“Poor little thing, such a shame” a disparaging phrase I heard often, so much so that it set me up for decades of debilitating & limiting beliefs - flawed, not good enough, ashamed of myself...

To be honest, having left the doctors’ office and deciding to go my own way, I had no idea where to begin.  When you are so far backed into a corner, which is how I felt, the only thing to do was to step forward – as if into an abyss – even stepping sideways was an abyss.  No matter how scared I was of what was to come, so fearful of the unknown, it seemed to pale into comparison to where I was right in that moment and to what had led me there.

The reality of that fated day in 2002, was that it was 38 years in the making. It did not happen overnight and not even in the preceding 6 weeks; so please, if you will, allow me to go back in time and fill in the gaps of my journey leading up to that day.

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I believe that it began before I was born.  I know right!? Sounds a bit out there to some. Even more out there is the notion that this condition has been with me though many lifetimes, maybe even carried in my DNA for many generations.  These are whole other topics I am open to and continue to explore - even at this stage in my life.  If this is connected to previous lives, historical trauma, DNA etc, then I feel I am here now to learn what it is that needs healing and to put a stop to it here in this lifetime; to prohibit the energies of shame, flawed, not good enough, guilt and dis-ease from perpetuating into my generational future; to send the vibration of forgiveness through previous generations and lifetimes; to reset the course for my grandchildren, their children and beyond.  If this is connected to reincarnation, then I’m working toward future lifetimes free of this condition, free of the deep-seated false beliefs that have kept me on the treadmill of lifetimes and generations of illness. As my soul’s journey continues, I am to be free to help others, armed with a lot of experience, knowledge, wisdom, compassion, kindness and Love.

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So, I was born in the early 1960’s, child no. 6 of 8.  Right before I was born, my Mum (8 months pregnant with me) and Dad were involved in a front and rear end car collision – dad was driving and a smoker at the time; there were 5 children in the back of their station wagon.  Dad rear-ended someone and someone rear-ended him.  With the impacts, his cigarette went flying into the back seat. 

Imagine for a moment a pregnant woman, front seat of car, wearing a seatbelt- the sudden and traumatic physical impact to her and her pregnant belly.  Imagine for a moment, the little baby inside being thrown around and tightly constricted by the seat belt.  Consider, if you will, the kind of stress and trauma my pregnant Mumma would have experienced coursing through her physical, mental and emotional bodies and that stress and trauma surging through the baby in vitro. It is now well known that trauma and stress get stuck in the physical body, so not really a foreign concept, as it is also widely known that whatever a gestating woman feels, hears and experiences, so does her child.  Just putting 2 + 2 together here!

Consequently, the cigarette that went flying in the car, landed in my sisters’ lap – more cause for panic.  Can you visualise the yelling and screaming? A mum heavily pregnant and everyone scrambling to get out of the car. Both mum and dad very aware of the loose and lit cigarette, posing all sorts of threats. 

Everyone walked away from that car accident, shaken, probably a little dazed, but no physical injuries.  I can totally understand the stress and trauma my Mum would have experienced in those crucial minutes and even the hours and days that followed – for the kids in the car and especially for her unborn child.    I believe that this was a critical juncture for the physical and emotional manifestation of the condition I was born with.

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In October of 1963 a little baby girl was born, with the doctors thinking she was perhaps 2 weeks overdue, “poor little thing is a little ‘overcooked’” they said - having come out of my mother’s womb screaming and with red, hot, dry skin.  My mother was pretty sure I was on time, so the assumption I was overdue, didn’t really sit well with her; after all being her sixth child, she had the experience and wherewithal to know and understand pregnancy and childbirth and I’m sure that with 5 children already, she was probably acutely aware of when she conceived!

At 6 weeks old, Mum took me back to the pediatrician and was adamant that something was not right - If I had been ‘overcooked’ She insisted, the redness and dry skin should have corrected itself by now. Upon further investigation, the doctor’s diagnosis, was that Her baby had been born with Eczema.  “Poor little thing, such a shame.” 

At this time, not a lot was known about this condition and the only treatments available were a combination of rudimentary cortisone creams, cortisone injections, thick, heavy aqueous (moisturising) creams and antihistamines (the drowsy kind).  It was considered a skin condition without consideration of where it might be coming from – what was the root cause?  My mother, with due diligence and concern, followed the doctors’ advice around the care of this condition – cortisone topically and orally, yearly trips to the Skin Specialist, moisturisers and antihistamines along with advising mum to ‘stop the child from scratching’. 

Mum would sew little cotton mittens for me for bedtime, which would be placed over my hands and tied around my wrists.  I was very good at getting them off!  The incessant itch overtook, and I would do anything to expose my fingernails, even one or two and enjoy the liberation of scratching the relentless itch.  It would surprise me at times (which quickly turned to guilt and anxiety), waking up with my mittens half off, torn at the fingertips or hanging from my wrists, as this nightly activity of me getting my mittens off and scratching the incessant itch often happened autonomously while sleeping. If I couldn’t get them off, I’d use a brush, a comb or anything I could find with sharp edges, to scratch that fucking itch.

This, of course would piss off mum as she was acutely aware of the damage, I could do in one night and would scold me harshly, not just about the damage, but my selfishness in not looking after my skin. I have vivid memories of the blood smears on my bed sheets upon waking; this would cause me great anxiety because there was no getting around it with mum, she’d know I’d gotten the mittens off (even if I made sure they were back on by morning) and had been scratching which would often trigger her stresses and result in hurtful and guilt placed reprimands – such as how much I cost to look after when they had not enough money to put food on the table, that my actions were selfish, can’t I just do what I was told and  stop scratching, don’t be so troublesome. These were the days of physical punishment, with which I am quite familiar. With 5 other children and then another 2 that followed, it’s easy (for me now) to conceive the stress, strain and even the guilt mum experienced trying to deal with this child who had a chronic 24/7 condition, a condition that was costly and required constant attention. 

Throughout my childhood mum and dad did the best they could with the information that was available. They were told, over the years that perhaps I might ‘grow out of it’ maybe around ages 7, 14, 21 – I’m not sure of the truth of these 7-year cycles, perhaps it was guesswork - at any rate this was not to be the case for me. “Poor little thing, such a shame” was the familiar and dismissive idiom used.

Being raised in Australia during the 60’s & 70’s in a large and poor family, I ate what was put on the table which was very much a traditional ‘English’ diet of meat & three veg; white breads, wheat flour, dairy & eggs.  Mum was a very good cook and made everything from scratch from whole foods and taught her children how to; I’m very grateful to have learned how to cook from scratch in my mother’s kitchen, as it served me very well on my path to recovery. There was very little in the way of processed packaged foods and meals in our house. I believe that my skin was reacting to a number of foods, throughout my childhood, the consistent rashing, itching and flare-ups tells me so, yet it was not considered or connected as reason for said flare-ups; as I got older, food intolerances, sensitivities and anaphylaxis kicked in bit by bit, food by food. 

Even well into the 1990’s the medicos had the same point of view for the treatment of chronic eczema, same assortment of pharmaceuticals they were using 30 years previous! Still with blinkers on to the connection between eczema and food; the connection to the immune system; connection between the skin and the gut or the skin and the nervous system, let alone the connection to trauma, anxiety, or the energy body. New treatments came along such as wet bandage treatment in hospital, the PUVA light box and various other experimental treatments - all of which I tried, some successful, some not – still, all very short term with underlying and dangerous side effects. 

“Poor little thing, such a shame” a disparaging phrase I heard often, spoken to my parents, by my parents to others, in front of and to me, so much so that it set me up for decades of debilitating and limiting beliefs – being seen as a ‘thing’ an object to be pitied; feeling sorry for myself and living in constant shame of this condition, feeling flawed and never quite good enough, let alone the guilt dumped on me by my parents. 

During my recovery, it was this kind of emotional trauma that needed healing and forgiveness first, more so than taking natural medications, changing the way I ate and applying oils and creams to my skin.  Always, during my recovery, when I took a deep dive into my traumatised, emotional and mental bodies, that’s where the real healing happened.  It was incremental, slow and very painful - emotionally and physically - however, it was absolutely necessary.

So, to be clear, whilst I spent a long time angry at my parents and my upbringing, I eventually found forgiveness.  It took a conscious effort to explore that as a part of my healing too, a lot of soul searching, much grief, oceans of tears, learning and understanding forgiveness and it’s healing power, learning to love again.  I love my parents and have forgiven them, realising that they did what they could with the knowledge, experiences, and traumas they too were living with. 

Leaving home at age 16 and a half, it was then up to me to manage this condition. I continued going to doctors and skin specialists, as it was all I knew.  I had spaces of time where my skin condition would be ok, for the most part it was not – it was always present in my life.  I remember throughout my 20s, having a childlike understanding that this condition was coming from within my body, yet when I approached doctors about this, they often thought me neurotic and uneducated.  I would express to them “we know it’s not contagious – that it did not somehow ‘get on me’ – so where is it coming from?”  “it’s simply a skin condition” they would say, some doctors ventured into anxiety, some ventured toward the immune system, yet they too seemed stuck on the treadmill of 30 year old treatments.

I was never satisfied with that answer even though I was still very young and naïve.  So I too stayed on the treadmill of western medicine from 16 – 38yrs, because it was the devil I knew and sadly, I grew comfortable in my discomfort because the devil I didn’t know was terrifying.  Thankfully, during those years, I was also dabbling in many of the ‘alternatives’ such as acupuncture & Chinese herbs, naturopathy, and even homeopathy – all too often tolerated and secretly boo-hooed  by family, friends and acquaintances, however, I felt drawn to keep dipping into that space and would pull back in fear, when it got too hard.

The encouragement of my ‘hippy’ sister and her ‘hippy’ husband, both whom I trusted implicitly, kept me dabbling again and again into the alternatives, with small triumphs along the way – enough to keep me interested.  Together, they were diving whole heartedly into the ‘alternative therapies’ – My sister into food and herbs as medicine, a little ayurveda, naturopathy and also well on her way to being an extraordinary Life Coach and Relationships Mentor; My Brother-in-law also into food as medicine, the healing properties of true water and a well-educated and experienced Homeopath - and I was their greatest Observer. 

When the time came, at age 38, backed into that corner, the only steps, forward & sideways, I could take was into Natural Alternative Therapies and the arms of these two Hippies. 

And so the Healing began.