Boarding School Survivor

Hey guys. I felt the call to write to you. I've been going through a lot of deep healing this Solstice. I wonder how many of my posts start with a sentence like that. I felt guided (in the nick of time) to deactivate my social media before I stepped through the Solstice gateway. It became clear to me that some harmful energies were not to come through the Solstice portal. Unhealthy karmic bonds that needed to be cut, not sowed into the seeds of tomorrow. New beginnings. It's time to live to thrive, not just to survive.

I attended a mens sharing circle last week in Glastonbury and I picked an oracle card. I received the Phoenix card. I really resonate with the energy of the phoenix. I remember at the time it felt like my internal world was burning. It came with a feeling of good riddance. For the past week It had felt like I was drowning in spirals of hatred and resentment for the world and all it had put me through. It was quite a dire place to reside. I'll be honest with you guys, Mr Spiritual over here, that I spiralled into escapism. All spiritual teachings went out the window. I mixed a couple substances I shouldn't have. I had a seizure in my bathroom, followed by a whole 8 hours of nightmares. It's a reoccurring dream I have. They were very lucid and symbolic to the nature of my plight. Nothing scary as such, but I would suddenly over and over again be held captive by an unidentifiable vicious terror that would seem to pull me down under, and my reaction is to force myself awake by screaming, sometimes still screaming at the top of my lunges when I awake. You see the terror is perpetual. I'm afraid of fear. It's not so easy to surrender to that. I was stuck in a struggle between sleep deprivation and terror. It's very traumatic.

This story leads to the series of mini break downs I had. It's been messy to say the least. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger so they say. And yeah, they do generally say that a phoenix rises after it's all burned down. With one or two swoops I brought everything from my alter to the floor as I repeatedly weeped 'I'm so stupid,' a loved one holding me close until she couldn't anymore. These breakdowns have lead to a series of trauma releases, deep ancestral purges and breakthroughs. Sometimes you need to breakdown in order to stop what you're doing and learn to listen to what your body is telling you. Mine has been crying.

The Solstice energies made me aware of so much trauma in my body. It showed me unresolved stuff from my past I had never really addressed, that has always effected me in very obvious ways now that I look with cleansed eyes. I've always known I was very unhappy growing up, but I thought as I grew up that I had moved on. I realised parts of me still dwell in those dark times. I carried crippling social anxiety for many proceeding years, which resulted in deep loneliness, and I was burdened with heavy depression. I was living a life of quite desperation as I tried for the 9 to 5 lifestyle. This is why I owe my life to Ayahuasca for initiating me on my healing journey.

When I was 11 to 15 I attended a private school near Stowmarket, Suffolk, UK. I was always a sensitive kid. As the years rolled on I started to board there consistently. Home life wasn't bringing me happiness so I opted to board. It's still not exactly clear what the source of my unhappiness is but I thought boarding would help with it. These were the darkest times of my life. I had no sense of home, of safety, or someone to talk to. I hadn't at the time cultivated the inner resources needed to navigate my experience at ease. The kids relished in making one another unhappy. It gave them a sense of superiority. Nobody would therefore mess with them. It was a dog eat dog, war torn environment. Alliances were formed across the classrooms. You'd either join them or you'd get beaten down by them physically or emotionally. Bully or be bulled. There was no other team. I only associated with the kids who were considered to have 'mental problems', or were just considered stupid. I had very low self esteem anyway. I would get F after F and once a U meaning Ungradable. Useless. Unworthy. In hindsight it just demonstrated how little will power I was running on. It didn't in any way reflect my intelligence or my potential. I just didn't care. It always seemed like such an inefficient way of raising kids. I had to bury that little ember of truth until later life. I wasn't a physically strong kid and didn't know or even want to fight. I was too scared. My relationship with my parents was at its worst. My friendships outside of school were all failing. I was in a state of perpetual fear, for what next thing some kid would come and do to me. Must I wait to be on the rugby pitch to meet my fate only to be beaten down over and over again by the kids twice my size, only for the P.E. teacher to praise them for it. I bottled my emotions down otherwise it would be seen as a weakness. More fuel for the cruelty. My attention wasn't attuned to academia. I was in a constant state of hypervigilance. I could not focus on what the teacher was saying, only for him to ask me what the answer to his question is and for him to shout at me his disappointment of me in front of all the other kids, telling me I'm not going anywhere good in this life if I carry on like this. I remember I was once kicked out of class for some reason and the whole class started to gossip with the teacher about how much I'm failing myself. A vicious victim cycle had been weaved around me and held me captive to which I still to this day find myself struggling with. As if they thought I couldn't hear them? If I could go back in time and walk back in the class as me now and respond to them I'd say that I am not failing myself. I am honouring myself as I make this hard and consequential choice of protecting myself from this heavy duty indoctrination machine. I buried my pain and denied them. The journey was periled and fraught with intensity. It's been heart wrenching. Words cannot describe how much pain I have endured and carried over these years.

Puberty. I started to notice girls in a different way. Ah, Nadia. My first crush. Even today I can still day dream about her. Suddenly a beauty I had never beheld irrupted and it seemed like she was the source of it. Finally something good in my life. Something worth fighting for. I remember being so attracted to her and my attention so wanted to look at her, and explore this new feeling. What does it mean? It feels good and I want more of it. I remember I wanted her affection so much. Did she even notice me? Her attention on me was such a delight when it did occur on those rare occasions. I always felt so embarrassed around her. My walk around her went all awkward as I tried to act natural. Trying to not be noticed but also deeply wanting to be noticed. A conflict. A battle that takes place inside me still. Please see me but also please look away because I'm too ugly and ashamed. I developed such shame around my feelings. I could never admit it or even show it. Again, something so sacred to be witnessed by anybody scouting for weakness was not wise. So you can only imagine the difficult pathologies that developed as a result of these early stages of love. I'm sure my lovers can stand as testimony to that. Trauma bondage. That's a topic in itself. Two souls clinging onto one another on a desperate voyage of refuge.

Ok so at this point I'd like to say that I am not seeking your pity, but if ever you want to give me a hug I can only say yes please. I'd like to now quote one of my favourite teachers: "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." — Carl Jung.

A part of me still lives behind steel bars, still held captive in the grip of trauma. I've been in denial of this part of me because I am so ashamed. So ashamed to admit to you that I am broken. But I am broken, and I am unhappy. I'm not going to take a photo of me smiling to prove you otherwise. I'm picking up the pieces of a shattered childhood.

I have been reigniting my relationship with my Inner Child. He is hurting, massively. In ceremony the other day I smoked some changa and in my visions immerged a very unhappy morph of visuals, lights and sensory input. Energy to which I knew was me. Although I didn't want anything to do with this part of me because it was screaming at me. I realised that this is my inner child and that he is so unhappy right now. I pleaded to him that he came to me and let me embrace him now in a warm hug. I started to hug my body. I remembered a mantra I used to utter to a lover in her time of aid, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. So I told myself I love you repeatedly. His energy morphed into me as the effects of the changa faded away. I could feel his trembles and his pain all over my body. Hours passed as I continued to intermittently work with the Rapé medicine, a sacred snuff medicine made by the Yawanawa Peoples. I felt such a sickliness and had to be with it for hours. I found it so hard to stomach the waves of insight washing over me. The daunting truths of the karma encapsulating the Boarding School System in the UK and its history. What we as a species put our offspring through, the future leaders and teachers of this world. I'm struggling to write this if I'm honest. It does make me sick. Stops to take rapé…… okay, I'm all good. Eventually after hours of tremendous discomfort I was able to go into a deep state of release as I weeped, really holding myself in that place. I've deeply needed holding and loving. It wants to come home.

It's one thing to understand intellectually that the world is a mess and that all the people that harmed me are doing their best with the tools they were given, but to convince my inner child to forgive the world when all is lost in his eyes. This is not easy. I was trying to loosen his clawed up fists to get him to let go of his tight grip onto resentment and hatred. Let it go I would say. It doesn't serve you.

I feel lots better now two days later as I write this. I just felt like I wanted to share this because honestly, the road is lonely even when around people, and it's been fucking tough. I'm so grateful for all the people that have chosen to look out for me. The second card I received in mens circle was Light Tribe. If I were to say that I've put this chapter of my life behind me forever, I'd be lying. I still feel a great darkness inside of me. I've got a new book here called The Making of Them: The British Attitude to Children and the Boarding School System by Nick Duffell. It's heavy. But I feel it needs to be honoured, and fully felt, so that it can be released. The darkness feels like a bottomless pit and it runs in my blood. I remember Gino's speech at the end of the last Ayahuasca ceremony. He said that there is a chain that is passing through you from your ancestors, and that it is time to cut what needs to be cut to make sure it doesn't trespass on to your children yet to come.

So my prayers and blessings truly go to the children, to victims of child abuse, and to their healing. May we all heal from our institutionalised upbringings and the brain washings of mankind. Ok I'm gonna go puke now.