Finding the Lost

I’ve been feeling old, lately. Ugly, aged, and… 2 dimensional. So much has changed in the 3 and a bit years since my mental health crisis. I’m an entirely different person with an entirely different life. In so many ways that is a positive result, but there’s one long-standing aspect of that recovery that has really […]

When Bullied Children Grow Up

It’s been about 4 years since my diagnosis of Complex PTSD following severe psychological childhood bullying, and subsequent domestic violence relationships. I was diagnosed a full year before I accepted that diagnosis. I left that therapist the moment she suggested the PTSD, and that it began with the bullying, because I had never associated the […]

Sleepwalking

This acoustic version of Sleepwalking reminds me of the hours and hours I spent alone in my Melbourne apartment, writing, drinking, freezing, singing, crying, hating, loving – feeling terrified, empowered, and lonely. At the time, I was numb to all of it. Those emotions were ripples across my surface – except the loneliness – I […]

When Old Becomes New

For many years I had a secret dream. A dream I wouldn’t even voice aloud to myself, not even in the voice that lived inside my head.  I felt so undeserving of this dream that I brushed it off when it came up in conversation and made self-deprecating jokes about my inability to handle the task purely […]

“I won’t” – The positives of negative reinforcement

I’ve written many times of the things I will or have missed about drinking when contemplating sobriety. Today, I’d like to write about the things I won’t miss about drinking. After all, these are the things I need to remember, most of all. To begin with, I won’t miss the hangovers that crippled me, sometimes for […]

Giving wings to this burden

“So what is it about drinking that makes you not want to stop?” asked my mental health nurse, today. I had to think about it for awhile. “I have no sense of time”, I replied. “When I’m boozed, every moment is just that: a moment. Every booze night is nothing but a series of NOW […]