From Paralyzed to Unparalleled - The Pain, the Process and the Power.
THE PAIN
2023 was my annus horribilis.
As an alcoholic in Recovery, child of two disordered personalities and a survivor of Corporate American in London, one would imagine I had a back catalogue of contenders.
What made 2023 so different was that I believed with all my heart and soul that all my hard work, all the sacrifice, the challenges, the education and the lived experiences were finally culminating in the life that sobriety and the ninth step promises had assured me of. A life beyond my wildest dreams.
I was moving to France to be with the man I loved. Having sold my home and with the small resources that gave me, I was moving forward to build the life I wanted. The opportunity to develop a property, build a business and to do it in partnership with that man. That monster.
It wasn’t to be.
As the dream turned into a living nightmare from the day I arrived in January, until the day I escaped my derelict farmhouse a year later, with Jonnie, my Egyptian rescue dog in the driving snow and subzero temperatures, I had been fighting for my sanity, my sobriety and my survival.
In the run up to my relocation, the ideas for my first novel had begun to swirl around in my head. It began during an appointment with my mother at UCLH. We had been supporting her through treatment for Stage 4 Ovarian cancer and she was dying. That much was certain. The when of it was impossible to know. On this particular day, my mother, who was also suffering with Dementia made a decision.
This decision caused me to wish her dead. The thought was so abhorrent and so thrilling I wanted to explore the truth of it. I began to wonder if a single uncontrollable thought process could bring about her death. I didn’t think so. I thought it was an interesting starting point for a plotline. I dubbed it ‘Manifesting Murder.’
Once in France, the story began to unfold in the most unexpected of ways. The antagonist became the hero and the romantic lead became the untreated subconscious, intent on the emotional, psychological and spiritual destruction of the main character. As reality played out, I was only concerned with my survival. My wellbeing and my future. One which was now so distant and out of focus that all I could do was watch helplessly as I became the victim in my own horror movie. Darting from one plot twist to the next until finally the moment to escape presented itself and I ran to relative safety. One bag, ten percent of battery, dumped in rural France, with next to no French, this was not the kind of adventure I had signed up for.
Almost a year to the day from my arrival. Jonnie and I made that perilous journey, halfway across a country we didn’t know to a location of warmth, kindness and solitude. I was exhausted. Painfully thin, scared, angry, still confused and determined to heal. I still wanted all the things I came here for and now there was no option but to figure it all out alone.
I hastily booked an Airbnb in a remote area of Pyrenees Orientales, close to the border of Spain in the South of France. Desperately hoping it would be warmer than minus six degrees. It had plumbing, a shower, a toilet, a bedroom, a kitchen and central heating. Luxuries I had survived without for seven and a half months.
My first order of business was to work on my physical and emotional health. I needed to eat. Gain some weight. Regain my strength but gently and slowly. I stayed in Rodes for a month. I resolved to dedicate this time to my healing. I had come across a book called, ‘Your Dog is Your Mirror – the Emotional Capacity of our Dogs and Ourselves.’ I didn’t want to read it, I understood the principles and I wanted to do the research myself.
Jonnie grew up on the streets of Sharm El Sheikh. The man who rescued her had spotted her when she was a puppy. Far sweeter looking than the Baladi street dogs, typical of North African countries, she had immediately caught his eye. She was always alone. She had no pack and seemed to have a lazy, ‘do what you want’ attitude as humans moved busily around her. Dave and his team tagged her for sterilization and kept an eye on her. She survived by making friends with humans, often being taken in by different families for a night or two. In 2023, Dave heard she had been moved on to a complex that was poisoning dogs and he made his decision. He was going to bring her back to France.
Jonnie almost had a home for life but she became so possessive of Dave that he could not stop the aggression she showed towards his other female dogs. He had to find her a forever home.
And so, by a bizarre series of higher power moments, Jonnie arrived to live with me, on the old farm in Saone et Loire. I had heard her story and couldn’t help drawing a comparison between her life and my own. Surviving alone, relying at times on the kindness of others and fighting fiercely for our independence and our security.
I knew I had some inner child work to do. Jonnie became the physical representation of my inner child. We had only been together a few months. She needed to settle. I needed to get out of fight or flight. We both did. I watched her intently. Observing all her behaviours as mirrors of my own internal distress. I can’t imagine having made so much progress so quickly, had we not completed this work together.
We were incredibly fortunate. The temperatures in the area rose to the mid-twenties. Unseasonably warm for January. We basked in the sunshine and delighted in our surroundings. We walked endlessly. Me hunting for treasure and Jonnie, trotting delightedly along by my side.
I spoke to her about what was going on in my head. I spoke to her, while speaking to my three-year-old inner child. The wounded child whose hurt and pain had led me into that relationship and to this point. I calmed her, I consoled her, I reassured her and my love for her grew so intensely that at some point, we all became one. I felt stronger, safer and more able to focus on my future while clearing the wreckage of my past. Giving others back their shame and offloading baggage that was never mine to carry.
As we walked, I turned over the events of the previous year. Knowing that I had to understand the mechanisms that had led me there and what it meant. Inevitably, I had to go back to the very beginning to see the truth of it all. The period of time I had been escaping and running from, my whole life. The irony being that finally, I had found someone I wanted to stay with in a country I wanted to settle in and it was all a lie. His lies, damaging everyone he comes into contact with. My self-deception, hurting only myself.
Each time the rumination took hold, I would grab a few layers and walk some more. Despite the cold, rain or stifling heat, I walked until I was calm and back in the realms of healthy self-reflection.
So much clarity came through. Investigating the truth in my thoughts. Recovery programs had shown me how to take inventory efficiently but I have Fellowship to help me check my reliability as a witness to my own life. I also had evidence.
Diaries, years of text messages, letters, voice recordings, historic Facebook activity. Not that I needed any of that. They just proved what I already knew. I had trusted myself all along but I had to be sure.
I joined some amazing groups on Facebook, looking for support and offering mine to the fifty thousand women who had experienced or were living in the hell I was still in. Despite the shock of the relocation and my unexpected lifestyle, my mothers death in September and all the difficulties that I faced without an income in a country that would displace me again if I couldn’t figure out my future, the most pressing challenge was the damage caused to my wellbeing and harmony by that man. I had to break the thought traps I recognised to free myself and achieve the potential I came here to fulfil. My life and future depended on it.
I spoke daily to a wonderful woman, part of whose story features in my novel. Our lives coincided at a time where our experience, strength and hope supported each others. The fury abated, the acceptance appeared and clarity and harmony seemed possible again.
Towards the end of my stay, I came across a publishing house looking for authors who wanted to publish during 2024/25. I immediately jumped on a call. I have never had a problem making big commitments to myself. If the last year had taught me anything it was that I am way more resourceful than anyone has ever given me credit for. My problem was that I needed other people to see it. Now I only had myself to prove it to.
I had a three-month rental booked in Herault and so those three months became my deadline. It didn’t even cross my mind that this was ambitious. It was my survival I was thinking about. I needed to write that book. What else was I going to do? I had spent a month healing and reflecting. I needed to free up the space in my head somehow. Recovery showed me how to take life one day at a time. With my future hanging by one precarious thread. One day at a time was just about all I could manage. There were too many variables, too many uncertainties. This was a deadline only I had control of and suddenly I felt powerful again.
Stay tuned for Parts 3 & 4. Some of you asked me 'HOW' - this is my how. Looking for the similarities and less of the differences in our stories may be helpful in your own journey. I speak and write from experience, strength and hope so that others may see what is truly possible for themselves.
Much Love,
Elizabeth & Jonnie x
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