On the shore, wind whipping, me shivering, stripped down nearly bare in my too-big bra and my mum’s small undies, I tried again and again to walk into the water, without moving much at all.
Did my mind keep telling me there was definitely a shark in there, about to eat me whole?
Yes, it did.
Was there a shark in there, waiting to eat me whole?
No, there was not.
There was an upturned boat that looked like a shark, that my mind told me could well be a shark, but it was not a shark. Through my work with Ron, it was becoming clearer and clearer to me now that there wasn’t just one voice in my brain, there were … at least two. There was that fearful voice, but there was also a calmer, more rational voice. The question I kept needing to ask myself was, which voice was I going to choose to believe?
After a number of false starts (running an inch into the water and then running out again when my heart felt too loud), it occurred to me that I was … swimming.
I was swimming, in the water. And I was alive! This was great! I spotted a group of half a dozen older women and men swimming nearby. They must have been the famous Icebergers—a group of over-sixties who swam here every morning, no matter the season. Without thinking, standing up tall in the water in my bra and undies, I waved. A few of them waved back. They looked happy. I felt happy. This, I thought, is what happens when you spend every day facing your fears: you end up happy.
And exhilarated.
And then just cold.
At home, I had a shower, and felt warm again, and more myself than ever before.
I don’t know how many times I told Ron that with a brain like mine perhaps I would never get to live out my Jeff Buckley dream. Even the thought of standing on stage made my cheeks go pink and my hands start shaking.
What if I just started smaller? suggested Ron.
What if I just started with something other than music?
Over the course of the last few months, at the suggestion of The Weekes, I’d begun working on small art projects, the kinds of things I used to do as a kid, just as a way of filling in time. I’d been picking flowers and arranging them in vases, pressing them in books, drawing, painting, knitting, playing with clay, planting seeds and writing down my favourite quotes, especially anything that might also double as a metaphor for hope. These were all things I could do without using too much energy, that I could get carried away in, which made time pass. The voice in my head often still told me that the only way I would ever feel better was to hang on to my fears, ruminate over them, stay alert. But as I became better and better at observing the relationship between the stories I was telling myself and the feelings I was experiencing, I began to realise that the opposite was true.
The less I thought about my own existential worries and the larger worries of the world, the more peaceful I felt. Of course, the voice in my head told me that I was being soft, that I wasn’t facing up to reality, that I was selfish and self-centred. I practised accepting. That might well be true, I conceded, but for now, for today, the best way forward was to keep dismissing those rumblings with statements like: ‘You know what? There might be a day in the future when I get to tackle those things. Right now, I’m recovering from a nervous breakdown, so I’m just going to craft for a bit.’ At first, I needed to spell things out clearly like that, as though I was talking to a child—that was how Ron explained it. Okay, I said. In a way, I was learning a language—the language of self-kindness, self-support, naming emotions, finding ways to alchemise them. It might take a while. And finally I felt able to face the second fear on my list. I was not qualified to get in to the Bachelor of Creative Arts. I had no folio, had done no arty subjects in Year Twelve, but with Ron’s encouragement, I decided to apply anyway. I wrote a letter—in fact, a rather long letter, a story, explaining why I thought the course would suit me. I took it as a sign of recovery that—in writing my application—I let my sense of humour through. I titled the essay:
THE SIMPLE AND TRUE STORY OF
CLARE BOWDITCH
WHICH AIMS TO EXPLAIN WHY SHE IS AN
EXCELLENT CANDIDATE FOR ACCEPTANCE INTO
THE BACHELOR OF CREATIVE ARTS.
(Otherwise entitled, ‘Please accept me or I’ll cry’.)
I had no real idea where this new confidence came from, all I knew was that facing my fears felt good. While the prospect of rejection was nearly paralysing, Ron said we could deal with that later. For now, my only job was to apply. And so I did.
Sometimes at night, I’d find myself thinking about my future. Not too far ahead, just a few months or maybe a year or so. The voice in my head kept telling me that it was silly to have applied to the Bachelor of Creative Arts. As if I was someone who could survive that kind of chaos. The sensible thing to do would be to just live a small life from now on—get a job, stay at home with my parents, do things that were safe, enjoy my little crafts. I didn’t want to have another breakdown, did I?
And for a small while, I did just that. I stuck to my routine. I kept things simple. I let my nervous
