I’m going to start this series of posts by telling you a little story. I’m going to open myself up and be vulnerable. We’re gonna take this one deep. It’s the story of my history, fairytale style:
Once upon a time, in 1981 a little baby girl with raven-black hair and enormous eyes that could drink in your soul was born shortly after midnight on a warm summer’s night in August. Her sweet and doting mother was delighted and her endeared and perplexed father was well……stoned. This little baby grew into a curios, wide-eyed and adventurous child who loved everyone. Her mother worked hard to support her little family of two and her father gypsied around Europe in an effort to find himself as he was a bit of a lost soul. Intelligent, intuitive, creative and amazing however very absent. Up to the age of four this little girl’s life was a magical and enchanting one spent wandering and exploring the streets of various parts of Austria, Italy and Spain depending on where they were living at the time.
Then there was a sudden twist in fate. The little girls mother, young and deeply troubled by some of her life’s misfortunes decided to marry a cruel and unkind man who had deceived her into believing that he was in fact the prince that she had been waiting for.* The new evil step-father threw this little girl’s life into a vortex of unkind words, punishment and general emotional abuse. Her mother who became lost within the boorish situation she had got herself and her first child into was not strong enough to protect her and suddenly, as if becoming conscious of herself for the very first time the little girl realised that she was all alone in this life. And very, very aware.

The little girl escaped into her own world of colourful creative imagination fed by books and nature and dreams of being free one day. A half sister was born, followed by a half-brother whom she cherished and adored. Since she had no choice in the matter the little girl made the best out of her life, just living for the day that she would be grown-up and could make her own choices and escape her shackles of enslavement and oppression, the harsh words and rejection and aloneness of her childhood. She didn’t want to wait for a knight in shining armour to save her, she was determined to save herself.
In her 12th year having endured far more than any person ever should, bringing her to attempt running away from home several times, life catapulted into a whole new direction. The girl’s mother decided to remove herself from the destructive marriage she was in however sadly losing any rights and custody over the two children born within the relationship. Whilst the mother was vacant and exhausted and entirely unavailable with enormous amounts of healing to process, the little girl realised  that, though still alone she was finally free ….. however not so, as she had assembled an invisible wall of protection in which she had locked herself into in order to survive. An ivory tower of tremendous emotional turmoil and pain over the unfairness and unkindness perpetrated in her childhood.
How did this sweet little girl locked in her ivory tower radically and powerfully transform her life and finally set herself free? Find out next time! To follow on, click on Part 2 and Part 3 here.
 
* Please note that both the mother and the step-father were victims of circumstance and had deep-seated psychological issues which were exposed through the intimate family situation described within this story. What brought them together was their own need to resolve these issues and thereby set them free. This, sadly, did not happen.
 
 Image source.