Frankie on endless healing
TW: SA
I didn’t have a plan when I moved to Sydney in February 2018. Just a desperately-fought-for desire to start again.
2017 was the lowest of a long list of low points in my life. It almost bloody killed me. I emerged skinny, traumatised, penniless, and clutching my long overdue diagnoses of Autism, Dissociative PTSD, and BPD. Unprocessed experiences of physical & sexual violence, gullibility, isolation & rejection all now had an umbrella to rest under. Finally. The blame & worthlessness that I had internalised all my life had a little breathing space to semi-detach. I could now chart a path, rather than just flinging myself through the years & hoping to land somewhere soft.
I’ve been a 16-year-old smoking too many bongs and struggling to finish school whilst living with women in their 20’s - they inevitably kicked me out, at 2am on the day of my final exams, ha! (I deserved it, I’d thrown a massive party and not bothered to tell people to take their shoes off, the carpet was fucked).
I’ve been a music student and gigging musician living in a van, with my surf board, floaty skirts, and tofu snacks. I’ve been a young woman in an abusive relationship covered in shingles, with her bag packed for the mental health ward. I’ve been dirt broke and without a home - or even a pair of shoes at one point. I’ve been starving and stuck in London, Italy, and Lismore. I’ve employed some pretty reckless and dangerous methods to try to get my needs met along the way, too.
The first thing I did after arriving on Gadigal land was find a good GP - which led to a recommendation of Marsha Linehan’s Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT). I started the 20 week course in July of 2018, ready to take accountability and ready to work.
I learned that to behave dialectically is to balance acceptance and change. I learned practical skills for my emotional regulation and interpersonal effectiveness. And most helpfully, I learned how to walk the middle path - to exist at least semi-comfortably in the grey.
Beyond the course, my happiness & relationships were on a very slow and winding upward trajectory. Do you remember drawing the paths of bumblebees when you were a kid? Spins and dips and back tracks and upward launches - that’s what healing looks like to me. DBT helped me plant my feet on the ground and observe, accepting what was beyond my capacity and changing what was within my control. It gave me language & skills I’d never been taught, and a softness towards my missteps.
As time moves on, I’m certain of this: Creating regulation habits in third spaces as well as our living and working environments is absolutely critical in supporting ongoing functional processing and long-term healing. It’s what those of us carrying heavy things need in order to participate fully in life and community. We can only do so much of our healing alone.
It took me a few years beyond that DBT course to fully understand that community is a critical tool for healing. Through Zenly, I know that we need grace, shared space, and to see our reflection in others. We need to be in rooms with different brains and bodies and processes. Because in accepting others, we can accept ourselves and accept that there is no ‘end point’, no crystallised moment when we will feel ‘healed’ or ‘good enough’. We come to deeply know that walking the path is enough.
By 2021, I no longer met the criteria for BPD.
By 2022, I had received my C-PTSD diagnosis and my meds had settled in nicely (goodbye, early morning sweaty legs!). And best of all, the path that I was on led me to Zenly, to sharing all of this with you.
Who knows where your path will lead!
