The Varnished Untruth (11 page)

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

S
URVIVAL

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 . . .

First of all, it’s a mistake to compare one’s personal experience with that of another. But you’re sighing deeply. Was the DRC really that bad?

Yeah, absolutely terrible. It’s a really troubled country, a war-ravaged zone with a legacy of brutal colonial mistreatment. I really didn’t know what I was getting into, although my brave pal, Australian film maker George Gittoes, who had once been locked up there for photographing something politically sensitive, came round to our New York apartment and, in Billy’s presence, warned me that if I went there I’d be dragged into a dark room and interrogated. ‘You’ll be lucky to see the light of day, ever again,’ he said. Needless to say, my husband absolutely forbade me to go. But, by now, you should know me well enough to predict whether his laying down of the law had any effect on me whatsoever!

I jumped on a plane for Africa (my first trip to any part of that continent that lies south of Morocco) and landed in Nairobi. So far so good, I thought; well hello, there was a shopping mall at the airport. And cappuccinos. I met up with Sally, the Merlin official who would be my companion and guide. She spoke Swahili which seemed like an excellent asset; I wished I’d acquired it, too. Our next flight winged us to Kigali, Rwanda. Although this region still held the terrible legacy of genocide in living memory (not to mention a terrifying movie with brutal images that were still fresh in my mind), I was pleasantly surprised by the excellent roads and the generally impressive infrastructure of the countryside. Driving the entire length of Rwanda – necessary in order to get to Goma and enter the DRC which is a landlocked country without a safe airport – I was forced to wonder, ‘Perhaps genocide is actually profitable!’ It was a disgusting thought but, given the enormous amount of cash that flowed into the country after the Tutsi and the Hutu had finished battling it out in such a desperately savage way, I think I could be forgiven for it. At least the money actually did seem to have been spent on improvements, rather than ending up in some dictator’s Swiss bank account.

I didn’t feel at all safe in the Congo, though. In fact, I felt uncomfortably visible. You don’t want to be blonde there. And you don’t want to be a woman either. As soon as I arrived, a security officer advised me: ‘You might want to cover your . . . female assets.’ He wasn’t kidding. Sexual violence against women is ubiquitous, and the utterly terrible style of the rapes is hard even to contemplate. I travelled around the countryside to Merlin-funded health clinics and spoke with women who had barely survived the atrocities. They sat stoically with clouded eyes, whispering details of being inhumanely surprised in their villages, homes, on the way to market and in the fields that they were trying to cultivate.