby alive!

But I did.. and they eventually even let me go home with him.

 I'll never forget one of the midwives telling me as I left hospital that I had good "mother craft skills". I literally had no idea what that even meant. I remember thinking.. what craft did we exactly do??? But I knew it meant that I was going to be ok.

💜🌸 💜

When my son was 1 year old I studied an Associate Diploma in Youth Work. I then went to University and completed a Bachelor of Social Science. I was so happy to finish university at the same time as my friends from school . There was no way I was going to let being a mum stop me from having everything everyone else had.

After I finished my studies I got my first permanent job at a Family Support Service where I spent the next 10 years working with teenage parents and setting up antinatal and postnatal groups. There was something so important for me in using my experience to make life a little easier for other young pregnant women. I never wanted a teenage mum sitting in an antinatal group like I did at 15 feeling ashamed, isolated and that there was something wrong with them. I wanted them to feel connected, safe and have hope for themselves as a mum .. and I wanted to celebrate them, as young woman who's lives had now hit a turning point.

"let the beauty of who you are be what you do" Kahlil Gibran

Laugh at the shit!

OK so my brother wants a 500 word blog off.. And our topic is laughter.. Or joy.. we couldn't decide.. So here goes!

I need to laugh so much. I can only stay on the path of pain for so long before I need to laugh. Like really who can carry around all those rocks of grief, pain, betrayal, anger without just needing to eventually laugh that shit off!

If I look at my life it's pretty hilarious really. My family has this horrendous disease called Huntingtons Disease, that's been named the worst disease known to mankind. My ex-husband is married to my ex-best friend. I parent 4 kids on my own. I work my butt off keeping a family home functioning, which involves a lot of boring stuff like picking up dog shit.. for a dog that my kids insisted they NEEDED! Because you know I didn't already have enough peeps to look after! Life is so crazy sometimes that the only thing I can do is laugh!

I think my biggest laughing teacher was my mum. I'll never forget times during her years of sickness where she would fall on the floor, when she couldn't walk anymore and she would laugh and laugh at me trying to pick her up. Not funny.. But somehow absolutely hilarious! Or times I would be changing her toileting pads (yes really not funny at all!) but she would crack herself up laughing at the mess! I would be in horror, which she would then find even more hilarious. Life is so freaking messy sometimes. Literally.

My work colleagues always say they hear me laughing down the other end of the corridor at work. I love making my students laugh in class. We have such a fantastic time talking about really traumatic topics like child abuse, domestic violence, suicide.. Which are not funny topics at all!! But I will make sure we have a laugh every single class. Because it feels good to laugh. And we all deserve to feel good, even when life is hard.

What I find sooooo funny though is how humiliated my kids are by my loud public laughter, which then just makes me laugh even more. I absolutely hate shopping centers.. but they will often drag me there to get things they desperately "NEED" I find this the most torturous experience with all those lights, music, chaos, decisions.. so many shops! I grew up with trees..it is not natural for humans to go into this kind of environment!! It is so painful it makes me laugh. I need stress release! As the kids are deciding between shoes, hats, shirts, socks I just can't help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Which is then followed by long begging pleading sound  "muuuuuuuum!!" ...as they get as far away from me as possible. Which makes me laugh even more!

Life is so serious peeps. We HAVE to find stuff to laugh about. Let's laugh in the face of all the shit (literal shit at times)

The human race only has one really effective weapon and that is laughter" Mark Twain.

Grief...or sex ...

When I think about talking about grief.. A little voice in me says "don't talk about grief people will hate that! Talk about sex or something fun instead!"

But sorry folks grief wins today ... but don't worry we can get back to taking about sex another day😉

This piece of artwork by Celeste Roberge always stricks me as what grief can feel like in my body. It can be super hard living a joyful, free, vibrant life if my body is filled to the top with rocks of grief. It's heavy energy can weave its way into my heart making even the simplest of tasks feel like wading through a thick mud pool, which is not easy! (or very sexy!).

One thing I know for certain about grief though, after living with Huntingtons Disease and going through a divorce, is that it always moves. If I let it come in and stay for a little while, it will eventually move out (and probably go visit someone else!) If I fight it and try get rid of it.. It will fight harder to sit me down on my butt, to listen and demand to stay longer.

Talking about grief in our "happy" culture can be hard. Worry sometimes tells me that grief is going to make me very hard to be around, as it's going to be draining for other people. Which can make me pretty careful who I let into my world when grief is visiting. I probably tend to spend a lot of time alone, as it doesn't need to be told to get up or to think a certain way. It just needs to be held.. just for a little while. And whilst worry is telling me that people don't like grief. .. fear tells me I'm going to get stuck in it and never find my way out! Wow thanks team!

My relationship history with grief however tells me that none of that is true. I can actually create a safe community of grief angels who are willing to sit and talk about the hard stuff  .. and then there are counsellors...I can actually pay someone to listen to me! In this environment grief always moves out and joy will always find its way back in. I will never get stuck.

How long I let grief stay for in my body, can be tricky to work out. Perhaps its just like trying to work out how long we let any visitor stay for before we suggest they move on!  I know some days I just need to sit with it for a while and connect. But other days I need to push myself out of that mud and onto lighter ground. And I need to fight hard for life. 

I recently took down all the photos of my many relatives who have passed away. I used to have a little memory cabinet for their funeral notices. I put them away lovingly into a draw, to clear that energy. It's not that I don't love them and they are not in my heart, because they always will be. It just didn't feel helpful anymore to lay on my lounge looking at them reflecting on all these beautiful, important, influential people from my childhood who have died. I needed to turn my energy towards living my life. 

The very hard and complex thing about doing that, when living with Huntingtons Disease, is it feels like HD splashes grief everywhere. It can feel painted in my past, present and future. HD can create a picture of my future in my mind that looks incredibly daunting. Sometimes it can be hard to find a non-grief filled space!
Anticipatory grief about what lay ahead, can invite huge waves of grief to visit and use up huge amounts of energy.When I know some of what my families future may look like, with my 3 bothers being gene positive, grief can take a huge grip and tell me all the things I'm going to lose before I've even lost them. It can tell me I'm going to lose my entire family, everyone is going to die and I'm going to be alone. They are terrifying thoughts that I often just need to stop. It's a dark and gloomy road to get on and its not helpful for anyone. And yes reality is we are ALL going to die!

I was talking to my 17 year old son the other day about my survivors guilt post and grief. I am always incredibly struck by how wise kids and young people are... I was telling him how scary the future can look for my family... and he said.. "mum, is it guilt and grief.. Or is it love?"

Gosh.. so true and so smart. It is all love. No one who loves escapes grief. Which is every single one of us.

"Grief is love's souvenir. It's our proof that we once loved. Grief is the receipt we wave in the air that says to the world: Look! Love was once mine. I love well. Here is my proof that I paid the price" Glennon Doyle

So when the future drags me into dark and gloomy places, all I ever really have the power to do is come back to love.. and focus on this moment. Right in this moment I am writing this blog. Right in this moment the garbage is getting picked up. Right in this moment the birds are chirping. And right in this moment I am ok.

That's all any of us ever really have...love and this moment. Grief may be a part of the "moment"  at times.. And at other times it will move on. What seems to help my grief move on,  is when I can wade through the depths of the mud and find one small positive love action step I can take. Grief doesn't seem to be able to thrive so strongly in that heart space.

"some days are tidal waves with nothing more than a scrap to cling to, other days the calm seas allow you to gently tread water" https://www.littlethings.com/grieving-advice-old-man/


PS And I  promise you one day we will totally talk about sex 😉 

Marriage...and other possible happily ever afters

I'm 22 years old in this first photo and it's my wedding day. Who on earth gets married at 22 im not sure! But I did and I felt so grown up and wise. I already had 3 kids, so why not get married?

So before I start this story .. l want you to know that worry can caution me around telling this story, as it says it's not just my story, that there was someone else in this wedding picture. However there is a much bigger part of me that thinks that just because something finishes or changes (death, divorce etc) it doesnt mean life before that point didn't exist. Geez if I can't tell my story from before that point, then that may actually mean my history has been erased and I didn't exist. And stuff that.. That was alot of work!

So this is MY story.. that young woman in the photo is 22 year old me and she deserves to have her story told. We all do. We all have the right to tell our stories. We have the right to own them, share them and yell them from roof tops, if we please. We have the right to stand in our own truth and tell it exactly how it was for us. I tell this story with love for the very young person I was when I got married. This story isn't about "how bad were they!" because as Maya Angalou says "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better"

So.. worry can just sit back, relax and drink a long island tea!

So story two...

I always thought I knew what pain was.. But it wasn't until I seperated from my husband of 15 years that I think I truly experienced a heartbreak pain that shattered my entire world. It was a kind of pain that had me sobbing on the shower floor .. and all the way to work.. and all the way home again...for what felt like years!

I met my husband when I was 17 years old, we fell in love (or whatever it is that you do when your 17! ) he embraced parenting my 1 year old son with me and we set about building our lives together. At this point in my life I thought I would definitely have the Huntingtons Disease gene and I would die at 40. So we quickly got to work creating a very full life. As 40 is not very many years!

Over the years we had 3 more kids, brought land, built a house, planted hundreds of trees, I finished my University degree, we got married and it probably looked like we had the ideal life. And in many ways we did. We lived in a beautiful beachside village, we rotated our work rosters so one of us was always with our kids and we created a loving family home. I worked days, he worked nights and we worked incredibly hard to raise 4 little people together. We laughed, cried, pissed eachother off and we loved each other.

We were so committed to giving our kids everything we could. Due to our opposite work rosters one of us was always with them. We never needed to use day care, or ask for much help, as we always had it covered between us. Nights were often hard on my own with 4 kids, at one stage I had a new born baby, toddler, preschooler and 8 year old! But it all seemed very worth it. I would look forward for 2am to come around, when my husband would get home from work, as I would often be awake breastfeeding a baby or putting a toddler back to bed, and feeling pretty lonely. I would wait desperately every week for Fridays, which was the one day we always spent together, to connect and share our stories about the kids. We ran a great house and we were a great team! (and we were perhaps slightly overworked! )

After many years of building our life together we eventually decided it was the right time to do the gene testing for Huntingtons Disease (which is a whole other story I can tell you another day) After a grueling process we found out I didn't carry the HD gene. We cried for the future we now had to grow old together, which had never been apart of our story before. We celebrated deeply in our hearts for our 4 kids, who were now free from the risk of inheriting the gene and for the fact that they would never have to watch me get sick with this disease.

Slowly as the years went by, the day to day dishes piled up, work loads increased, and the usual disappointments and let downs of life and relationships set in...and things started to slip. Cracks started to form in our connection, questions about whether this was right crept in, and resentment and frustration found its way into my heart. I had a deep longing for a depth of connection and freedom to do the things I loved. This environment was greatly limiting for that part of me to grow, which caused an intense feeling of suffocation.

The vibrant and adventurous me was often screaming to break free.. but she just had to wait. We were on a different path for now. She would get out where she could but she knew this wasn't really her time. This was a time of sacrifice, hard work, adult responsibilities and commitment (no wonder she was screaming!)

I would calm her down and put everything I had into my family. I gave my heart and soul to making sure everyone was taken care of. I accepted the challenges that arose in this environment because that's what I thought we did in marriage!! We commit, sacrifice and work very very hard ....

Um.. no, no, no. So what happens next was never apart of the story I had planned or imagined for my marriage or family.. But this is the story that unfolded..

I will never forget the day my husband told me he was in love with and having an intimate relationship with one of my closest friends. My world stopped, spun, and a tsunami swebt through my life. It brought with it an intensity of pain that I had never before experienced in my life (and I'd had some shit!). I always described it to people like someone put my heart in a frying pan. It's seared with anger, rage, fear, abandonment and betrayal that completely took over my body. I didn't even know anger and pain like that existed. I'm a pretty calm person. But I really wasn't calm at all. I was devastated.

I did everything in my power to try and stop it. But it was too late. The tsunami had been through and there was no way to control it once it started, as hard as I tried. All I could do was watch the destruction, find protection and make sure I fed my kids and kept them safe. I felt like a lion mother who needed to protect her kids from the heart ache this was going to cause to them and their lives.

I really didn't even really know this stuff happened. And I really wasn't very well equipped for the immensity of it. I got married to someone I thought was beautifully stable, loving and very family focused. But in that moment all of that disappeared and my life changed dramatically. I had a whole new reality to deal with. One that was an absolute mess. I would look at my husband some days, in the midst of it all, and feel like I was looking and talking to an absolute stranger (and after that song by Goyte came out... Somebody that I used to know...I now know that feeling is normal and common ..thank you storytellers!)

My life with my husband was shattered. The loss of all the hopes, dreams and our future plans was devastating. I would do anything I could to get rid of the pain in my heart... drink alcohol, take pain killers, ask the Drs for valium, scream, smash things...

After 6 mths of backwards and forwards, as we made the very hard decisions of what to do with our marriage (which now felt more like a toxic war zone), I weighed about 45kg, I felt like I was going crazy and I made a very hard decision to move. I think this was the hardest decision I've ever made in my life. To pack up my life and kids, move away from our family, friends and my mum.. to start my life over. It was the only thing I felt I could do to save myself from being swamped by the ongoing waves of destruction. All I had the power to do was focus on what I could recreate, what I could rebuild and what actions I could take to be well enough to take care of my kids. I was determined to give them the best possible childhood I could, despite this.

As I packed up our lives, so many regrets would come flooding in around how we let our relationship get to the point where this could happen. What didn't we do? What could I have done better? But really.. We all do the very best we can. And those questions are good to learn from. But they can also destroy us. Because Im not sure there is ever an easy answer to the complexity of marriage and long term relationships. Reality is, sometimes people do shit.. And sometimes people leave.

The kids and I moved to a new city. We found a house, my kids started a new school, I got them into sport, dance, music and I started a new job. I slowly, slowly sorted out the practicalities of our new life.

I then started my intense search for anything that would help me ease the pain. As really alcohol was only going to get me so far! For a very long time all I could do was take one day at a time and get kids to school and go to work. My life was in survival mode. I gradually started to add other things. I would run, go to meditation/yoga classes, I attended some pretty interesting spiritual centres, saw many counsellors, doctors, naturopaths, massages therapists, I joined dance/movement groups and eventually new experiences and friendships started to grow, along side the grief. I would often look back on the life I once had and wonder what on earth happened and be in shock at where my life was now.

It was honestly an incredibly long, hard, slow journey of recovery from the very dark depths of grief and betrayal. It was so hard to comprehend that two people I loved would choose this. I'm sure we all have that little person in us that doesn't want to be "left" who wants to be seen and considered. To feel invisible to people I loved felt like torture. But sometimes.. like many sometimes .. things just don't go the way I'd like them to. And sometimes, no matter how many loving/kindness/forgiveness meditations I did, it just hurt and it was very, very hard to accept. It was the perfect environment for very intense anger and conflict to grow.

For a very long time every text message was a panic attack. Every argument was days of recovery. It's was absolute hell. There was so much wasted energy, so many times I was hooked, triggered and wasted my time protecting my story from someone else's version. But really.. It was all just crap. I eventually learnt that people are always going to say stuff that hurts. All I could do was protect myself from it and choose how to respond to it in ways that didn't hurt me.

So my next challenge was to find a way out of the ongoing conflict before it destroyed me. I needed to take control of my new life by finding my self-worth (as nothing will kill that better than this scenario!) and self-protection. As much as I wanted to be super woman and create something that would work for everyone (because I always love keeping everyone happy!) I discovered I really wasn't Nelson Mandela!

I can remember so many times wanting to be just like him and "love my enemy," and "talk to the enemy" (because you know I am so cool, calm.. And wise like him! ) I wanted to be all kind, loving, forgiving, peaceful and compassionate. But reality is my pain had other needs. It needed safety, gentle care and a space to heal. All the things I was trying to give outward I needed to turn inwards to myself. I needed to build a very strong boundary around my very broken heart. I eventually learnt to love myself enough to give myself that time and space to heal.

Boundaries saved my life. I set boundaries about what energy I would let flow into my world, what I was willing to do for others and what I would respond to. I had to protect myself from the very traumatic emotional triggers. Because really, I am worth more than a life of pain, conflict and anger. And my kids deserved a mum who had a clear loving energy.

So I stopped feeding the angry monsters and learnt to love myself enough to protect myself from it. I nurtured my pain until it eased. I probably still have some pretty deep scars.. but they are OK..and I survived. All of this relearning, rebuilding, recreating and restorying took me years. But I did it.

I embraced my new life and the freedom of divorce. When the man turned up on my door with my divorce papers to sign, I don't think he had ever heard someone so excited! Remember that little dynamic, adventurous me who was waiting patiently for her time.. She found her voice and yelled yes, yes, yes!!!! He looked rather shocked. I could have hugged him! The release from the suffocation of marriage has been a huge relief for my heart and soul. That part of me is so happy she is free. She high fives them daily. She reclaimed her life back and she now gets to sing, play, grow and dance every single day.

And when they got married...

She went travelling ...And she lived happily every after!

"Boundaries boundaries boundaries.. Don't leave home without them! " Jeff Brown