Rachel Gotto - Flying on the Inside: A Memoir of Trauma and Recovery

Text copyright 2021 by Rachel Gotto

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Little A, New York

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ISBN-13: 9781542028738

ISBN-10: 1542028736

Cover design by Sarah Whittaker

For Nicola and for Mum.

CONTENTS

Introduction

The seed for the writing of this book was planted many years ago, at a time when I was so very ill and unable to fend for myself. It was put down at a moment when my life was quite literally at one of its darkest points, a time when I wondered if I would ever live a life of purpose or meaning ever again. And it was my lovely mother who set that first kernel of an idea that I might one day tell my story to the world. From where I lay at that moment my future looked bleak, and I questioned what life had left to offer me, now that I had lost pretty much everything I held dear. Im not sure, to this day, if my mother really believed what she said at that time or whether it was just a way to offer me some distraction from my dire circumstances, but on one of the days when I was at my lowest, I remember her quietly saying to me that I would recover and that one day I would write about what had happened to me. A mothers desperate wish for her daughter, I would have said at the time! I can still recall the anger I felt when she spoke those words. I lashed out at her; I was furious at what seemed like a stupid notion, an absurd idea that, to me, only served to highlight the plight I was in. I could hardly move a limb at that juncture and I was fierce in my protest that no one would ever want to read about something so miserable, and I meant what I said. And there the seed remained, dormant, for almost another decade, until I began my work as a therapist. The clients who come to see me have mostly lived extremely challenging lives themselves and often its difficult for them to envisage the possibility of change, such is the depth of their experiences. Often, they have no concept that life can be different, and they feel completely stuck. Over time I found I could bring shifts in their perspectives by offering insights from my own journey, and soon I began to get referrals by virtue of my own story of trauma and recovery, and it was here that the idea of writing a book about my life began to be nurtured. Clients would time and time again choose to work with me because theyd heard that I too had experience of deep personal trauma and, as a consequence, they felt better able to trust me with their own struggles. Word of mouth landed me with an invitation to speak on the radio and that interview resulted in a flood of requests to hear more about my life. People were curious; they wanted to know how I had got from trauma to full recovery, and it was sometime around this point that I was prompted to seriously consider the idea of putting pen to paper. I wont lie, it was daunting. Id never written very much, apart from poetry and a diary. However, setting down my story in a formal sense became the most natural direction to take, and so I began.

This hasnt been a straightforward book to write. It hasnt been easy to open up emotional boxes that I had, in the intervening years, carefully sorted through and gently put away. Needing to capture the immediacy of some of the most turbulent experiences of my past has in truth been most difficult. On each foray back into the past I had to dig very deep and, at the same time, hold the trust that I had developed enough fortitude and strength through my recovery to withstand the pitch of emotion that came with this backwards journey. Reviewing those times in order to faithfully recount them felt deeply risky and required me to trust in my own level of healing. There were days when I was less robust and I felt the rising fear that I might get sucked into being retraumatised with no way back out. On those days I walked away, returning only when it felt emotionally safe to do so. I took care of myself as best I could in the process, but, of course, there were many tears shed and, possibly, the most difficult aspect was that, having gone there again emotionally, I had to consciously and carefully repackage my emotions and put them back in the place Id strived so hard to get them to, after so many years of therapy and processing. Nevertheless, Im so proud that I was able to do this work. My mental strength has been tested in the recounting of this story, but mostly Im happy to report that the whole experience has ended up feeling very cathartic.

Writing this book has definitely completed another layer of healing within me and I feel even further recovered. So much so that, very recently, I took a pilgrimage of sorts back to the village and surrounds where this whole story is set: at Glandore Harbour, on the coast of West Cork in Ireland. Id not been back to visit for some years, and I was curious about how I would feel, having packed up and left in haste all those years ago, primarily to put some distance between myself and the painful memories held there. The journey was easier than I expected, and I was pleasantly surprised at how joyous I felt as I once again laid eyes on my childhood village. I was able to see it differently this time. The old dread that Id experienced on previous visits was transformed into wonderment at the sheer beauty of the area. In that moment I could understand why my parents had initially fallen in love with the place. As I stood once again on the shores of this remarkably beautiful harbour I felt that somehow Id come full circle. The peaceful state I experienced in my body was new. The dark sense of loss and longing, as before, seemed all but gone, and as I stood looking out to where Adam and Eve Islands stand, iconic markers protecting the entrance to the waters of my childhood playground, I felt transformed. Checking in on myself, I looked across the bay to Union Hall, the place where my late husband and I moored our boat, and the pier that we worked from. I saw the changes that had occurred in the years of my absence, and I was happy. Its difficult to put into words what I felt: a maturity, a sense of having come through a storm into calmer seas, with my sails set for a new destination.

The sea has always been part of my life, my one anchoring point in the emotional wilderness of childhood; one I often had to navigate alone. My brothers, too, all found connection there, with each of my three older brothers, Mel, Nicky and Adrian, later embarking on careers connected to the sea. In the same way, my brother Dominic, barely a year older than me and my constant childhood companion, left home at eighteen to become a transatlantic skipper, delivering yachts for clients between the Mediterranean and the Caribbean.

When, in my early twenties, I returned to the family home after years of escape in Dublin and then England, it was the sea that brought me my husband. Nic was an adventurer, a fisherman and a deep-sea diver, who at the time I met him was conducting marine research for University College Cork. With Nic, my own passion for the ocean flourished again, and deepened, when he taught me to dive. It was thanks to Nic that I discovered the silent, meditative world of the ocean bed, where I so quickly felt attuned, safe and, for once, completely at one with my environment.