It’s Over - The End of a Death Sentence & Depression

This month I am sharing the stories behind the drawings from my book, I AM ALIVE which is available in USA, Europe, UK and for pre-order in Australia.

This is one of my favourite drawings, because of its simplicity and the sense of liberation I felt when I placed the light blue all over the page.

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After cancer treatment, the protocol at the Institut Marie Curie was to have 6 monthly check ups for the first two years. And then annual check ups for years, 3,4 and 5, in case of any recurrence. With each check up looming, I would be engulfed with the capacious fear of, “Has the cancer come back?”.

The difficulties of the first three years of checkups were compounded with having to deal with PTSD, depression and the hormonal nightmare of surgically induced menopause. At the time, I would half joke that if I had a gun, I would shoot myself out of my misery. As each year went on, the symptoms reduced but ask anyone who knew me at the time: I was angry for having to go through such fatigue and pain. I was finally dealing with the pandora’s box of emotions, which I had suppressed for years…

What I did not know at the time is that trauma awakens trauma which has been suppressed. My experience of radiation awakened earlier traumas I had not dealt with. This came out as rage within me. It kept rising and rising. Rage and sadness. I bought a punching bag and gloves which I hung in my room, to help move the rage out of my body. My nervous system was so deregulated that the smallest hiccup in daily life could set me off into a mess of low-coping response and tears.

I was living in rural South India in the temple of my spiritual teacher. I knew it was the right place to heal but I was in grief of having had to give up ‘my life’ in Paris… and my work as a photographer/ film maker. I yearned for for all I had lost: my vitality, my health, my joy, my strength, my courage, my ease of navigating life, my sexual being, my sense of humour... I was worn out. Everything. Absolutely everything felt hard. Each day was a struggle. And I didn’t know if I was ever going to get better.

Why was Paris so important to me? My mother left the family in Australia and returned to France when I was 13 years old. It was a devastating experience and I visited her every Christmas vacation. In 1991, at the age of 22, I had studied 2 years in Japan and completed my Masters in Japanese at Sydney University. I had been so focused on proving to myself (to prove to others) that I could do this. I then spent the following year teaching Japanese and with my friend Maria, co-translated the book that became, Tao Shiatsu. We signed off the book in Japan and with the money from the translation, I moved to Paris. I was tired of all the study I had done. I wanted something totally different. I had so wanted to live in Paris, because I yearned to live in the same country as my mother. There was a desire to catch up on the years I had missed with her as a teenager.

I worked as a tour guide for Japanese and taught English and Japanese. I fell in love with Géraud who lived in Montmartre. The work was a means to an end so that I could stay in Paris. I rented a studio in rue Simon Dereure on the top of the hill of Montmartre. It overlooked a park and if you leaned out to the left, there was a stunning view of the Sacred Coeur. I loved Paris but I longed for my creative soul to be expressed… but had no idea how to make the leap. Then 18 months later, I met James who shook my soul (not in a kind way). He was my catalyst and probed me, asking what was I doing with my life? I didn’t know. I was unhappy with my relationship. I felt lost. I had left my job and was freelancing and was just making ends meet. I needed to get out of this survival mode. I found a job setting up a french company office in Sydney… this would be a place to work out my next step.

In Sydney, I worked really hard. I was a creative being in the corporate world. I felt like my wings had been clipped. I could not open the windows on the 18th floor of the building. I prayed a lot during that year for guidance and direction for my next step in life. At night, I would dream of the cobblestones of Montmartre. They were calling me back, “Reviens, Reviens…”. I would wake up in the morning, with such yearning to return to Paris.

I had a list of potential creative things I could do in Paris which would better suit my soul. This list included exhibition design, shiatsu healer, documentary film maker, but I didn’t have a plan. I kept praying and meditating on this list, how could I be creative AND earn a living so that I could stay in Paris? Then after eight months in the corporate world, at daybreak, I was woken by this very loud voice, in my left ear, “Documentary film!”. There was my answer.

I had saved up my money and a few months later, I returned to the cobblestones of montmartre. I greeted them every day with joy. I moved back in to my old studio at rue Simon Dereure, and started knocking on doors asking documentary film producers for work. I ended up working on the first BBC/ ARTE coproduction as a production assistant on a film on Albert Camus. This was the beginning of my learning.

Paris was very generous with me. At the same time of working in documentary film, I developed my documentary photography and the creative being I had been yearning to become, flourished. I always had enough. I appreciated the anonymity of Paris. I fell in love with the city and the life it offered me.

The dread of stepping into that building of so much suffering.

But when I got radiated at the Institut Marie Curie, the love affair with the city ended abruptly. It now represented a place of torture. And I wanted nothing to do with any memory of my torture.

Each visit back to Paris, back to the Institut Marie Curie would have me spiralling. I hated it all. I hated the hospital, as I was aware of how much suffering was in the building. I would feel such dread and fear but always be charming with the staff. It was a cover. I could not separate the experience of the past from the present.

Then by year four, I had learnt to regulate my nervous system, and with this, came more ease of activities in life. I would still crash regularly but my bandwidth could deal with more. I still hated going through the process of returning to Paris, to the hospital but I could see that I could cope a little better.

At the five-year check up, if the results were “clear of cancer”, I would no longer be in the danger zone of the cancer returning, I would not have to return for any more check ups. This was a huge milestone.

The results? I was clear.

What happened next? I was taken completely by surprise. The feeling of a low, heavy ceiling lifted from above me. The sensation was so palpable. I could breathe differently. At that very moment, I understood that, for the previous five years, I had had this invisible death sentence looming above my head. And now, it had gone. I felt my depression lift, my body relax. I was receiving permission to move forward in life. The worst of it is over.

It’s over.