In
2004 I had commenced studying for my bachelor of nursing degree at
university. I completed nine units over a twelve-month period and then
decided it was not for me. When considering other careers, I decided to
transfer to social work as I was allowed to do eight subjects of another
discipline as part of the degree, so I wouldn’t have wasted a year of
study. However, the university had closed the midyear intake, and I did
not wish to wait until March the following year to commence studying. I
looked at psychology and transferred my nine subjects over to that
degree and commenced straightaway. I was living in a small town and
working part time at the local hospital as well as studying.
I
read an advertisement in the local paper asking for volunteers. I had
not forgotten in the past years how many times the Lifeline counsellors
had been there for me in my darkest hours, and I was determined to give
back for all I had taken. It was an inner force driving me. I had always
known, from the first time I had been encouraged by the mental-health
support nurse to enrol and do the course, that I would return one day
and work on the phones. Now, looking at the advertisement in the paper, I
decided it was time.
I
applied to do the telephone-counselling course and was accepted. During
the following three months, I completed 120 hours of role play
education and learnt the art of reflective listening. My journey of
personal growth at that time was extraordinary. Once again I felt in awe
of this agency, set up to help normal, everyday people help other
everyday people in distress. I loved the fact that it didn’t matter what
faith or belief you had; as long as you agreed with the foundation
principles, you could be trained to be a telephone counsellor.
I
completed the course and loved every minute of it. I found much of it
challenging, as we had to learn to listen actively and reflectively and
support people who were suicidal, self-harming, or in dire need of a
listening ear for all different reasons. People who had been victims of
domestic violence or sexual assault, or who suffered from mental
illnesses, came and spoke to us, which personally challenged any
preconceptions and biases we might have held. I learnt so much from the
role playing and having a group reflect back to me about how I
performed. The feedback from others, on such things as tone of voice and
my effectiveness in how I used each of the skills we needed to learn,
was invaluable.
I
learnt how I had to put aside my own experiences, background, and
preconceptions even if I had experienced some of the issues that clients
raised on the phone. I had to truly listen and be there with people, by
their sides, as they poured out their personal pain. I learnt so much
about myself and more importantly, about how to truly be with someone
else who was going through personal crises or was in emotional pain.
I
passed the course and was approved to move on to practical experience
on the telephones. There were plenty of support people on hand to sit
with me for as long as I required. I found that knowing what had helped me the
most when I had been the one calling helped me now to a certain degree,
but the most important thing was to be fully available emotionally to
the person on the other end. The Egan method of counselling, which is
the basis of Lifeline training, is a person-centred therapy. The tools
they taught us in regard to how to listen and guide another actively
through the maze of often-conflicting options and emotions were
invaluable.
I
encountered every situation you could think of in these few months.
Most who were suicidal had attempted suicide before and been in
hospital, or they felt suicidal and were in extreme emotional pain that
they didn’t feel they could share with their families or friends. Some
had actual suicidal plans, and yet something had made them ring instead
of carrying through with them at that particular time.
Many
were just plain lonely to the bone and had no one to listen to them or
to talk with. I was surprised that just a hearing ear was what most
people wished for. Nearly all who phoned had no trouble talking, and
they let me know when they had talked enough, felt better and more able
to cope, and could carry on.
Many
people said they had told secrets they had kept for years—things they
had done they were ashamed of and didn’t feel they could live with if
anyone found out, conflicted emotions about partners and children and
parents. They spoke about things they were scared to voice out loud to
those around them but needed to be heard and to say. They needed to have
a chance, in a safe place with a safe person they couldn’t see, to say
the words and work out their own path in the telling.
Everyone had a story.
One
particular night I went on my shift as usual. From the time the phone
rang and I picked up the call, I knew I had a young woman on the line
that was serious about taking her life.
“Hello, Lifeline. How can I help you?” I answered.
At
first there was only silence. I sat quietly listening as I had been
taught, and I could hear music in the background, and the soft sounds of
someone breathing.
“It’s okay, take your time. I am right here when you want to start talking.”
I
heard the sound of a deep intake of breath. Gulping, ragged sobs filled
the earpiece of my phone, and the sound of someone trying to suck back
in all the pain echoed in my ear. I could identify it was a female
crying although no words had been spoken by her yet.
I allowed about fifteen more seconds to go by whilst I listened to her crying.
“You
don’t have to start at the beginning. Sometimes it’s too hard to know
where to start. It’s okay not to know,” I said. Sounds of more crying
filled my ear, louder now and less controlled. It was the sort of crying
that occurs when someone is absolutely bereft, exhausted, and in
despair. The wailing was coming from the depths of someone’s soul, the
sound of someone who had lost everything and had nothing remaining.
I
allowed a few more seconds to go by until I heard a lull in the crying
as the person struggled to get their breath. “I am right here with you.
You are not alone,” I said. The wailing was less intense, and I could
tell she was listening to me. “I can hear you are in enormous emotional
pain. It is okay to cry. You’re not alone anymore.” I stayed quiet for a
few seconds. “What is your name?”
“Karen.” Sobs started slowly building up intensity again.
“Karen, can you tell me what is happening for you right now? What made you pick up the phone and ring me tonight?”
“I
just want to die. I just want to die.” The female voice wailed loud and
high, frantic and nearly shouting. “I can’t do it anymore. It’s just
too hard. I just want to die. I can’t take anymore. It’s too much. It’s
all too much.”
I
identified exhaustion, slurring, lack of hope, and the clink of what
sounded like a glass. I pushed the “alert” button and, at the same time,
dialled the number for my supervisor on the mobile phone I had next to
me. I left the phone on the bench and kept talking.
“Where are you right now? Are you at home?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Where is home, Karen?”
“It doesn’t matter. I want to die. I just want to die.” Her voice rose again to a crescendo.
“Karen, have you been drinking?”
“Vodka.
It is my favourite drink. I’ve nearly finished the bottle.” Her voice
was slurring, and my concern elevated another notch as her ability to
self-moderate and respond to reasoning would be compromised. Suddenly
her voice slipped into the hushed sing-song tones of a little girl. It
was so soft, and her words so slurred, I was finding it hard to pick up
the meaning of what she was saying.
“I’m touching me. I’m touching me. Oh, there’s blood all over everywhere. I can taste it.”
Soft
moaning filled the air. The strains of music in the background muffled
her voice. “Daddy, Daddy. Oh, I am so turned on. Why are you doing this
to me? Why?” Her moans changed to a high-pitched sob, and her gulp for
breath filled my ear.
“Karen, are you cutting yourself?”
“Yes. There is blood everywhere. I am going to die. I want to die.”
“Karen,
can you please put the knife or razor down whilst you are talking to
me? Karen, have you put down what you are cutting yourself with? I need
you to put it down whilst you talk to me.”
“Yes.”
“Karen,
I hear that you want to die. I believe you. But part of you picked up
the phone and rang me tonight. Part of you must want to live, as you
rang me tonight. I need to talk to that part of you that wants to live.”
“No,
I want to die.” Her voice suddenly changed back to that of an adult.
“All of me wants to die. I can’t take it anymore. My daughters will be
better off with me dead. I’m no good to them. They should stay with
their father all the time. They would be better off. I am useless to
them.”
“I
hear you say you believe your daughters will be better off with you
dead. I hear you say you want to die.” I allowed a few seconds’ silence.
Her breathing was noisy and raspy. “Why did you ring me tonight, Karen?
Why did you ring me on the night you want to die?”
Her
voice, interlaced with sobs, shouted down the phone at me. “Because I’m
scared. I don’t want to be alone when I die. I want someone with me.” I
waited a few seconds until her loud, frantic sobs started to die down.
“I
hear you’re scared, Karen. Karen, if I could wave a magic wand and take
all your emotional pain away, would you still want to die? If all the
emotional pain was gone, would you still want to die?”
“No,
but you can’t. No one can. I’ve tried. I’ve tried everything, and
nothing works. This is going to work. It is all going to end tonight.”
“Tell me about your emotional pain, Karen. Tell me why it feels so bad.”
Everything
else in the room and in my life ceased to exist except for her voice,
her words, her story, and the phone against my ear. I tried to stay with
her as she went to some dark places and took me with her.
She
was currently separated and had two young daughters. They lived with
her full time, but this weekend they were staying with their father. She
said he was a good father, and her daughters enjoyed going. She
sometimes spoke in a normal-sounding voice and then would switch to a
voice that sounded like a little girl’s as she regressed in time and was
living a reality back from when she was a child. She was drinking vodka
as we spoke and sometimes masturbating. She kept on picking up the
razor and cutting herself. She was in her bedroom with loud music
playing whilst she was cutting the top of her leg deep down to her
femoral artery.
She wanted to die.
She
had made up her mind that it would happen this weekend, and her
ex-husband would find her on the Monday morning after he had dropped
their daughters at school and come around to drop off their gear. She
was a victim of long and sustained childhood sexual abuse by her father.
She kept drifting in and out of consciousness toward the end of the
call. She was in an altered reality because of emotional pain,
intoxication, and sedatives and was cutting and masturbating to try to
alleviate some of her tension while stating she wanted to die. Her
memories of childhood and adult emotional pain intermingled.
My
supervisor had come in and had called the police in the caller’s area
twice already. Unfortunately, as police had taken her suicidal to
hospital some months previously, they were in no hurry to get to her.
They were prioritising other calls, not realising the seriousness of the
situation. This was not an unusual situation for us on the phones. Many
police were escorts for the mentally ill and suicidal, taking them to
hospital, and most had regulars in their areas that they got to know
well. This sometimes made them act with less urgency.
However,
my supervisor kept ringing and conveying to them that I was an
experienced counsellor, and she trusted my instinct that this girl was
actively attempting to suicide and would bleed to death if no one
reached her soon. All my gut instinct was screaming out to me that this
was so. I channelled all my energy and every fibre of my being down that
phone to her; I was a hundred percent focused on trying to say the
right words to convey to her to live and not to die, and that I was
there for her.
I
appealed to her as a fellow human being, through her daughters, through
the young self she kept slipping into, that there was hope, there was a
reason to live, there was a way out of this pain, there was a way to
have the emotional pain stop and end without her having to die. She
wanted the emotional pain to end, but that didn’t mean her life had to
end. Her daughters would not be better off with her dead. When she
didn’t have the emotional pain to deal with, she could be there for
them. She could be the mother she wanted to be. She could build a new
life once the pain was gone. She could trust people again.
I
asked her what had happened this particular weekend that was the final
straw that had made her decide to kill herself. She had received a bill
in the mail that she said she could not pay. It was added to the other
bills, and it was the breaking point for her.
It
was all too much. She had no one to share her pain with or to support
her through her marriage breakup, being a mother, or her own abuse
memories that were flooding her now that she was on her own. She did not
feel she could cope as an adult in this world any longer. She did not
feel she could be an adequate parent and role model for her daughters
when she could barely get out of bed each day. She didn’t want them to
see her like this. She didn’t want to frighten them. She was starting to
behave in ways she did not like. She felt they would be better off
without her.
I
tried to ask her what had helped her get through these times in the
past, when she had previously been this distressed and suicidal. But it
was nearly impossible to reason as an adult with her when her
rationality was not in charge, and her younger, seemingly emotional self
was in charge.
I
therefore said that Karen the adult needed to look after Karen the
child. Her child self didn’t need to be cut and hurt. Her child self
didn’t need sexual stimulation when she was drunk and scared. Her child
self needed the adult Karen who had rung Lifeline to put down the razor,
put down the alcohol, and just let her sleep, let her lie down and
rest, as she had been through enough.
She
stopped talking, and I no longer knew if she was conscious. I just kept
talking and talking, hoping she could hear me and hoping something I
was saying in a calm, soothing, nonjudgmental voice was getting through
to her.
The
police arrived at the house; I could hear through the phone that they
were breaking down the door. One of the police picked up the phone and
started talking to me. He said she had cut down to the artery, and it
looked like she had nicked it. There was blood everywhere. She was
unconscious, but the paramedics had arrived, and they were taking her to
the hospital.
I was so relieved.
He
hung up the phone, and suddenly there was just silence where there had
been intense energy and focus. All the energy just drained out of me,
and I felt myself start to shake. She was alive. She was going to make
it—for that night anyway. I prayed and hoped someone at the hospital
would relate to her and help her. That she would find a doctor or
therapist who could help her find a way out of the maze and trap she had
found herself in with no hope.
On
the way home, in the dark and quiet, I suddenly had to pull my car
over. I thanked the whole universe for letting me be the one to sit with
Karen during her pain, for the police and paramedics who had gone to
her assistance, and for the doctors and nurses who would be attending to
her. I had intensely related to her. I understood her switching between
her child self and adult self. I understood her use of masturbation and
alcohol to try to alleviate the intense aloneness and emotional pain. I
understood the cutting and thumping music for the same reasons.
Then
I just sat in the dark, in the stillness and the silence, and with my
whole heart wished and prayed she would find a way in the coming weeks
and months through her emotional pain so she could find a reason to live
again and be wholly there for her daughters as she grew older. As
people had been there for me when I was at my lowest.
I
felt something click together in my head and heart. It was a physical
sensation and a feeling of completeness that washed over me. Something
closed up in me that I had not realised until then had still been open. A
feeling of fullness and wholeness filled me.
I
prayed to the universe to watch over the young woman, and in my mind’s
eye I handed over the responsibility for her healing and destiny to the
universe. I trusted that her journey and mine had collided for a reason,
but that reason was completed now. I let go of her figurative hand. I
felt the anxiety connected to what might have been happening with her
leave me.
I
started the car again and drove home. I felt deep within my bones that I
had fulfilled a karmic debt, and the circle was complete.
I was released.
***Award winning book (finalist) in 2014 Beverley Hills International Book Awards***
Jenny
Hayworth grew up within the construct of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which
she describes as a fundamentalist cult-like religion. She devoted her
life to it for over thirty years. Then she left it. The church
“unfellowshipped” her-rendering her dead to those family and friends
still committed to the church.Hayworth is a sexual abuse survivor. The
trauma changed her self-perception, emotional development, trust, and
every interaction with the world.
Inside/Outside
is her exploration of sexual abuse, religious fundamentalism, and
recovery. Her childhood circumstances and tragedies forced her to live
“inside.” This memoir chronicles her journey from experiencing comfort
and emotional satisfaction only within her fantasy world to developing
the ability to feel and express real life emotion on the “outside.”
It
is a story that begins with tragic multigenerational abuse, within an
oppressive society, and ends with hope and rebirth into a life where she
experiences real connections and satisfaction with the outside world.
Those
who have ever felt trapped by trauma or circumstances will find
Inside/Outside a dramatic reassurance that they are not alone in the
world, and they have the ability to have a fulfilling life, both inside
and out.
Foreward
Clarion Review – “What keeps the pages of Hayworth’s life story turning
is her honesty, tenacity, and sheer will to survive through an
astounding number of setbacks. Inside/Outside proves the resilience of
the human spirit and shows that the cycle of abuse can indeed be broken”
Kirkus
Review – “A harrowing memoir of one woman’s struggle to cope with
sexual abuse and depression while living in – and eventually leaving –
the Jehovah’s Witnesses”
Readers Favourite 5 Star Review – “The book is an inspiring story for those who are going through traumatic times…”
Genre – Memoir
Rating – PG-13
