Although Mum has never admitted it, I’m pretty sure that even before I came home, half of Sandy was on prayer duty for me. I was so embarrassed about what had happened that I couldn’t even bear the thought of seeing friends who had known me before I left. But, for whatever reason, I felt okay around Mum’s friends, who were especially kind to me during this time. Her dear friend Fay, a songwriter, left a message for me on the phone, told me I could call her back anytime and, when I did, she shared stories from her own life, from a time when she was young, and had gone through her own suffering, and also shared with me the things that had helped her. She told me that sometimes, when we’re feeling fragile, what we need more than anything is a good hero’s journey for our mind to latch onto. We need wisdom and gentle reminders that this is all part of being human. I told her I couldn’t read, that it felt beyond me. She said, ‘Why don’t you start with children’s literature? Something old and beautiful?’ She dropped over a book called The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge. Many years later, I would learn that this was a favourite childhood book of J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series. At the time, all I knew was that I liked it. It was gentle and sweet and it made sense to me. I didn’t want anything complicated or overwhelming: what I needed, what I craved, was a less direct approach. Metaphor, and symbol, and story, and hope. This book provided all these things.
Mum had another friend, Cath, who—it turns out—had once been through a very similar experience to mine. I still wasn’t being honest with Mum about exactly what was going on in my head, mainly because I didn’t want to scare her, but when Mum repeated back some of the thoughts Cath had mentioned as being quite common in this kind of illness—crazy thoughts of driving off bridges and into trains and so on—I felt a little moment of relief. At the very least, I was not the only crazy one! Best of all, Mum’s mate had recommended a book that really helped her and, she said, she was going to send it to me. For the next three days, the only time I left the house was to check the letter box. I was desperate, absolutely desperate, to find some way of getting better. But, then, when the book did finally arrive, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. For a start, its title was Self Help for Your Nerves—a title that would have made the old me giggle. So quaint! And in the photo on the front of the book, the author, Dr Claire Weekes, looked a lot like my grandmother. To be honest, if I hadn’t been so incredibly unwell, I think I would’ve dismissed it as ‘not for me’.
Fortunately, I was desperate enough to try anything. And, as it turns out, this was the book that would save my life.
While Dr Claire Weekes might have struck me as old-fashioned, it was quite clear from the outset that she was in fact rather a progressive sort. The introduction explained that she had cut her teeth helping war veterans recover from what at the time, and in the book, they called ‘bad nerves’ but is now known as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. She was a pioneer in her field, and not at all prone to beating around the bush. I liked how direct she was.
Until opening the cover of this book, I had assumed that my bad feelings would be with me for life. I wasn’t sure I would ever truly recover. Or, if I did, I assumed it would involve thousands of unpleasant hours of psychological muck-raking on the therapist’s couch, not to mention lifelong medication and occasional visits to the psych ward. I had been thinking of late that the most I could ever hope for was that I didn’t kill myself.
From the very first page, Dr Weekes utterly, utterly disagreed, and what a relief that was.
She was not here to tell me to do anything complicated, she said, and it felt like she already understood that, right now, what a girl like me needed was something clear, and simple, and practical. She said that if I was reading this book because my nerves were ‘in a bad way’, I’d come to the right place. She was going to talk to me directly, as though she were sitting right beside me. She promised me that even if I had suffered from a complete ‘breakdown’ (and it was quite clear now—I had), I would not only recover, I would thrive. All it would take was a little time, some courage and perseverance, and the application of her simple, self-administered technique. With a little bit of practice, I would once again be able to enjoy life to the full. I would find happiness again. ‘You can do it,’ she said. And for just a second, I believed her. And one second was all I needed to begin.
She gained my trust
