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What I've Learnt - Susan Berg · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: On a late October afternoon in 1985, Susan Berg joined her parents and her 16-year-old brother on a family boat trip in Victoria's Western Port Bay.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was the family's second time out in the newly purchased boat, a relaxing afternoon on the water.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: But within mere hours of entering the bay, Susan Berg's life would change forever.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: As the sun started to set, the family began to head back to the shore to return to their car and trailer.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Within minutes, Susan's brother Bill noticed that water was quickly filling the boat.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Soon the family were desperately clinging to the hull of the boat in the chilly water.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Tragically, her brother, father, and mother died trying to swim to safety, but Susan survived.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: She said, I blamed myself for mum and dad and Bill's death.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was the person driving the boat at the time that it sank.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that I lived and they died, it just felt like it was all my fault, she recalled.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: A few weeks after the accident, we were getting lots of letters from people who had heard about the accident in the newspaper.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I got a letter which said, You bitch, your brother went to help your parents and left them dead.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess that for me it cemented the guilt.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: But after years of trauma, survivor guilt, and becoming a mother to her beautiful son, Susan has found a deep resilience hope, and now helps others to heal and recover.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And using her own lessons work, she supports, inspires, and thrives.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: A real turning point was her determination to swim the English Channel.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Having never been back in the water, she was determined to use the challenging endeavour to tackle her own demons.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: A survivor and an inspiration.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Susan, welcome to the What I've Learnt podcast.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Susan, I first heard about your extraordinary story a few years ago and you know have been quite entranced by watching you uh grow and not only survive but thrive on so many levels.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: But can I just take you back to that day which I know changed your life forever?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us a little bit about that?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: We'd gone out fishing late in the afternoon and entered the water down at Warneat.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: We fished for a couple of hours, having lots of fun, and then as the sun went down, Dad said it was time to head back to land.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: So he asked if I'd like to drive the boat, which I jumped at the chance and uh hopped into the driver's seat and put the throttle on full pelt.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: We were rocketing over the waves, and all of a sudden the acceleration cut on the uh on the boat, and my brother turned around and screamed, there's water in the boat.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: And he grabbed a bucket and was trying to bail it out while mum threw life jackets at us, which we only had time to put over our heads.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but within 30 seconds or less than 30 seconds, we were up to our knees in water.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: And Dad said, quickly jump out and we're going to flip the boat over.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we jumped out into the water, flipped the boat, and clung onto the hull as we tried to do up each other's life jackets.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: The waves had picked up by now and they just continuously swept us off the boat.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: So it was quite difficult then trying to have to try and swim back and hop back on the boat and have that for security.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: But then it was dark and there were no boats in sight, and we decided that the best course of action now was to swim towards land.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: And land now was just a silhouette in the distance.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: So we left the boat and started swimming, and not long after, my father was having real difficulty with swimming.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: So my brother went over to help him, which mum didn't want him to.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: She said to him, Bill, I want you to just keep on going.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: And she wanted him to save himself.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he just said, No, dad needs my help.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I told mum to keep up with me and that we could swim together.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we started off that way, but as we kept swimming, I was just getting further and further ahead.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: So eventually I said that I was going to go ahead for help.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I kept going, and mum would yell out to me, possibly about every 10 minutes, just saying, Sassi, you okay?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, yes, Mum, I'm okay.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And after about an hour, I realized that I hadn't heard for her from her for some time.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I yelled out and there was no reply.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I turned around and I couldn't see them with just the moon shining on the water and the level of waves.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: I just couldn't see them.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to just keep on going.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I kept swimming and um it was freezing cold water.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I had a life jacket on that was an old-fashioned type, you know, it's back in 1985.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: So they were a lot bulkier back then, but it was riding up and choking me.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to have my hands at my neck holding the life jacket down and um and just kicking with my feet to move forwards.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: So after a couple of hours, um, I all of a sudden had all these birds, and I'm talking about loads of birds that were just circling me and circling and screeching so loudly, I was terrified.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: I was absolutely convinced that they were waiting for the sharks to attack and that they were waiting to come and pick up the pieces.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: And my brother had been talking about, you know, just that afternoon as we were in the boat, that divers in the area had seen the largest sharks that they'd ever seen.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I was very well aware that there were sharks in Western Port Bay.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was that fear, that terror, the looking around, waiting for a fin, but knowing that there was nothing I could do.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I just kept swimming.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually I got to water that was too shallow to swim.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I tried to walk, but I sunk down up to my knees in mud.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: So there was no way I could walk.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to hop onto my hands and knees and I'd I'd crawl forward and you know, counting one, two, three until I got to a hundred.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then feeling tired, moving that way, I stopped and I sat down with my back to the land and my legs outstretched, and I used my arms to push myself back and I'd count to a hundred.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: And using these two methods, I just went over and over until finally I got to a sandbank.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I yelled out to mum and dad that if they could make it to the sandbank, that they could rest and that I was going to go ahead for help.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: I could see from the way the tide was rushing that I had to get across the next few hundred meters to land quickly, or else I would be swept past.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: I could see that it was a point that I had to just go as quickly as I could.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it was back to crawling and then swimming.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: And after a few hundred meters, I was back into mud, except for this time it was like quicksand.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just grabbing onto the shrubs and the sticks that were poking up through through the mud, and they were just snapping off in my hands.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I was up now, you know, getting up closer to my waist in mud, and I knew that if I didn't keep on fighting that I was going to be fully swallowed.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that in itself yeah, I mean it was dark, it's dark.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's pitch black.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: The only light is from the moon.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so to me, that and and the the trees in this in this mangroves was I I call it like witches' trees.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: They were like dead branches with no foliage, it was just horrible dark sticks that looked really, really frightening.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was frightened going into this this area of mud.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I had to keep going.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I did keep fighting through and finally came to harder, harder ground.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: And when I got there, I'd expected that what I would see was loads of people and houses and cars and and light and and help.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: And instead, what I discovered was that I'd actually landed at French Island.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, yeah.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: But most, you know, um people may be aware of French Island, and if if if people are not, it's actually double the size of Phillip Island, yet only 60 people live there.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's an old prison island, and it was a perfect place for a prison because of the remoteness, but I really had landed in an area of nothingness except for National Park and mangroves.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I turned uh thankfully to the right and and found a pathway and within a couple of kilometres found a house with the lights on.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: If I hadn't found this particular house, there wasn't another house for 30 kilometres after that.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I was incredibly, you know, um lucky to have stumbled across this this property.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: And inside was a retired doctor and his wife.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: It was now about 10, 30, 11 o'clock at night.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: I knocked on the window, they opened the door, it was obvious where I'd come from.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: I was covered in mud and I had a life jacket on.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And they took me in, Dr.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Philbs checked me over to make sure I was physically okay, and then he went down to the mangroves to see if he could see or hear anything of mum, dad, and Bill, while his wife put me into the shower.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I just stood in the shower and rested my head against the tiles, and I just cried.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: I just felt so guilty that, you know, I was standing in this shower under beautiful hot water while my parents and my brother were still missing out in the freezing cold sea.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And did you at that point, at that point you still held hope that that they were behind you?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know that you spent, you know, at some point you you were calling back all the time, but then you actually obviously had to focus on just staying afloat yourself.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I think at that point you really thought that they were going to get to land or to safety, or may have already been there.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: You were it was all a bit of a blur from because I've read your book and you talk about that.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So tell me what happened next.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: You come out of the shower, you you know, obviously are shaken and absolutely exhausted and delirious, clearly.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: So a helicopter came over and picked me up from the island and first of all took me out over the bay and put a big spotlight on to see, you know, if we could find them.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Out in this vast black sea, the light was like a tiny white dot.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: It it really felt like it wasn't making, you know, a great deal of it wasn't a great deal of help.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I still desperately searched, you know, I was really hoping that I'd see them waving their their arms up at me.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: And but after about an hour, the pilot said that he he'd been called and I'd been was required to head back to Hastings police station and to make a statement.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I begged him not to take me back, you know.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: I I had this horror, you know, vision in my head that if the helicopter left and they were there waving their arms at me, that they'd felt like I'd just turn around and deserted them, that I, you know, left.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: So um I was taken back to Hastings Police Station and I gave a statement and then I spent the next hours just making toast and coffee for the police.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Anything to keep my mind off um what had happened, you know, active, yes.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: But uh and I rang, I rang family and a few friends, and they started arriving from about two o'clock in the morning.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: And uh at seven o'clock in the morning I was told that firstly the body of my mother had been retrieved, and an hour and a half after that they had retrieved the body of my father, and half an hour after that the body of my brother.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, in in that one line at night, just everything changed.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Susan, an extraordinarily um uh detailed and very articulate description of what had happened.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's interesting.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this was what you were 15.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: How old were you?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: 15.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: So really the and and the emotion and the the rawness of the experience still sits with you.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: All these years later, it's like something that you never forget, but maybe that's part of what you need and feel you need to hold on to, remember, so that you can actually uh process what has happened.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And clearly, this is an extraordinary thing for a young or for anybody, let alone a young 15-year-old girl, to process.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think when you go through such a deep trauma that you can relive it and remember it like it happened yesterday.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that, or you know, you can move on, but that that rawness and that that experience will be part of you forever.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I note that you you can tell it and retell it with such um clarity, and as you say, it's embedded almost genetically, it's almost part of you.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so, therefore, it's also a way of honoring the story, which I I really think is incredibly brave because you've actually held on to it and allowed it to rise up and to be in a way, um, as we will continue to talk, it is also a story of hope and resilience.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: So at that time when the trauma was so uh uh raw, did you uh what what tools do you think you drew on at that time and during that process, particularly getting out of the water, finding that home, finding that family.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, all of that must have, do you think there's an element of your instincts just kicked in and there you were on a sort of autopilot of sorts?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Autopilot is basically it.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and it was that thing of I had to, I had to save my family.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I couldn't stop, I couldn't rest.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and it was that exhaustion was taking over the body.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I guess it's adrenaline, it's fear, it's shock, it's all of it just kicks in, and you just you just know you have to keep going.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I did.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And also you were quite a reasonably strong swimmer, is that right?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Is that because Yeah, oh reasonably.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like I did school sports and we had um swimming lessons that mum put us through.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but but my brother Bill was the swimmer of the family.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: He was he was a strong swimmer, he had his own private coach, and he would have, you know, most definitely have survived the accident had he not stayed with my father to help him.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously, um, and I know that a lot happened after that, and there was a lot of um, if you like, re-traumatizing because you were put through a very complex series of um questions and the media got involved.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Can you talk to me a little bit about that next few months?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because obviously you were reeling from this extraordinary trauma, having lost your mum, your dad, and your brother, but then you had another onslaught.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to talk to me about that?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: It it just seemed like a constant 12 months.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, the accident happened when I was 15.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then after their funeral, my we had my grandmother die two weeks later, and then I had my uncle die, my cousin drowned, two kittens and a goldfish.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'd been sexually assaulted, um raped, if we're going to be direct and to the point, and introduced to drugs, and all of this happened within, you know, 12 months and before my 16th birthday.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it was just felt like trauma on top of trauma on top of trauma.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And all I wanted it in my mind, it was just this whole thing of disbelief that this was my life, disbelief that what I had once known was totally gone.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: I no longer had the safety and the love and the protection that I'd had for 15 years of my life.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: I no longer lived in the same home.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: I was no longer had my surroundings, you know, my own bed, you know, our own furniture.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Everything was was totally different.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I hated every bit of it.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's what when you talk about this sort of catapulting into this, particularly the 12 months after, your vulnerability, um, your uh exposure to people that were, shall we say, somewhat opportunist on many fronts, which obviously you outline in the book.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but but particularly you talk about being exposed to drugs and to some pretty nasty characters, one of whom uh you know took advantage sexually, and that was just another trauma.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And yet you seemed to, you were tumbling sort of through this maze.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that did you was there anybody that you could turn to at that time, or were you just in so much pain that it just was a matter of staying alive, really?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: There were there were people around me, you know, like I still had two sisters that were had, you know, we hadn't been on the boat at the time.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: And some friends disappeared out of our lives, some stayed, a few remained.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think though that it's that feeling that when you've gone through something like this, even if you have people around you, you still feel desperately alone.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: You still feel like no one understands what you're going through.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: No one, no one can understand the trauma and the grief that you're feeling.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And everyone goes through trauma and grief in their own way.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: So even though my sisters were there, um, and they were going through their own trauma and their own grief in their own way, I still felt desperately alone.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as you say, it sort of splintered everybody, didn't it?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was like it just smashed the family open in many ways, because everybody just then jumps into survival mode themselves.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, there was no one really holding you up.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And as we know, there was a family that's sort of stepped up to supposedly protect you, but but then ended up taking advantage of your your um your home and your financial position.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that was another blow.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so I feel as if, you know, this vision of you having been through something so extreme, it's just very confronting that you had very little resources and support.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, uh, in some ways, just these adults did not step up to protect you in the way they should have.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, what is it within you that you turned to and what is it that you found within yourself after that 12 months?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Just sort of go.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I did go on a you know a massive path of self-destruction.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, I think I tried to punish myself in every way possible for for what happened that night.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um when I was 19 though, I I ended and you know, this is and this is this is part of having no self-love, is you choose relationships that are not good for you.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: So at 19, I entered into a relationship with a guy that was many years older than me.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um and in, you know, became pregnant and had a child, my son William, who, you know, was was my first, my first joy again after the accident.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like he really gave me a place to belong again, you know, a family to belong to, and someone to love.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: And he was just an absolute blessing to me.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um and unfortunately, his father was quite abusive and that in every sense of the word, like he was physically abusive.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the physical abuse started on Mother's Day.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: The emotional abuse had already started before that, but the physical started on Mother's Day, and it was my first Mother's Day with my son.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember being in the lounge room and feeling so emotional that I really missed my mum.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was her Mother's Day too, and I missed her being there to see me now as a mother and and seeing her grandson.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I was feeling emotional about it.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and William's father walked into the room and said, What's wrong with you?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I told him, and his response to it was to backhand me across the face and and told he told me not to be so selfish.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it's just incredible that 19, you were only 19, Susan.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 20 20 at that stage that that that happened.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's bad, yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: For me, it was you have no right to grieve.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, grieving is selfish.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: This is what he that that response is what he instilled in me.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Don't tell people how you're feeling.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Keep your emotions to yourself.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: No one wants to know.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Telling people is selfish.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: So um incredibly damaging behavior.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: But the the behavior that came out after that was, you know, even more damaging than that than the physical abuse.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so pleased that these days there's there's words to it that didn't exist back then.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I've only learned them recently, such as you know, the gaslighting and the coercive control.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm so grateful for those words because having something to you know direct it to, because people I don't think really understood what you were going through if you said, if you gave them a bit of a story, or but now that there's the gaslighting, coercive control, people go, oh my gosh, now I understand.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now now I I can have somewhere to focus and and to be able to place it.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: But that whole thing of, you know, I I got to the point where he told me that my phone calls were being monitored and supposedly for my own self-protection, and that uh I wasn't able to leave the house without ringing him before I left, and I had to ring him when I got back.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it got to the point where I would literally, if I walked down the street, I was looking at the ground because if I was looking up and my eyes caught contact with someone, I'd be flirting.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Or um if you know, if I got home and didn't didn't ring him, it would be well, there wasn't even a choice of not ringing.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: I had to ring.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um he he had to know where I was every every moment of the day.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: But it did get to the point that all the time, if I ever spoke to anyone, I would be whispering because I had got to the point of complete paranoia that he could hear every word that I said, because he basically told me that he could.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: So if I caught up with a girlfriend, which was very rare, um he, you know, moved me out to Mount Eliza quite a distance away from any family or friends and with no car.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: But on the odd occasion, if I did catch up with a friend, even if it was outside of the house, I would whisper, thinking that he could he'd, you know, bugged the bassinet or yeah, it was just a a terrible time.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: And Susan, how long did were you with him?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because obviously you were quite vulnerable in terms of your options, as we know, for women to actually escape or to particularly with a young baby.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um I um I bolted when William was eight months of age, and that was you know, around midnight, and it was the night after he hit me again, and I pardon me, I ran next door, you know, around midnight and woke up the neighbors and called the police, and um and I never returned.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: And you've got your beautiful William.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: You've got that I've got my beautiful son, he is absolutely the most beautiful and treasured person in my life.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so grateful to have him.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, he he grew up having his own struggles, and I I, you know, would say that I am uh responsible for that in some ways, that because I was so unhappy within myself, I think he grew up feeling unhappy too.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: And um so the first eight years or so of his life were sad for both of us.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: He then found ice hockey, which really gave him a new lease on life.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: He made new friendships, he found something that he was really passionate about, that he was good at, that he got recognized for, that he, you know, was asked to play and he played for Victoria and was asked to be invited to play for Australia.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just something that gave him a new, a new avenue, a new form of friendships, a new lease on life.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that was where he started finding his happiness.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: And in terms of when you started finding your happiness, you talk about obviously having having William and having a child.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that was the beginning of your uh your looking towards a future and a sense of hope, and you had something to live for and to to heal for, as well as yourself?
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's what other people do, yeah.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: My son was absolutely the first step, though I will say I still struggled, I'd say, for a decade after he was born to find happiness and joy in life.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I was still very traumatized, I guess you'd say uh traumatized, um, a victim.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um I yeah, I still struggled to find, I hadn't healed within myself.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the first start of of moving forward in that direction was I was introduced to motorbike riding, and that gave me something new to a new challenge.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I think challenging yourself is a good way of healing.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um learning new stuff, stepping outside of your comfort zone, and that's what motorbike riding was for me.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: And once I'd started to master actually the riding process, then getting out on the bike and going for long rides, you know, through um coastal towns and along country roads, and I'd have the wind in my hair, and it really gave me an opportunity to stop and reflect on my life and look at where I was and how I was feeling it within myself.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized that I certainly wasn't the person I wanted to be.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, along the lines after the accident, I had really lost myself and I'd lost my self-respect.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew that I needed to make a lot of changes within myself for me to find any happiness.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it was looking at my behavior, my thought process, and then looking at how I needed to make changes and making those changes.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, did you get some to do that?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so was it that you did you have access to any therapists, any um social workers, any doctors, who helped you, or was that something you think that was a very strong internal shift and that nobody externally could really help you with that, that you had to deal with that internally?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: I I saw two psychologists back at the time of the accident, within like 12 months of the accident.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the first one, by the third visit, and I was at the point of I hate my life, I hate where I'm living, I don't feel I belong anywhere.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, the next session, I want you to come and I want you to bring your guardians with you.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: And because there's going to be three of you in that session, I'm going to charge you double.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now that to me said, I don't really care about you and what you're going through, I care about money.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't want to go back to him.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then I tried a female therapist, and I'd already lost faith in the profession.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: So all I was talking about was boys and nightclubs and you know, stuff that was so irrelevant and so superficial.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think she got really frustrated with me.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: And what she was trying to do was make me angry so that I would explode and just let it all out.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that didn't happen.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: All I did was bottle it up inside until I thought, buggy you all, you can't help me.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that was it.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: So from here, I really felt that I needed to find my own healing.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: And um my mum had always said that happiness is a choice.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I can see what she's saying from that now.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I do agree that it's a choice, but it's a choice you make, but then you have to take action.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: It can't just be a matter of I'm gonna be happy, and so you're smile and you're happy.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's a matter of I'm gonna make the choice to be happy, and now I have to find what tools and strategies I can implement to become happy.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: So my first was William's Ice Hockey Group, being involved with them was fabulous for me because it was a new group of people who didn't know my past.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it gave me a clean slate to build a new reputation, to build a new me, that they could see me the way I wanted to be seen instead of the way that people had seen me growing up in a matter of, you know, not respecting myself and you know lost, a lost soul.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: So now I could start rebuilding a new reputation, a new me.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then being on the bike and starting to think about what behavioural changes I could make also was an incredibly healing process.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: And slowly by, you know, I I was able to build my self-respect back up and belief in myself.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that that started to bring me, you know, some snippets of joy along the way.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, I listened to you, Susan, and first of all, your mum would be so proud of what you've done and achieved, but also she must have given you some pretty strong um gems in there to allow you to heal the way you have, recover the way you have, and also to do it very much as a solo project without too much support.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Really, you found those tools which must have somehow been internalized at some point.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it's it's it's quite not everybody could tap into that.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact that you have says something about you, but maybe also about what you learned from both your parents.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: My parents were incredibly beautiful people.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: I am so grateful that I had, you know, the blessing of having them as parents for 15 years of my life.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: And you're right, they instilled so much in me.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: They were very, very, very kind, caring people who bought us up there to believe in ourselves.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: They always said, you can do whatever you put your mind to.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: They always said have your own voice, don't follow the crowd.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: They always said, love who you are.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, they they ran workshops to help people to, you know, love life, embrace life, and look on the positive side of life.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm and I'm very fortunate that I grew up knowing I was incredibly well loved and supported, and that they they, you know, I guess they were our biggest cheerleaders, you know, the out there cheering us on to be the best that we could be.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it certainly is something they've imbued you with.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Your dad was a doctor, am I right?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's correct, yes.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: Dad was a doctor and mum was a nurse.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and also they were, yeah, so they really came from a strong healing base themselves.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, a lot of that seems to have been, uh, as I say, imbued in you.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think those tools are something that you had to just find again?
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Were they always there and they just got lost?
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, not lost.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think they, yeah, buried, buried deep down, um, deep down, uh, underneath all that trauma and sadness and out of reach for quite some time.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I needed to heal all that area in between before I could start, you know, those tools were suddenly, you know, coming up again, and I was able to access and start thinking and putting them into practice.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: Susan, also, there was another extraordinary story you told me, and I'm aware of from the book as well.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so as as you're part of your healing, um, you hadn't been in the water for many years, and you're sitting on a beach.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us what happens that particular day.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: So the the way it came about for me to be to even go near water, um, it was I met a lovely guy who read my book and knew how traumatic I found the water.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: And he contacted me one time, he'd become like a friend and a mentor.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: And he contacted me, he rang me and he said, I've got this fabulous idea.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think that you should face your fear of water and swim the Lawn Peter pub and in the process raise money for domestic violence.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I went, That is a fabulous idea.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: I agree with you.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Love where you're coming from, you know, and I'm passionate about helping people who have gone through domestic violence.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: But then I hung up the phone and it was like, what the you know, like yeah, fair, pretty daunting for anyone somebody who goes through what you've been through.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't go through I water had been my biggest fear for 30 years.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, had I could possibly count on one hand the amount of times I'd been near the water.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't own a pair of bathers, I didn't own goggles, I didn't own any of that, but I had given my word.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: So after a couple of weeks of procrastinating, I had to get back in the water.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I started off in the pool and I was encouraged to try and do 30 laps at a time of a 25-meter pool.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: I I can't tell you how much I struggled.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: I initially hopped in and tried to do two laps of freestyle, but I'd do one lap and I'd be in such high anxiety that I needed to stop at the end of the lane and basically recover for four minutes and then do another lap.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: And out of the whole 30, only two of them could I do as freestyle because the anxiety was just way too high.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the other would be backstroke, side stroke, breaststroke, anything but freestyle.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I I kept trying to, you know, go back numerous times a week.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: And after four months, you know, I went to my doctor and I said, Look, I'm really struggling.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: My anxiety isn't getting any better.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: Am I allowed to take Valium before I swim?
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that was a really good option, you know, bring down my anxiety, help me to feel more relaxed.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: And she did not agree with me whatsoever.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: She, I think she it was kind of roll of the eyes, and you've got to be kidding me.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, no, that's not a good idea.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: You you're not to do that.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you just simply need to persevere.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I spoke to my friend again, and he said, Well, Susan, you know, this is an open water swim that you're working towards, so you do need to get out into the bay.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I Googled open water swimming groups, found a group down at Half Moon Bay in Black Rock, and I went down there and met a beautiful guy, Peter Hendricks, and I told him what I had been challenged to do.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he said to me, I'm your coach, you know, I'm a coach, and I will take on your training free of charge, and I will have you prepared and ready for the Lawn Peter pub.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: So he swam with me in the mornings and he saw my struggles, he saw my fear.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he saw that I would, you know, basically force myself to do 25 strokes before I stopped and had a mini meltdown.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: And in the end, he kind of stopped me and he said, Susan, I want you to try and reframe your thoughts here.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: He said, You're looking at the water as that it killed your family.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: You're looking at it that it brings you trauma and fear.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to reframe that and start looking at it, that every time you enter the water, you're being reunited with them.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful and very powerful.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: How powerful is that?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: That was just the most beautiful thing that could have been said to me.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: And this somebody you didn't know that well, I mean, other than the training, the kindness of strangers is a really interesting notion in itself that somebody can come from left of field and offer this extraordinary, this is very um, really very intimate suggestion, very brave too, you know.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: The kindness of strangers and the power of words.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so he continued to swim with me uh every morning at sunrise, and we increased our distance.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: And as time went by, my anxiety subsided until it got to the point that I not only found peace in the water, but I found a lot of joy in it too.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, January 2017, I'm down at lawn and I'm in the water waiting to hear the gun to go off, and I'm full of, you know, anxiety and fear and excitement and you know, disbelief that I can't believe I'm doing this.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm off swimming in the water, and you know, I'm feeling like mum and dad and Bill are beside me that they're swimming with me and they're cheering me on.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I get out at the other end and I cross over the finish line, and I've just got this feeling of absolute pride and feeling of wow, you know, if you can not only face but overcome your greatest fear, you can overcome anything.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I I can't describe that feeling of ecstasy, you know, of achieving such a what was such a huge and unachievable goal for me at the time.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very inspiring and powerful story.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the fact that you stepped so far out of your comfort zone.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think, and I know that you help others who are suffering or suffered trauma, really, what you're saying is that we have the tools, we have the resources, we have the ability to heal from almost anything and any trauma, if we can find, I mean, you describe words of joy and happiness and ecstasy.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: It really is such a shift from so much pain and grief.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that offers a lot of hope for people and certainly for you, but certainly for others listening to your story, uh, the human condition is much more complex than maybe we understand.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what your journey reflects.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: Is that your take on it?
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that there are things that we can we have that we don't tap into till we have to?
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we do it.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely 100%.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, a lot of it is where we focus our thoughts.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I had focused my thoughts on water-represented trauma.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: I had focused my thoughts initially on my past and how tragic it was and the sadness and the grief.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that, and part of writing my book, you know, for me it was like putting the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle of being able to put my past behind me.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it always will remain with me, it'll always be part of me.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: But it was able to put it behind me where I could start focusing on my future and also focusing on the positive things in life.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of focusing on negative things, it's starting to look at how can I focus on the positive things?
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: What can I look at in life that I'm really grateful for?
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: And all of this made such a shift in my thoughts.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: And once you change your thought process, you can find healing, you can find joy, you know, you can learn to love life again.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: And Susan, was this something that happened reasonably quickly once you made that shift?
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you think it's something you have to practice even if it feels that it's not, you're not getting traction?
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: Is it something you have to do so, you know?
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is definitely not an overnight um healing process.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: It takes time, it takes practice, it takes perseverance.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, there's there's times, and I still at times, you know, have down days, and that's inevitable because I'm human.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it is a matter of you, I I now have found the way of embracing the difficult times, the hard times, and allowing myself to feel it, allowing myself to cry, to feel the hurt, to feel the grief, but also knowing that I will come out the other side.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I embrace it, I allow myself to feel it.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then because I'm also letting it out and feeling it, that is part of the healing process.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: If you bury it, you can't heal.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: You have to process it to heal.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then through the healing process, you then go through your ups again and your times where everything is wonderful and you're feeling so much happiness and so much joy.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: And you can really, really appreciate and love those times because you can also experience it down.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: So you need to experience both to be able to appreciate it.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that you're spending a lot of time now.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh, we we will just touch on you did also swim the English Channel.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: Can you just touch on that?
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're a minor feat, Susan.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: I I have progressed with my swimming.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: So from doing the Lorne Pier to Pub, I was then challenged to do the rich swim, which is across the heads from Point Nepine to Point Lonsdale.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that was another challenge where I just felt so proud.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: It was then um a four-person relay of the English Channel that I did in 2018.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: In 2020, I then did the Rotness Channel swim, which is a 20-kilometre swim from Perth to Rotnest Island.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm now training for a solo crossing of the English Channel, which will take place in September 22.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: You really are just somebody who is just beyond inspiring.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I interview a lot of people, and and I'm endlessly amazed that every time I touch base with you, you're you are pushing yourself further and further out of your comfort zone, drawing on those balls, and you're a great uh example to others of how you can rise up and find a new path.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I know you're speaking to a lot of other people, and I know that you're now uh, I'm assuming it's a broader, like seminar-based.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not one-on-one, but I'm assuming that there are many people who would be uh would feel great privilege to speak to somebody like you who are dealing with trauma, many of whom I see around, uh, who think that they will never recover and they will never find peace.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're a living example.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: There is always hope.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: There is hope for each one of us.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: As I said, we just need to put in the work.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, at the at the moment I do a lot of corporate speaking and speaking to groups uh about my journey.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I'm also running workshops, which is all about setting goals and stepping outside of your comfort zone.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: And setting the goals, it's looking at one that for you feels impossible.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like to me initially, the um the Lawn Peter pub felt like an impossibility.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: It seems so far out of reach.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: So now I work with people to put a plan in place to look at a goal they'd like to achieve, and we put strategies in and step by step so that by the time we have finished the workshop, they know exactly what they're doing and how they're going to complete their goal.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I expect and hope that they come out of it the other end finding as much joy and excitement and self-belief and encouragement and empowerment that I have from achieving my goals.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I have to say, Susan, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: I am so, so happy to hear you're doing so well.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: And really, you just, to be honest, uh grow, grow and grow into a more inspirational woman than you were the last time I saw you.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's just really like every time I see you or hear you, I just, you know, to be honest, I'm I'm awestruck.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I wish you all the best and I'm so thrilled to have you come and join us to inspire us with your lessons learned.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's been wonderful to be with you.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: You take care.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: You too.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: The What I've Learned podcast will now be coming to you weekly with new episodes released every Tuesday.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: So check out my What I've Learned Instagram for updates.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind, and curious.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: Love dear.