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INTIMATE EXPRESSION

Trafford Publishing

Contents

A message of acknowledgement...............................................................................viiIntroduction...............................................................................................ixThe Major Turning Point in my Healing Journey..............................................................xiChapter 1 My Story.........................................................................................1Chapter 2 My Early Childhood...............................................................................5Chapter 3 Orphanage Years..................................................................................12Chapter 4 Foster care......................................................................................18Chapter 5 Freedom at last..................................................................................22Chapter 6 My Healing Begins................................................................................29Chapter 7 Emotional healing................................................................................41Chapter 8 Facing my fears..................................................................................45Chapter 9 Love and Intimacy................................................................................54Chapter 10 My Overview on how I healed myself naturally from Depression and Addictions.....................66

Chapter One

As I sit here typing, I recall a conscious dream that has been with me for most of my life—I see myself sitting on the ground on the hill of the orphanage, with my legs crossed and my elbows on my knees, and my chin resting in my hands. I'm waiting for my Mum and Dad to come driving up to take me home and I see my Mum reaching out to pick me up and hold me in her arms saying, "Dennis you're O.K. Son; you're not bad." I still dream that dream.

I am the 8th born child—born in the Central Queensland town of Rockhampton on the 11th of March, 1960—out of ten of us; I have five brothers and four sisters. We were a fairly poor family, but not an unusual fact for most of the people in our community. I lived a normal little boy's life, playing with the other kids in our neighbourhood. We played toy soldiers in the dirt, and made mud cakes, baking them in the sun, later pretending to eat them. I grew up with heroes like Ned Kelly and Captain Thunderbolt—a couple of famous bushrangers from our Australian History—Geronimo the American Indian, and Gandhi.

As a very young boy, not yet in school, I looked up to my older brothers, who made it look fun to slide down the hand railing of our house. As I was climbing up to the top rail I slipped and fell head first onto the concrete drain pipe; cracking my skull from one side to the other. (I still have a hole in my head from the incident.) My brothers, sisters, and several others from our street would also go up to the local Electrical shop and watch TV through the shop window. I only say this because in some ways, we were a normal family.

On my first day of school, wearing a white cotton shirt, I had been given a sixpence for my lunch. But on my way to school I saw a shop and decided to go in and buy a chocolate ice-cream. I managed to get the ice cream all down the front of my white shirt.

I went into the schoolyard to see two of my older brothers and ask them what I should do about my white shirt. They said "You are going to cop it when you get home for buying the ice cream and getting it all over your shirt instead of buying your lunch." This terrified me, as I remembered the beatings that happened to my mum. I decided to run away from school. I went and hid in the park with the Aboriginal wino all day until dark. I was scared and terrified of what my fate was going to be. On returning home that evening on my first day at school I never got into trouble.

The beatings, I am told, happened regularly to mum but I only have the memory of it happening once. Maybe my survival instincts kicked in and I started to live in denial of it happening. For instance, I remember there was a party in our back yard and all us young ones were made to stay upstairs and watch from the windows. Later I remember hearing my mum and dad yelling. I heard the sound of my mum's screams and furniture smashing. I was so frightened. I went over to their door and tried to help my mother, but I was only three years-old and I couldn't reach the door handle to get in.

My heart was breaking because I was not able to help my mum and stop her from being beaten.

When I do think of my younger years, I don't recall any memories of my mother or father ever holding me, hugging me, touching me, or looking at me with loving eyes; or even saying they loved me. My needs for love and attention came from somewhere else.

Whenever I was in emotional pain or needed some affection I would yell to the lady next door, "Lu Lu I want lollies." Sweets were what she used to give me to calm me down emotionally. If she wasn't home I would just have to live with whatever was going on.

Today when I feel fear, anger, sadness, hurt, pain, grief, or any other upset or conflict I still occasionally use sweet things to comfort myself. I have had to lighten up on myself for using sweets as an emotional coping tool; just as I have had to let go of so many other addictive substances over these last twenty years. This is a large problem for anyone to deal with when going into healing and recovery from childhood abuse, neglect and the associated depression.

I still strive for the need to be loved today and on rare occasions I still revert to using sweets to calm my emotions. Through my years of recovery and healing, I have come to see that I have been addicted to sugar as a coping mechanism for my emotional problems. This has been one of the hardest addictions that I have had to recover from.

As much as my younger years were an emotional roller coaster, little did I know how much the course of my life would change in the years to come.

Chapter Two

My mother died and was buried on the 4th of March, 1964, seven days before my 4th birthday. No one ever explained to me that my mum had died, nor had anyone supported me through the grieving process. It wasn't until thirty years later, when I lost a close friend who had become a mother-like figure for me that I was able to heal from the effects of my repressed grief from my mother's death. I felt that my whole world was turned upside down.

For the first few months we lived out of town with our Uncle before being put into an orphanage for girls and boys. This was situated on the outskirts of Rockhampton. The Church, under the guidance of the State, ran the orphanage. I—and five of us younger children—was signed over to the care of the State and admitted to the Orphanage on January 3, 1965.

My father didn't have anyone to care for us while he was at work and he couldn't afford to support us.

I felt that there was something wrong with me. I felt that I was trapped within the confines of the orphanage, like I had been sentenced to a long-term jail sentence. I felt like I was a prisoner. That my Freedom had been taken away the day I was put into the orphanage. We weren't allowed outside of the orphanage grounds...