Prologue

Following the untimely death in 1992 of my brother-in-law, who was also my very dear friend, I began to behave in a really strange way.

During the subsequent months of deep depression when I couldn’t even bring myself to carry out basic hygiene functions, I found myself going into some truly weird states of mind on a very regular basis.

These episodes would usually occur in the morning when I’d return to bed after my two boys left for school. I’d be lying on my back when suddenly, for no reason, my body would start to move and I would begin to scream. Usually I would end up, still on my back, with my head hanging over the edge of the bed, choking and spitting and frantically trying to free myself from some imaginary restraint.

Of course, I couldn’t talk to anyone about these strange occurrences simply because there was no way of explaining them that wouldn’t make me sound like I was completely off my trolley. So, instead I learned to live with them.

Around the end of 1992 I sadly had to give up a voluntary job that I loved, working with first-time mothers and their babies, because by then I was drinking heavily. By the time the boys would come home from school, which was at two o’clock and three o’clock respectively, I always managed to appear quite sober.

Then, as soon as homeworks were over the drinking would start again and continue on and off throughout the evening. I thought I was so clever because no one ever seemed to notice how pissed I was a lot of the time.

In the September of ’92 I began seeing a therapist for one hour once a week. During the few months I attended her I discussed everything, well almost everything, except my drinking. The actual admittance only came about because one morning, having arrived late, hungover and very tearful, I felt I could no longer keep this awful secret to myself.

By Christmas of the same year I’d reached such a state that if my husband and I were going out for the evening I’d have to have about four whiskies before I even left the house. That’s how far gone I was. Things got worse before they got slightly better.

1993 saw me at my lowest, by the end of which I almost choked to death one evening during one of my hellish binges. The saddest thing of all was that the children had seen me in some of my worst states and for a seven and ten year old that must have been really scary. Unfortunately, I can never erase those memories for them but I hope some day, when they are old enough, to explain what was happening for me during that awful period. I can only pray that in time they’ll forgive me because I know that deep down they still carry that anger inside, even if it is unconscious anger.

It was in January 1994 that I had the good fortune to meet Alan, a therapist, who would over the course of the following four years, help me through some of the most difficult times of my life.

Being able to explain my horrific screaming episodes plus my ever-increasing desire to die, to someone who was not going to judge or condemn me gave me the strength I needed to make it through another day.

Towards the end of ’94 I began to feel an overwhelming need to explore my strange behaviour which had by then become an almost everyday occurrence. It had not only begun to take over my life it also at times threatened my very sanity and I knew that the only way I was going to stop this terror was to face it head-on in a safe and loving environment. Having considered the many options available at the time, Alan finally suggested an experiential process known as Holotropic Breathwork™.

Basically, this process involves reaching an altered state of consciousness through deep rapid breathing and the use of heavy drumbeat music, usually of an ethnic nature (i.e. Native American, Australian Outback or African). The term “holotropic” comes from the Greek word “holo” meaning “wholeness” thus the aim is to deal with the “whole person” rather than just his/her symptoms.

Over the course of the next two and a half years (January 1995-June 1997) I attended many one-day and week-end workshops, completing thirty breathwork sessions in all. Following each session I kept a journal, detailing, not only my personal journey (when writing them up I didn’t intend to use the present tense, it just came out that way), but a seven-day follow-up record of my physical and emotional states plus notes on insights and feelings between each session. I now feel ready to share these personal voyages.

The purpose of this book is to try and give hope to those searching for the courage to face their demons head-on. I wish I could say that it will be all fun and games, but I can’t because for the most part, it will be anything but. Whenever we return to painful experiences in our lives, whether through regression, writing or even in discussion with others, we reopen old wounds that had never quite healed in the first place. It is only in reconnecting with that pain and allowing ourselves to re-experience the experience that we can begin to heal.

For me, the learning process was in meeting so many other people who, like me, were also seeking to understand their fears and anxieties and discovering that I wasn’t the only person in this world who was having a rough ride through life.

Probably the greatest discovery I’ve made through all my years of therapy is that while I’ll never be able to change what happened in the past or my lifelong psychological reaction to those painful events, I’ve learned to a great extent why I am the way I am.

During the process of dealing with all my emotional shit I spent a short while in a psychiatric hospital because I came dangerously close to what the mental health profession call madness (the book, it is hoped, might also encourage these people to reconsider their routine use of strong sedation of patients on their immediate admission to hospital, especially cases of deep depression). I now know that my breakdown was in fact heralding the beginning of my breakthrough to recovery. Sadly, not everyone saw it that way.