“My childhood was spent competing with teenage boys for my Dad’s affection.”
Meet Nina*, one of 6 courageous Kiwis who shared their lived experiences with Authentic Storytelling for Mental Health Awareness Week 2021. This is her story.**
TW: Child sexual abuse, addiction, anxiety, depression, PTSD, suicide
“I’ve always felt not of this world or like I’m in the wrong time or space. I remember as early as 9 or 10 years old just feeling like I didn’t belong. And then, not long after, there was some family trauma that was the start of a fucking epic, shitty journey.”
Nina’s early life, punctuated as it was with trauma, has resulted in an only-recently-understood diagnosis of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. CPTSD — a close cousin of the more commonly known PTSD — stems not necessarily from a single traumatic incident, but from a prolonged period of abuse, abandonment or neglect. “I wasn’t even aware of CPTSD until a few years ago; by then I’d already been diagnosed with PTSD on 4 separate occasions,” she says.
42-year-old Nina lives with her partner and her young daughter outside of New Plymouth, where she has been since she relocated back home to New Zealand from Australia in 2015. She’s since been working hard to build a life for her family in the wake of compound tragedy. “In hindsight, my early childhood was pretty sweet, really, but it’s the revelations which came afterwards that haven’t been so good. When I was 13, my father was arrested for sexual abuse of young men. The first charge dated back to an incident from when I was 5, during which I was present. I only recall a very small amount of what happened, but I do have vague memories of it.”
Her father was convicted and sentenced for that charge, but received no jail time. “The biggest consequence for him at that time was probably that he was struck off from his previous work as a guidance counsellor and a teacher. After that, he started self-medicating with prescription drugs and alcohol. Looking back, that was probably about the time I started self-medicating as well; trying to chase oblivion.”
The family stayed together for a number of years afterwards — until Nina and her siblings finally convinced their mother to leave — but the whole family dynamic changed after her father’s conviction. “My mother started working out of town a lot to keep our family afloat and I was left to look after my younger siblings while my father became increasingly withdrawn, angry and violent. My siblings and I all carry aspects of the same trauma and, independently of each other, we all developed into very heavy alcohol and cannabis users. While it affected each of us differently, it definitely had long-lasting ramifications for all of us.”
One of the most seminal and shocking experiences for Nina happened around her 16th birthday when her father took her away on a day trip. “He arranged for us to go off-roading, like we had often enjoyed before as a family. But, unbeknownst to me, he had invited a young boy as well. Some of the shit I witnessed that day was absolutely sickening and if I hadn’t been in the middle of nowhere I would’ve done anything to extricate myself. When we got back, I did what I thought was right and I told an adult I trusted, but I later found out that person did nothing.”
Nina left home soon after and, in doing so, entered a life of poverty. “There have been periods of immense poverty and very little food throughout my life, which I’m sure have affected how I’ve coped, mentally. I was only 16 when I left home and there wasn’t a lot of government support back then, but I quickly realised I could sell the sleeping tablets I’d been prescribed to keep me going. I would do that and also busk on the streets to try and buy a tinny, some booze and a feed. When I was 17, after a year and a half on my own getting my life together, the house I was living in burned down and I lost everything again.”
Around that time, Nina says she suffered a psychotic break. As she describes it, she’d “been wearing a mask for so long and it started to crack. I was self-medicating with alcohol and psychedelic drugs, which was not good. I was admitted into a psychiatric unit and held there for 4 1/2 months. I was put on all sorts of medication for things ranging from epilepsy to chronic clinical depression and anxiety.”
She has since been prescribed “virtually every type of antidepressant under the sun” and has been through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as well as, more recently, working with a friend who specialises in mind-body connection to help her process her past trauma. “I’m not medicated for depression any more, but I do have backup anxiety meds for any periods of particular distress. I struggle immensely with counselling, even though it’s the first thing I would recommend to anyone else, because of my circumstances with my father being a counsellor — and a really good one. Personally, I just can’t cope in that environment.”
In search of alternative therapies, Nina travelled to Peru in her 30s and participated in a traditional Ayahuasca ceremony: a spiritual medicinal experience during which users consume a strong psychoactive brew to alter consciousness and heal from past trauma. The powerful and controversial hallucinogen is known to have some serious potential side effects, but it has also been shown to have tangible benefits for some users suffering from depression, PTSD and addiction. “Ayahuasca was one of the things that had the biggest healing effect on me. Since then, I don’t drink alcohol any more and I sleep properly for the first time in my life.”
That profound experience also opened Nina up to a reconciliation with her father, she says. “If it hadn’t been for that ceremony, I don’t think I would have even tried to have a relationship with him again. He had moved back to New Plymouth after living in South East Asia for a number of years and he was quite unwell. There was no trust and no respect between us, but I was doing my best to build a relationship with him for the sake of my daughter. He’s the only Dad I’ve got and I’d totally idolised him as a child, so there was still a weird kind of love there. But then, about 3 years ago, my Mum got a call from the police to say that someone had pressed new, historical charges against him. It turns out that it was the kid that was there on my birthday all those years before. I ended up having to go in and give a statement to the police about everything that happened that day.
“About 2 and a half weeks later, my father took his life. The fallout from the choices that he made and from his suicide continue, with the Coronial inquest still ongoing.”
Nina counts herself very lucky to have a strong support system of friends, many of whom have been with her since she was a teenager. “They’ve seen me in all my many shades of wellness and sobriety. Often, if I’m starting to become unwell, they’ll pick up on my symptoms before I do… I connect really strongly with the concept of whānau. Choosing who those people are in your life is one of the most beautiful things. In some ways I feel a lot closer to my whānau than I do to my remaining family.”
Some of Nina’s biggest challenges these days are more closely tied in with her physical health than with her mental health. “I have had a bad back from the time I was like 12 and, in recent years, I’ve also been diagnosed with [musculoskeletal disorder] fibromyalgia and arthritis. They’re now thinking I might also have [connective tissue disorder] Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. It got to the point recently where I asked my GP if it was possible that I was just a hypochondriac and I was making all this shit up in my head. But, of course, she reassured me that you can’t fake blood tests.”
Her physical health challenges have created a cyclical effect on her overall wellbeing, Nina says. “My knees are particularly shitty and have caused me to lose a lot of my fitness which has made me gain weight which then, of course, makes the pain worse. But I’m slowly trying to build back up into a fitter version of myself.” Her mind-body connection work has been particularly useful, she says, in strengthening her physical and mental resilience. “Over the last few weeks, we’ve been doing a lot of work on relaxation, meditation and mindfulness which I actually think has been quite helpful.”
She’s also a strong proponent of breath work and the 5 senses anxiety management technique which encourages users to anchor themselves in the present moment by focusing on 5 tangible things that they can perceive with their senses. “I’ve learned that you really do have to step back and take that deep breath. I’ve been using that technique with my daughter who’s been having a lot of tantrums recently. I’ve been teaching her that it’s ok to feel those feelings, but that we are not our feelings. How we choose to react to our feelings is what really counts.”
Holding herself accountable to her daughter has been a big part of Nina’s recovery, she says. “There’s so much intergenerational trauma and, finally, my generation is going: Fuck that shit — it stops here. We are not going to pass that old shit along to our babies in the next generation. They’re going to have enough to deal with already. The way I model things and what I choose to tell my child is very different from what I got growing up.”
Nina now works as a consultant, where she says that she will always be battling to manage her anxiety. “There are residual levels of anxiety for me no matter what I’m doing. And I know that I would have a much better and much more interesting career if it weren’t for that crippling anxiety. There have been times when I’ve arrived to start a new contract and I’ve not even been able to walk through the door. But one of the things that makes me most excited is some of the work I’ve been able to do with the medical training industry. Seeing how mental illness is being looked at holistically by the new generation of doctors is really heartening. And to be a small part of that is fucking rad.
“Every new day brings me hope, really. I try to always remind myself of all the blessings that do exist within the chaos; even more-so if I’m having a down day. I had a tough time recently after a particularly intense mind-body session where a lot of old trauma about my Dad came up. Afterwards, I just sat and looked at the ocean and reminded myself that I am not my feelings.
“The exceptional resilience of nature makes me hopeful. And we are but a part of nature so, by proxy, we must be quite resilient as well.”
* Some identifying details in this series have been changed to protect the identity of the participants.
** The stories in this series reflect the lived experiences of the participants only, and are not intended to be used as a reference for diagnosis or treatment of any condition. If you are experiencing mental distress, please find emergency resources through Mental Health Foundation, contact Lifeline or a reach out to a medical professional in your local area.
