Daisy Chain: A True Story of Trauma, Strength, and Healing

by Evie Robb

Overview

As a young girl, author Evie Robb experienced childhood abuse of many kinds. She experienced damaging relationships and heart-wrenching grief and yet managed to overcome her past and make her way to a brighter future.

In Daisy Chain, Evie tells the true story of how she triumphed over the suffering that marked her youth. This narrative follows her from childhood to old age and from trauma to healing and transformation. Early events shaped her and became the blueprint for her future; the many mountains she scaled strengthened her mind and spirit, and her new climbing equipment brought her peace. Evie finds love and humour in the never-ending golden circle that is at the heart of all healing, and she hopes her story—highlighting what helps, what can be recovered, and what may be hidden gifts in a life like hers—will help the many women of the world who have followed parallel paths.

This memoir tells the story of a resilient woman who endured childhood abuse and found a way to heal and prevail, transforming her life and offering help for others in similar situations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781452531687
Publisher:	Balboa Press AU
Publication date:	11/16/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	158
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Evie Robb holds a master’s degree in counselling and human services and an advanced diploma in hypnotherapy; she is also a certified external supervisor. She is busy in her private practice and continues to train and counsel the traumatized and those who work with them. She lives with her two cats in country Victoria, Australia.

Read an Excerpt

Daisy Chain

A True Story of Trauma, Strength, and Healing

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By Evie Robb

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2015 Jeannie Jones
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4525-3167-0

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CHAPTER 1

Perfectly Groomed

Emotional Trauma

Physical, sexual, emotional trauma and neglect are an abomination to the body, mind and souls of children, but the most enduring damage is caused by emotional abuse. It is insidious and can last a lifetime.

Knight Street separated Eve's home from her primary school.

It was the end of an itchy, hot day. School was out.

Eve crossed the unsealed road, walked down the narrow driveway, and rounded the south-west corner of the Charles's cream, timber house. The back door was painted Brunswick green and stood at the top of two deep, blue stone steps. To the left was the gully trap over which a well-polished brass tap hung.

Eve entered the dark coolness of the lobby. This room was surrounded by three doors: kitchen, lounge, and laundry. It was sunken one step lower, as though once an open porch.

In the kitchen, Eve's mother was peeling potatoes at the sink. The evening meal was called tea and lunch: dinner. Tea was always sat down to by five thirty, which was Mr Charles's preference. Her mother smiled as Eve kissed her hello. Goodbyes and hellos were always punctuated with a kiss for both parents.

"How was your day, my girl?"

Rose's face was gentle, a sweet face and smile reflecting a kind and sensitive soul.

"Dad asked me to send you down to the shed when you got home."

"OK."

Tired and prickling with the heat, Eve stepped out into the scorching day once again.

Frank Charles had built his shed at the end of the small backyard. One of the double doors was ajar. Eve entered. The smell of timber and wood shavings filled her nostrils. He was seated at the enormous, timber workbench. On the walls hung tools of all sizes and purposes, hanging neatly in their red-painted outline. Jars of nails, screws, and bolts were stacked neatly on the shelves, a place for everything and everything in its place.

Eve's eyes rested on her father. Frank was wearing his khaki, sleeveless overalls with a red carpenters pencil in the narrow, top pocket. Underneath was a ripped, yellowing singlet with damp crescents under each armpit. His crew-cut head was bent. He was cleaning his rifle. Eve was not perturbed; Frank often cleaned and used his rifle for the local rifle club and shooting rabbits. This was also the purpose of the ferrets in their ferret box and Flash, the tan whippet, tied up at the side of the shed.

It was the heavy, steel-grey tension that hung on and around her father that alerted Eve.

She felt it.

The familiar ribbons of steel stole into her body, wrapping tightly around her forehead, heart, and lungs. Squeezing, wringing out her breath, she thought, Be ready.

"I'm going to kill myself." Frank's jaw was rigid, tendons standing out in his neck. His face contorted as he sobbed. "No one loves me. I'm a bastard. I'd be better off dead. You all would be."

Eve's voice echoed from somewhere outside of her head. The words formed by another brain, another voice, louder than she intended. "No, Dad. Don't. I love you. Of course, I love you. We all love you. Please, Dad. Please."

The girl wrapped her arms around her father's shuddering shoulders. Her posture was one of maturity that struggled to keep her small frame upright. Thin shoulders bearing the unbearable. This was to be Eve's responsibility and blueprint for her future.

High school was a long walk from Knight Street, stretching from one side of town to the other. Today Eve had ridden her bike. A reconditioned bike painted bright green that once belonged to her mother. It had taken three years for Eve to grow into the bike that was designed for an adult. She could now sit on the old leather seat and reach the pedals as she made her way home for lunch. Eve leaned her bike against the wood box under the laundry window and stepped up into the lobby. Rose Charles would not be home to greet her. Eve's mother was in a city hospital. While on holidays with her sister, she'd been airlifted there after the valves of her heart had begun to leak precious lifeblood. Rose's heart had been scarred as a child when she suffered rheumatic fever. The kitchen would be empty and the house was lacking the warmth and peace that Rose gifted it.

It was Eve's job to cook the evening meal. She headed for her bedroom to drop off her school bag and change out of her school uniform. Her bedroom was at the front of the house, and to reach it, she had to pass through the lounge room. It consisted of an organ, a home made coffee table which was once an oval mahogany dinning table, and a lime-green-and-cream vinyl couch against the wall. Beneath one of the two windows that looked out onto the neighbours' red brick wall was Frank's armchair. It faced the television and was the closest to the bookshelf and gas heater.

Eve caught a glimpse of Frank's overalls and checked flannel shirt in the chair of honour. He was bent over a writing pad with his carpenter's pencil in hand. At first, Eve assumed that her father was tallying up the miles per gallon after the last trip to the city. But something was edging its way into her consciousness.

Be ready.

Frank looked up and gestured for Eve to come closer. He had been waiting for her.

Be ready.

Eve let her heavy school bag slide to the grey carpet. With tight chest and dry mouth she spoke, almost a whisper. "What are you writing, Dad?"

Frank turned the blue lined pad so she could see. "This is the way I go to work. See, here is Manor Street."

Mr Charles prided himself on his strength and fitness. He had spent the early hours of his and Rose's honeymoon doing his push-ups and stretches beside the marital bed. He also liked to save money, so rode his bike to and from work.

"There's the tree where I'll park my bike, out of sight. The soft drink truck goes up Manor Street every week, same time. I'm going to jump out in front of it. I'm just a bastard. You all hate me. I'm not worth anything."

The transformation from the girl in school shirt and tunic to nurturer was seamless yet grotesquely incongruent. Eve's survival depended on the perfect assimilation of her role as rescuer. This role would continue to impact on Eve, for good or bad, for her entire life. She could not have foreseen the effect this responsibility would have on her adulthood or her children.

"No, Dad. Of course, we all love you. You're just having a bad time, that's all. You need some help, someone to talk to. Everything will be OK. You'll see."

Not for the first or the last time, Frank sobbed on Eve's shoulder. She was being groomed perfectly.

Eve would always be the recipient of this particular emotional abuse. Frank's oldest living child, a son, would never have to endure it, as Frank would not have benefited in the same way as with his daughter. The secret privilege was kept for a girl who would become the surrogate mother and wife.

Eve's older brother, Will, had just married the same year and had settled in the town. As children, the two didn't see eye to eye. They argued and fought till someone was hurt. Many years later, Will confessed to Eve that he had resented her from the time their parents had brought her home from the hospital. Will was caught eating a tomato from the garden when Rose and Frank drove in with infant Eve. This was the event that marked the arrival of Will's new sibling. Not conducive for good relations.

Eve remembers herself as a loud child who loved drama. Her emotions would lurch from happy to sad, melancholy to wildly excited. Eve was also a professional whiner. She gave award-winning whines. She had a nasal tone that dragged her wails through a wringer of misery. It was the winging and whining that caused the most irritation for Will.

"Mum, Will's hurting me. Mum, tell him to stop."

"I'm not doing anything."

"Mum, he's giving me a Chinese burn."

"Shut up, shit face."

"Mum, he called me shit face."

"Stop fighting, you two. It's driving me crazy."

"It's not fair. He's always picking on me. Mum, tell him to stop picking on me."

"Will, stop picking on her."

Out of Rose's sight, Will's "OK, Mum" was punctuated with a well-delivered punch to Eve's arm.

"Mum, Will punched me."

Will derived too much pleasure from Eve's distress and teased her unmercifully. Eve would wail and Will would increase the torture, irritated by her wailing. There would be no satisfactory resolution to this ongoing theme. The arguments would usually end with Eve losing all control, gouging, kicking, screaming the few foul words she knew, and seeking blood, the blood of her tormentor. Five years older than Eve, Will would defend him self with one hand and a superior smile. This, of course, infuriated Eve to yet another level of homicidal frenzy.

"You tease a dog and you'll make it vicious, you know, Will."

"Bullshit. Dogs are intelligent, face ache."

Knight Street's legacy is legendary. As a woman, Eve still travels there in her dreams to understand, search, and repair perhaps? She's not sure, but travel there she must. The trips become more and more infrequent. In fact, Eve cannot recall the last time she visited.

Her childhood grooming formed the scaffolding for Eve's place in the workforce. Unsurprisingly, she was drawn to training and employment, where her ability to engage, nurture, and empathize could come out and play.

Higher education began at the age of twenty-five years. A single mother of two, Eve returned to tertiary studies. Her first port of call was a bachelor of arts in social science. Here, Eve discovered a passion for psychology, sociology, politics, and literature. When she had night classes, her children came with her. Her son, Tom, played Lego at the back of the auditorium, and her daughter, Lucy, much to the delight of the other students, mimicked the lecturer, putting a mark on the board each time she said um.

A new world had opened up for her. Eve quickly realized that she had developed skills of survival through hardship, which made learning easier than she had expected and her work in the welfare of others natural. Even the students' cafeteria formed the backdrop for Eve's nurturing. People gravitated to her, enticed by the siren's soothing song. "Come, I will make the hurt go away." They came to be heard, to ask advice, or to cry on a shoulder, but most of all, they came for the warmth. Eve radiated warmth from her being. Some would call her just to hear her voice and the warm, loving intent it contained.

Eve had been tricked into going back to school. She would never have entered the world of academia on her own behalf. Her friends had belief in Eve's intelligence and capabilities. She was oblivious to them.

"Eve. Why don't you enrol in a course this year? You'd do well."

"Don't be an idiot. It's been nine years. I couldn't."

"Bullshit. You'd do as well as any of us, if not better."

"The answer is no. Who wants fish and chips for tea?"

After a week of coaxing from Carol, Rick, and Rob, Eve agreed to go with them to enrolment day at the nearest university. Just for a look, they told her. All three were one year into their bachelor of arts.

It was a hot January day and the university and its grounds were crammed with people of all ages. The three conspirators had been showing Eve around the library, cafeteria, and different departments when all four came to a sudden stop outside a closed door. The plaque read, "Doctor B. Rawley." Rick opened the door as Carol and Rob pushed Eve into the room. As she spun around to escape, the door pulled shut with a loud crack. Trying the door handle proved useless. It was being held fast from the other side. She could hear their muffled laughter.

Watching Eve from behind his desk was Dr Rawley, a psychology lecturer, smiling the smile of a co-conspirator. Soon after, confused and anxious, Eve left his office enrolled in a bachelor of arts in social sciences and humanities. This would mark the beginning of a new chapter in Eve's life.

Eves' baptism of fire was her first welfare job. The interview had lasted only thirty minutes.

"How do you think you'd deal with a rapist?"

"I've no idea."

Apparently this was the correct answer. Eve got the job. She was to be a youth officer in a juvenile justice facility. Standing out the front of the building, Eve couldn't believe her good luck. She was not aware that one of the interviewers had followed her out of the building and was watching her as she opened the back door of her clapped-out car. Eve retrieved a wheel lever, lay down beside her car on the asphalt car park, and began whacking the underneath of the engine with the iron bar. She then threw the lever back in the car, hopped in, and started the engine.

One of her future bosses leaned on the car window. "You really do need this job, hey?"

"Yes, I do."

"Yes, I see. Would it help if we paid you two weeks in advance?"

There is a God.

Working with traumatized young men who had developed maladaptive ways of coping and who had broken the law ticked all of Eve's blueprint boxes. They are needy. I can help. Eve was convinced she could help, and in her ignorance, she didn't consider there would be any obstacles to her succeeding in her quest. After all, how difficult could it be? Wasn't everyone's intention the same? If she could have answered herself in three years' time, Eve would have replied a definite no.

It was the early eighties and the majority of staff working at the facility was male. Women were very new to the field and weren't particularly welcome. To complicate things further, Eve was educated, so she was not only a woman but a smart-ass one to boot.

"Working with men will be great. They're not bitchy like women," her mother said.

"No, it should be easy, Mum."

During Eve's first week at the juvenile justice centre, she had two boys abscond, her keys stolen by another officer as a joke, and a young man taken to hospital after injecting Vegemite and iron filings from a kitchen scourer. When the boy returned from hospital, Eve asked why he did something so dangerous. It had nearly killed him.

"Oh miss, it was the best head rush I've ever had."

Eve truly believed that men would be easier to work with than women. "Women are bitchy, but you know where you are with a male."

Her preconceptions were about to come tumbling down. Men do gossip. In fact, when they put their mind to it, they are way better than women. The tittle-tattle train quickly produced the story that Eve was seen at a party by the JJ cook. Evidently she was a stripper who jumped naked out of a cake. Oh, dear. And the gossipmongers were just warming up. Still, Eve believed that goodness was at the heart of all who chose to work in the welfare field. Of course, work is a word used too loosely in this public servant context.

"OK, I'll give you some advice. It'll take forty-five minutes to get to work and thirty minutes to get home. They are not your friends, and start as you plan to continue: tough. This is no place for a woman. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. You'll be expected to do head counts in the showers. If you don't, you're piss weak. But if you do, you'll probably like getting your rocks off perving on naked boys."

Eve listened to her fellow officer's advice but refused to do head counts in the showers out of respect for the boys' privacy. She could handle the title "piss weak."

Marjory had been working at JJ for many years, initially in the kitchen and laundry. She was a respectable older woman from another unit who helped Eve settle into the male domain. "Marjory Cole was caught giving the boys a head job."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Yeah, you wouldn't think so to look at her, but she was seen on her knees in their rooms."

"That's insane."

"Yeah, I know. Bloody hell. What was she thinking?" "No, the fact that you could believe that is insane."

"Well, Miss High and Mighty, you're in for a few rude shocks, girly."

Neither Marjory nor the clients were to shock Eve, or any of the other women working at JJ, but there would be some seismic activity caused by some others.

Eve didn't become a friend to any of the boys, but some of them grew to have some respect for her, one of whom assured her,

"Don't you worry, miss. If I piss off, I won't steal your car. It's dead easy to break into, but it's a rust bucket. I'd be looking for something more upmarket."

"Miss, don't eat the mashed potatoes."

Johnny and Pete were assigned to bring lunch from the kitchen. The food was kept warm in a metal hot box on wheels.

"Why not Johnny?"

"I've done something in the spuds just for them."

"I'll be telling them."

"Suit yourself, miss."

"Hey, stop fighting. Miss will get hurt."

This show of respect and protection came about after a game of pool. One of the boys lashed out, calling the other a cheat. He went to his room with two billiards balls and returned with them in a sock that he swung around his head. The weighted sock hit the other on the side of his head, causing a deep gash that spurted blood. The two boys continued to fight, one still enraged and the other one eyed and in shock. Eve called out to the other officers on duty. They were all in the small office smoking and drinking coffee. Nobody came.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Daisy Chain by Evie Robb. Copyright © 2015 Jeannie Jones. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgements, ix,
Introduction, xi,
Chapter 1: Perfectly Groomed 1 Emotional Trauma, 1,
Chapter 2: No Laughing Matter Humour, 21,
Chapter 3: Not Waving, Drowning Depression, 41,
Chapter 4: Golden Syrup Dumplings Food for Thought, 59,
Chapter 5: Women Are Dirty Bitches Being Female, 69,
Chapter 6: Hall of Mirrors Relationships, 81,
Chapter 7: Thistles and Daisies The Search, 93,
Chapter 8: Mountain Climbing Resilience, 103,
Chapter 9: My Privilege Loss and Grief, 115,
Chapter 10: I Am Home Transforming, 121,