by Andrea Kitt
30
Escape
On Thursday May 1st 1997 we made our escape. In the last couple of weeks the plans had been refined down to this particular evening, when Sam was off playing music and smoking dope with his mates and was not expected back until fairly late.
A friend of mine picked up me and the children, with all our luggage, and took us to my mother’s garage in Totnes. There I bundled everyone and everything into the car and made a quick getaway, still anxious that we may be followed. But the further we were from home, the more confident I felt, until by the time we were on the edge of Bristol I was pretty sure we had made it.
We spent the first night in a motel just the other side of the suspension bridge, then set off the next morning to stay the next night with some friends of Carmen’s in South Wales. The children seemed happy: singing and chatting and playing, and only squabbling a little bit. I explained to them what was happening and why, and they understood what I was talking about. After all, they had been there with all the shouting and arguing, and knew how difficult things had become.
The only incident that stands out on our second night was that the man of the couple, who was tall and overbearing and a complete stranger to Simon, frightened him by coming up close and booming, “Aren’t you going to tell me your name?” in a loud, insensitive manner. This resulted in tachycardia, even though he was already taking his medicine. I was very worried and not sure what to do, but eventually I got through to Bristol Children’s’ Hospital and they told me to simply increase the dose by a certain amount until his heart calmed down. Once I had done that he was fine.
The following afternoon we arrived at our cottage in Pembrokeshire, which was on one side of a farmyard. I remember still feeling upset: crying when the children had gone to bed; sitting up on my mattress and praying; feeling soothed when I was able to softly channel words of peace and reassurance from guides or angels, or from my own higher self.
I spent a fair amount of time up the road in the phone box, talking to my very helpful lady solicitor, and to one or two other people who gave me brief reports, letting me know that Sam had been shocked to find we had gone but was reasonably OK. Apparently he was going round visiting people and going on and on about it: first of all being very angry, then telling them how it was all a misunderstanding, how he regretted going out that evening and giving me the impression that other people were more important than me... I don’t know everything he said, but I’m afraid he overdid it as far as a lot of people were concerned. One person told me years later that if they spotted him coming they would hide under the table and pretend they weren’t at home.
That May was windy, but there was sunshine too, and we filled our days with excursions. The sea was a mile away down a small lane. Both children could walk by now (Judy was five and Simon four), but Simon would get tired after a while and need to be carried, or else go in the pushchair.
We visited Pembroke Castle, took a boat out to an island with puffins and seals, and went several times to a local theme park that had lambs to feed with bottles, and ponies to ride, a ball pool and lots of other fun things. One time I climbed up to the top of a tall slide with Simon and gave him a little push, only then noticing that the boy at the bottom hadn’t got off. To my horror, they crashed into each other and Simon got a nasty black eye, but worst of all his heart began to double-beat again. I remember walking round the park on the verge of tears, not knowing what to do, mentioning my plight to random people who didn’t know what to do either. So we went home as quickly as we could and made another phonecall, and after that I knew how much to increase the dose each time if ever it happened again... which happily, it didn’t.
A month later we got back to Devon and stayed for a couple of weeks with my ex-boss from Fairford Electronics. I had often gone in to work in the morning and joined him in a moan about our respective spouses, and he had told me that if ever I needed a bolt hole, he could provide one. When it came to it he definitely didn’t want us there for long, but I was very grateful for the two weeks respite it gave us in which to sort out the next move.
I met with Sam a couple of days after we got back, on neutral ground in the middle of Totnes. As I predicted, a month had given him enough time to calm down; and the communication we’d had through solicitors made him understand I was serious. He was now ready to discuss how often the children were to be with him and how often with me.
I can’t remember if to start with it was half-and-half, or they went for weekends there, or we staggered it so that each child had more quality time with one parent and a break from sibling quarrels. I know that it was an intermittent headache for years: changing the schedule as circumstances changed, and trying to arrange it so everyone felt they had enough time with each other and also enough of a break from each other. Sometimes it seemed that whatever I suggested Sam managed to be unhappy about it; but having said that, I do very much appreciate that he was always willing to play his part as a parent. If I had never had a break, or if the children had never had a break from each other, it would have been far more stressful. As it was, I think we muddled along pretty well.
The next place we stayed was in a room in a large Victorian house belonging to a sculptress in Newton Abbot. Her studio was full of beautiful horses and figures made from driftwood; there were ducks in the garden and a spacious old kitchen where we could make our meals. We stayed there for three months, and then she decided she no longer wanted the noise of children in her house, so we looked again for somewhere else. It was Judy who persuaded me to rent the bungalow in Ipplepen; she always liked new places. I had my doubts, because I am not so keen on modern houses and it was all squashed up on an estate rather than being surrounded by countryside. But it was nearing autumn: the nights were drawing in, and on the day we looked at it it was raining, making any shelter seem warm and welcoming. It would at any rate be more permanent than the last two places, and it was time we found somewhere we could stay for as long as we wanted.
So we moved in to Mayfair Road, and stayed for three years. Now I had a place of my own, I had to go through the horrible process of going back to Bramble Cottage and tearing apart the nest I had built there, sharing furniture and belongings between the two houses. I asked a friend to go with me, in order to keep Sam on his best behaviour. We got it done as quickly as possible, and back in Ipplepen I tried to make the bungalow feel like home. It never quite did, even when I painted the living-room royal blue and filled the place with colourful artefacts. But the children were still young, and it was a practical, easy place to live.
I continued with my psychotherapy. The original lady became unwell and I began to see someone else, who was a little more talkative and challenging. I could see now that although my spiritual practice had been a vital step along the way, allowing me to find my heart and develop a sense of self, there was a part of me that had been by-passed: the emotional self, the inner child. My marriage had shown me I had a lot to learn in this area, and I now felt ready and eager to find out as much as I could. I decided to seek out some training so I could eventually help other people in the way I had been helped. By now I was talking a lot to Carmen: she was always encouraging, and was also generous in giving me money towards it, as it was something she believed in strongly herself.
In the end I found a counselling course in Dartington that suited me well. The couple who taught it knew their stuff and were not afraid to tell us about their personal experiences; and there were a lot of exercises in which we had to explore our own feelings, responses and patterns of behaviour, which I believe is one of the most important parts of becoming a skilful, empathic practitioner.
I spent the first few weeks crying a lot and talking about Sam, but I also had the chance to practice my new skills on the other members of the group. I was pleased to discover that my natural ability to listen and to care could be put to good use, though I was aware that I needed to be far more assertive and pro-active than I had been up to this point. This was no
surprise, as it has been one of the main themes in my life, but in this situation as I became more confident I could genuinely help other people.
One of my first questions was, “What if a client won’t stop talking?” I struggled with that one for a while, but slowly discovered that there were a lot of interventions I could use to help someone get out of their mental stuckness and become more in touch with their body and feelings, which for me was particularly satisfying. I even gave Sam one or two sessions a couple of years later, and he was quite obliging whilst in the client role.
The counselling course was a good way to get to know people. We met for one day a fortnight, and always to begin with we would sit round in a circle and take it in turns to speak about what had been happening in our lives since the last time, particularly how we had been feeling. There was one woman called Annabel whom I especially admired because she dressed in sexy clothes and seemed popular with men. I was hoping to find a new man, but living with Sam for so long had eaten away at my confidence. My posture had deteriorated, and I had worn nothing but jeans for years. I didn’t even know any more how to look attractive, and I needed help to get started.
One Friday during her lunch break from work, Annabel kindly took me up to the market and picked out a strappy little black dress with silver spangles. It fell nicely round the thighs and clung to the curves of my body, making me want to stick out my chest rather than hunch my shoulders, giving a bounce to my step. Once she had got me started, one garment led to another until I had a small collection of nice things to wear. I was coming alive again. I felt as if I had been a coiled spring, squashed and repressed, and now I had been set free all that energy was multiplying. I went to Exeter and bought myself a wickedly expensive faux-fur coat, with the specific intention of saying “Hug me!” to the world.
Next I discovered dancing. There was a weekend of ‘5 Rhythms’ going on in a school hall in Totnes. I was thrilled to find an exercise in which I was free to stretch every part of my body that wanted to be stretched, with the help of inspiring music, a good teacher and a lovely, free-flowing group of people.
As we were packing up to leave on the Saturday, a tall man with deep brown eyes whom I had danced with a few times came and invited me out for a meal. We had a pleasant evening, talking mainly about children and relationships: he had separated from his wife and shared the care of his daughter, who was a similar age to Simon. Just before I got into my car in the car park he bent down and gave me a deep, warm kiss goodbye, embracing my lucky fur coat just a week after I had bought it!
All of a sudden my juices were flowing and my thighs were humming in a way I hadn’t experienced for quite some time. The following evening he had to go straight back to his home in Bridport, Dorset, but we arranged for him to come and visit me two days later. I hadn’t made love with anyone for so long, and I suppose at this time I was at the height of my sexuality. Having children had somehow dispelled any fears I had around that area of my body (nothing could be more devastating than having such enormous lumps emerge from between my legs!) and I was feeling ripe and womanly. Those two days of waiting felt like at least two weeks!
Peter was a peaceful, caring man with a sexual energy and appetite that matched mine beautifully. We took it in turns to spend the weekend at each others’ houses. By then the children were with me during the week and at Sam’s at the weekend. Occasionally he brought his daughter over to play with them, but this usually resulted in the two girls getting very noisy and naughty and poking fun at us. More often than not it was just the two of us, talking and eating, walking and shopping and making love. Sometimes I felt completely drunk with pleasure. I can remember swooning around shops in a warm daze, then swimming in the sea and feeling completely, gorgeously at one with the power of the surge and the rush, the build and release of the waves.
Peter had done a fair amount of psychotherapy; he understood the value of clear communication and welcomed a relationship in which we regularly shared with each other how we were feeling. Often we would sit at either end of the sofa and take it in turns for a few minutes each to speak about how the world looked through our eyes, while the other person listened with an open heart. After years of one-sided non-communication with Sam, this felt like the greatest luxury.
31
Gestalt
The counselling course was all well and good, but to really learn about my own inner world and what made me relate to other people the way I did, I needed to go on courses that were specifically about self-discovery. This was not just light-hearted curiosity: my relationship with Sam had shown me just how much farther I had to go in learning to understand my own feelings, respect my own needs, communicate clearly and become more confident. I had been aware when I first met him that his bossiness and lecturing reminded me strongly of my parents, and that part of my reason for being with him was to challenge that behaviour as I had been unable to as a child. And in the end I had done: for the first time in my life I had become angry and stood up for myself. But I knew I had only just taken the lid off a whole mass of pent-up energy involving grief, resentment and complicated feelings from the past that now needed to be expressed, understood and healed.
I was also hoping to find a branch of psychotherapy that I felt passionate enough about that I could pursue it beyond the diploma level of the counselling course: something that would become my specialization.
With this in mind I did a series of weekend workshops that gave me a chance to try out different methods. Under the guidance of skilled teachers, I was repeatedly faced with the challenge of relating to other people in an emotionally honest way and witnessing their responses. The brilliant thing about all of this training was that, as a vital part of learning to help others, I was continually growing and learning more and more about my self.
A lot of therapists in the area were qualified in something called ‘Core Processing’ which they studied in a manor house just outside Widecombe-on-the-Moor, and I got a lot out of this particular taster weekend. One thing I remember was a woman getting annoyed at the way I mumbled and apologized for myself. It was quite a revelation. From being a shy child, I had developed this way of making people listen hard and feel a bit sorry for me, which I had been doing for so long it had become a habit. It never occurred to me that they might find it irritating. I resolved now to catch myself at it whenever I could and make an effort to speak up. In the end I decided not to do this particular course, because it was Buddhist based and involved a lot of meditation, and I felt I’d done enough of that.
Next I tried ‘Gestalt’, the method that Carmen specialized in back in the seventies. On this occasion, after the initial weekend I decided to give it a go, and enrolled on the preliminary course in Bristol, which involved being there for one weekend each month. During the first session the teacher demonstrated the essence of the practice by asking for a volunteer client. This woman told us just a few things about a personal issue that was troubling her, then in a very short time the therapist had picked up a great deal more information, both by making astute enquiries and by noticing every little thing, from the tone of her voice to the way she moved her hands. By mirroring all this back to the client they had soon got to the root of the problem, and the solution became clear. To me it looked like magic; I dreamed of the day when I would be so skilfully observant and aware.
The way it worked in the group situation was that we took it in turns to bring up issues we wanted to work on. Often somebody else’s work would remind us of our own pain and trauma, so it was an environment in which the more you were there, the more you realized you had things you needed to address and deal with. On one occasion I was suffering with a sensitive bladder; this was a chronic condition for me which had a lot of physical triggers but also seemed to be to do with feeling frightened. That day I was just extremely annoyed by the sensation of needing to pee all the time, and I thought I would experiment in using this frustration to find out if there were deeper levels of anxiety underneath.
The other group members were eager to help by playing the parts of my lost siblings, and soon we had conjured up all seven of them. I lay on the floor; they gathered around, put their hands under my head, feet and body, lifted me up and rocked me gently, giving me a wonderful feeling of support, of no longer having to struggle along on my own. When I got back on my feet we held hands and played games, and presently we began to poke fun at the facilitator and her assistant, who had offered to represent my mother and father. I hid behind my big brothers and sisters, revelling in the feeling of having allies at last, so that it was ‘us and them’ rather than ‘me and them.’ My parents were brought down to size: the intensity had gone. I felt wonderfully, liberatingly normal.
It’s amazing what an effect psychodrama can have. Even though we were play-acting, it gave me a taste of what life could have been like with brothers and sisters to stand by me and back me up and be my friends. The session had a profound effect, and I watched myself behaving differently from the moment I got home.