Life Without Edges (Paperback)

The title of this book - Life Without Edges - is the best way I can describe what my life became following a very damaging and vicious attack when I was a teenager. The story unfolds on a train trip across Australia when, quite by chance, I met a trained counselor with whom I connected. We talked for hours whilst traveling through the desert-like interior of this vast continent, my life story unfolding day by day, revealing a series of emotionally damaging traumas. Firstly my dad abandoned us when I was 6, leaving me vulnerable to the attentions of a pedophile at age 7. When I was 10 my granddad died in front of me from a massive heart attack and then the most damaging event of all happened when, at 16, I was viciously raped by 2 men in a public toilet. It was this last traumatic experience that sent me into what I term my '16 years in the wilderness'. I now know that I was suffering from 'post traumatic stress disorder' for all those years and suffered in silence until the breakdown forced me to seek help by speaking out and reconnecting with people. This story is basically one of recovery and how I managed to overcome my fear of people and crawl my way back to reality, face my demons and come to terms with all the traumatic events of my early life. A professionally-trained therapist, who has worked in the industry for over 25 years, has added valuable insights throughout this book. She also wrote the chapter towards the end of the book entitled 'Reflections', which is a complete summary of all her ideas, plus a short, but insightful, chapter on how she has had interpreted my dreams. Her insights have been invaluable to me in helping me to understand the reasons why I withdrew into the isolation of my own fantasy world following the rape. Hopefully these insights will also assist you, the reader, to see the value of speaking out and sharing your experiences.