I know I had a “Babadook” living in me for a very long time…
(and it’s taken me weeks to try and write this post which is siginificant in itself).
It’s just too huge a subject in my life.
No, I never coined the phrase ‘Babadook’. It’s a movie I was drawn to watch about 7-8 years ago when I was swept full flow into the rapids of my descent. It’s not uncommon is it: messages often come into our life in symbolism and metaphor: books or movies, something you read or something you see that speaks to you at a visceral level nudging you into understanding something about your own life.
I could tell from the poster that it was on the creepy, horror-type side (which I’m not really into and therefore not easy bed-time viewing for me). But nevertheless I gave in to the internal nudge to watch it. And yes it was as creepy as hell! To the uninitiated soul, that’s all it is – a chilling horror movie. But if you watch it metaphorically, you’ll understand the deeper meaning and message.
As the story unfolded, I knew exactly what this movie was all about: unacknowledged and unhealed trauma stuffed into the recesses of your psyche, unresolved and repressed trauma simmering in the background to boiling point and the all-consuming, unwitnessed exiled parts of that trauma pain body. The more you try and hide it, destroy it, burn it, without acknowledging the pain body, it will appear again and again and again, each time reappearing stronger and more malevolent. And if you don’t confront and heal your pain, it will eventually manifest with your inner demon literally becoming you, possessing you, controlling you, pathologically. It spoke to me at a visceral level, as I drew parallels with my own life:
At that point in time, around 42 or 43 years old, I knew I had a mountain of unresolved pain, contributing to my breakdown in 2017; I knew I became consumed by my shadow for much of my early-adult life. It had shackled my soul and possessed me. And I knew I hadn’t healed any of it, raw as the day it happened, which I glossed over back then by “it’s in the past”, “I am happy” or ‘get over it‘ and ‘just get on with it’ fake positivity. Like the woman in the movie who couldn’t come to terms with what had happened in her life, I hadn’t fully come to terms with what had happened in mine….
(quote from The Beautiful in the Bad click to read): “I was polarised by my shadow for most of my 20’s, an all consuming, rageful, bitter, hateful, envious, jealous and angry shadow, (which I think I need to write more about) a by-product of my pain body, absolutely no doubt about that“
My mum told me how she witnessed me change, for the worse, literally overnight. It was after the unholy trinity abandoned us surreptitiously and suddenly. I think that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
From a loving, congenial, attentive and crazily creative 14 year old with bags of initiative, I became an angry, angst-ridden, foul-mouthed, bitter, confrontatious, spiteful creature, with vitriol aimed at anything that upset me. And no, this wasn’t just teenage hormones running amok. There was thick, black bile of melancholy infused with shards of rage cutting through my veins back then. A dark energy took my soul hostage for years, kept it shackled and consumed me. Just like the woman in the movie, I’d unknowingly stuffed away trauma into the corners of my psyche, only for that pain body to metasize into a malevolent, stronger, darker force which took over in an invisible coup d’etat.
I had become possessed by my pain.
It didn’t start at 14 years old; my pain body began to take shape from around the age of 7.
By the age of 10 I’d learned what it feels like to live in fear every single day, being hyper-vigilant against racial abuse and harassment where we lived. We were hideously targeted as the ‘only pakis in the street’ which I recount here. My body would react tensing up in defence with any passer-by in the street, accompanied with the sinking feeling and heavy anticipation of being hurled racial diatribes or worse, being attacked. Living in fear becomes you and I got used to being the hunted. There wasn’t much support in those days; the Police would come round, take some sort of statement from my mum, but nothing would change. Mum was too scared to move, thinking we might jump from the frying pan into the fire, it’s better to stay with the devils you know (we were in council housing back then so Mum would have had to apply to the council to get us rehomed). The racial abuse became a part of everyday life, our new normal, something I had to toughen up and suck up although I’d take some respite in the in-between when things would quieten down for a while. I can only imagine what that actually did to me as child, placed on a battle field of hatred like that, how my system became attuned to feeling terrorised, in high alert defence of real danger, unable to defend myself. Defence became my modus operandi which is still my normal stand-by setting. Highly strung is what I’m often called these days. That’s what happens when you’ve lived on your nerves for so long. Even today I’m way too defensive and ‘can’t take a joke‘ or jovial jibe – it cuts deep and I feel affronted. You think that everyone’s got it in for you. But delicate and fragile is what you become when you’ve grown up in the face of real fear. And here’s no shame in being delicate and fragile though.
To compound matters, I was the child to a dysregulated mother – scorned, verbally abused and beaten by her emotionally unavailable parents, I had similar treatment when her rage was triggered; learned behaviour can be a dangerous thing.
At 11 years old when I started secondary school, I learned what depression felt like when I was singled out and victimised by cruel girls. School became hostile territory but returning home every day was equally as hostile. Far from a safe and cosy haven, acrid, bitter and acrimonious tensions were rising in the household between my mum and her siblings who lived with us, and I witnessed regular vitriolic rows between the women, on occasions even physical. There was no respite which ever way I turned, nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide, racists to deal with on the street, bitter acrimony at home and bullied at school. I felt battered from all directions and to be honest, I’m surprised I didn’t run away from home but maybe the fear of being hunted kept me with the devils I knew rather than the devils I didn’t know.
By 14 I’d learned what it meant to have your heart shattered into a million pieces and obligated as well as compelled to hold space for my mum, being the only confidante for her, when we were abandoned stealthily, suddenly and surreptitiously by the unholy trinity who lived with us back then, women who were my surrogate mothers and sisters, who I whole-heartedly loved and trusted as such. The most devastating and terrifying fact was that they left us in that hell hole to suffer our fate and perish, whatever that fate was, fed to the wolves, left to fend for ourselves and fight the local thugs off alone (whilst the unholy trinity jetted off on fancy all inclusive holidays as I discovered decades later). It was that bit that was unpalatable and it was until only a few weeks ago that I finally found the strength to write about it, a year into this healing journey (undigested pain part 1 and part 2). I’m only now coming to terms with that dastardly deed and I don’t think I’ve fully healed my broken heart yet, how my own flesh and blood could leave me, a 14 year old girl and her mother, their sister, in the face of danger, potentially to perish alone and unsupported (as we never knew what the local racist thugs would think of next to try and victimise us). I’m finally processing this part, 35 years following the event. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long but the pain of that betrayal is very thorny and with roots embedded deeply, causing a deep rupture when I tried to pull it out too quickly. But in writing this I think I am finally unrooting this pain, seaming the wound back together and coming to terms with everything that happened and shaped me. As I’ve said before that it’s not what happened to you but what it did to you, internally, emotionally and spiritually.
From 14 onwards, I was emotionally and spiritually broken and a different energy had begun to consume me. My ‘Babadook’ had begun to possess me….
Continued in part two…
If baring my soul to you (and the world) has moved or touched a part of you in any way, then your support would be very welcome. To help me on this healing journey, perhaps you’d like to buy me a coffee (although mines a tea) via the link below:
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