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Leaving the Ashram with Mary Garden · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma THEAPIS podcast. My name is Gan macpherson.
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Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
0:07
Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. Here we go five four, three,
0:14
Speaker 1: two and one, our folks, welcome back to the podcast.
0:17
Speaker 1: I'm very excited to have as my guest today, Mary Garden.
0:20
Speaker 2: Mary, Welcome, Welcome, thank you, thank you for having me on.
0:27
Speaker 1: You're welcome. Mary is a New Zealand born author whose
0:31
Speaker 1: life has taken her from ashrams in India, to eco
0:34
Speaker 1: villages in Australia and beyond. Now based in Queensland, her
0:37
Speaker 1: writing explorers the search for truth, identity and belonging through
0:42
Speaker 1: extraordinary personal experience. Her memoir My Father's Suitcase follows the
0:48
Speaker 1: success of her award winning The Serpent Rising, a vivid
0:51
Speaker 1: account of her years in India under the spell of
0:54
Speaker 1: dangerous Gurus. Mary is also the author of Sundowner of
0:58
Speaker 1: the Skies, biography of her aviator father Oscar Garden, which
1:03
Speaker 1: was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's History Award. All right, Mary,
1:09
Speaker 1: just a little bit about you before we get go
1:11
Speaker 1: and share with our listeners where you're from originally and
1:14
Speaker 1: where you are currently and then we will get going, Okay.
1:20
Speaker 2: So I was born in a little town in New Zealand, Bakatani,
1:26
Speaker 2: and grew up in Taranga, which is on the East Coast,
1:32
Speaker 2: beautiful seaside town. Left home as soon as I could
1:36
Speaker 2: at sixteen and went to university. And after yes sixteen,
1:42
Speaker 2: I was on my own independent and then went to
1:46
Speaker 2: university for a few years, one of the worst decisions
1:49
Speaker 2: of my life, and ended up leaving university, abandoning my
1:57
Speaker 2: master's thesis and study is, burning my thesis and heading
2:01
Speaker 2: off to India, where I spent much of the nineteen
2:05
Speaker 2: seventies and fortunately visited Brisbane one time and felt completely
2:12
Speaker 2: at home in southeast Queensland and that is where I've
2:16
Speaker 2: been ever since. So now I live in the Sunshine Coast,
2:20
Speaker 2: beautiful part of Australia.
2:24
Speaker 1: So you kind of dipped your toes into a little
2:27
Speaker 1: bit there. But how does this, how does the story
2:29
Speaker 1: start for you?
2:37
Speaker 2: I grew up in the nineteen fifties, often portrayed as
2:41
Speaker 2: a molderen age, It certainly wasn't like. I grew up
2:45
Speaker 2: in a very very dysfunctional family. My father had a
2:53
Speaker 2: violent streak, very cold eccentric and part of that journey
3:03
Speaker 2: with my second book, The Sundowner Disguise, because he was
3:07
Speaker 2: actually a famous aviator, was to dig into his past
3:11
Speaker 2: to find out why he became so damaged. So I
3:15
Speaker 2: uncovered some incredible truths about his life in far North Scotland.
3:22
Speaker 2: No one in the family knew about them, and it
3:24
Speaker 2: really was very healing from my mother and my dad
3:26
Speaker 2: was dead by that time to find out what had
3:29
Speaker 2: happened with the family. He grew up in a very
3:33
Speaker 2: violent household where the father was an alcoholic. The mother
3:38
Speaker 2: actually ran away in nineteen o five and went into hiding.
3:43
Speaker 2: So there was this extraordinary story I found in the
3:45
Speaker 2: Scottish archives of their separation and her tried to get
3:49
Speaker 2: custody and it's all explored in my book. So and
3:57
Speaker 2: at the same time, my mother was very, very depressed,
4:00
Speaker 2: and a lot of women in that era were. They
4:02
Speaker 2: were like slaves to their husbands. They had no power
4:06
Speaker 2: over money. And I didn't find out the reason for
4:12
Speaker 2: a lot of her depression until after her death. And
4:15
Speaker 2: she was actually carrying a huge secret which nobody in
4:18
Speaker 2: the family knew, and that was that she had had
4:22
Speaker 2: a baby during the war. To a soldier and had
4:27
Speaker 2: adopted it out. And I explored that in my book,
4:30
Speaker 2: and it was sort of front page news of New
4:33
Speaker 2: Zealand Herald because that child was a famous New Zealand footballer.
4:37
Speaker 2: So that family actually knew about us and didn't contact
4:42
Speaker 2: us till after Mum died. So I found that a
4:44
Speaker 2: huge betrayal that they wanted to keep Mum's secret. So
4:48
Speaker 2: this half brother of mine I never got to know,
4:51
Speaker 2: but he knew about me for seventeen years. So there
4:54
Speaker 2: was violence in the family. And also my younger sister,
4:59
Speaker 2: which is the kernel of my Father's Suitcase, was very
5:04
Speaker 2: violent towards me, and they suspected early on that she
5:09
Speaker 2: may have had a mental illness, and in fact, she
5:11
Speaker 2: was only diagnosed quite late in life with schizoid effective disorder.
5:16
Speaker 2: So we sort of had to walk on eggshells around Anna.
5:21
Speaker 2: So if Anna attacked me, I was always blamed. It
5:25
Speaker 2: was something I must have done something to upset her.
5:29
Speaker 2: That pattern, which I sort of got much more clarity
5:33
Speaker 2: about when I wrote My Father's Suitcase. That shreaded through
5:37
Speaker 2: my life. That's the reason I got caught up with
5:40
Speaker 2: gurus and was able to accept that their bad treatment
5:43
Speaker 2: of me was my bad Parma, and that was why
5:46
Speaker 2: I ended up in several domestic violent relationships in nineteen nineties.
5:52
Speaker 2: This is all my fault. So that goes right back
5:55
Speaker 2: to this dysfunctional family with parents who were not able
5:59
Speaker 2: to assess their own trauma and not able to intervene
6:04
Speaker 2: in conflicts with siblings. But I was not aware that
6:08
Speaker 2: what I had experienced, and it went through all my life.
6:10
Speaker 2: There were long periods of estrangements with my sister, and
6:14
Speaker 2: that's something we don't talk about a lot either. It's
6:17
Speaker 2: like this ambiguous last you want to be friends with
6:19
Speaker 2: your sister, but it's not safe to be I was
6:23
Speaker 2: not aware that there was such a thing as sibling
6:25
Speaker 2: abuse until probably eight years ago, and that is the
6:31
Speaker 2: main theme of my father's suitcodes.
6:35
Speaker 1: Wow. So you you said you were sixteen when you
6:40
Speaker 1: left home. Yes, so, I'm sure you wanted to get
6:46
Speaker 1: out of the house.
6:51
Speaker 2: I had spent that last or in Auckland with my sister. Yeah,
6:56
Speaker 2: and she attacked me. She actually stabbed me in the back.
6:59
Speaker 2: But I didn't I thought it was normal, Like I
7:03
Speaker 2: didn't think there was anything wrong with it. So I
7:05
Speaker 2: just wanted to grow up as quickly as I could
7:10
Speaker 2: find the love of my life fall in love. And
7:13
Speaker 2: I actually wanted to go nursing, but my aunt said, no,
7:17
Speaker 2: niece of mine is going to go nursing. I've got
7:19
Speaker 2: to go to university. My parents didn't care what I did.
7:22
Speaker 2: My mother was too caught up with trying to cope
7:25
Speaker 2: with living with dad. So I headed off to Waikata University,
7:30
Speaker 2: which was the worst, and I did a teaching degree,
7:33
Speaker 2: which was I should have been a librarian or a nurse.
7:36
Speaker 2: You know, I hated teaching. I wasn't I couldn't cope
7:39
Speaker 2: with the classroom very I did a double degree and
7:42
Speaker 2: did a teaching certificate and a Bachelor of Education. But
7:47
Speaker 2: that's not where I should have been because I ended
7:50
Speaker 2: up getting very, very depressed and suffering anxiety, and at
7:54
Speaker 2: that time no one talked about those things. I didn't
7:57
Speaker 2: actually know what was happening with me. Was clinically depressed,
8:01
Speaker 2: but there was there were no psychologists. The only there
8:07
Speaker 2: was a poster at university in Auckland for help with
8:10
Speaker 2: this Bert Potter. He ended up at the head of
8:14
Speaker 2: this very destructive cult center Point. So I wanted to
8:18
Speaker 2: go to see him, but I was two nervous and
8:20
Speaker 2: he ended up in jail for child sexual there. So
8:23
Speaker 2: there were no support systems at that time. There was
8:26
Speaker 2: no discussion of depression. So when I found visited this
8:31
Speaker 2: ashram in Auckland and met this lovely group of people
8:36
Speaker 2: and felt like I was in a family at last,
8:41
Speaker 2: I joined tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of
8:44
Speaker 2: people that went to India that were disillusioned with the
8:47
Speaker 2: counterculture movement. There were no warnings. Then we went off
8:51
Speaker 2: to find our true Guru in India. And I mean
8:53
Speaker 2: I was just the prime recruit, it wasn't I. So
8:57
Speaker 2: I headed off to Saybaba first was nineteen seventy three,
9:02
Speaker 2: and my mother and father thought nothing of it that
9:06
Speaker 2: here I was throwing away all my possessions, went off
9:10
Speaker 2: there with sandals and an orange rack sac and my
9:14
Speaker 2: because my mother always said, don't end up like me,
9:19
Speaker 2: so she didn't care what I did. She just didn't
9:20
Speaker 2: want to sad marriage.
9:24
Speaker 1: So you go off, you get involved with this ashram
9:28
Speaker 1: and this guru. When did you start to realize that
9:35
Speaker 1: the things were dangerous, that things were abusive, unhealthy?
9:40
Speaker 2: Oh, look, straight away, straight away, straight away, that's the
9:44
Speaker 2: bizarre thing straight away. There were many times so I
9:48
Speaker 2: went to, say a barber, but ended up in this
9:50
Speaker 2: very small ashram up in the Himalayas, next door to
9:53
Speaker 2: the ashram that the Beatles went to, So it was
9:55
Speaker 2: in the jungle. It was virtually like a prison. There
9:58
Speaker 2: was a huge wall and fence around it. And within
10:04
Speaker 2: a few days I had doubts, but I pushed them down.
10:10
Speaker 2: I thought, this is just me, and he would always
10:14
Speaker 2: criticize me for having this monkey mind that I had
10:18
Speaker 2: to trust him, believe him, and I was trapped there
10:24
Speaker 2: for quite a few years. I ran away several times
10:27
Speaker 2: and did the Passinger meditation causes, which was actually the
10:31
Speaker 2: worst thing I could have done. Like I've just recently
10:34
Speaker 2: done a mindfulness work retreat and I shared my experience
10:38
Speaker 2: with them, and I said, that was the worst thing
10:41
Speaker 2: I could have done, because what a lot of us
10:44
Speaker 2: seekers needed was therapy. We needed to address our pain
10:51
Speaker 2: and our past, and going off and doing meditation and
10:55
Speaker 2: long retreats was not It didn't do me any harm,
10:57
Speaker 2: but it was certainly not helpful.
11:00
Speaker 1: So how long how long really hang on? Mary? Let
11:04
Speaker 1: me interject for one second, how long were you in
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Speaker 1: that ashram for.
11:10
Speaker 2: About five years. I ended up getting pregnant. So we
11:14
Speaker 2: were meant to be celibate. So this was the secret
11:17
Speaker 2: in the ashram that we called them boys. The men
11:20
Speaker 2: were not meant to know that he was. Actually he
11:24
Speaker 2: called it raising our condolini and erasing all our some
11:28
Speaker 2: scars of being in the world and with men of
11:32
Speaker 2: the world. And I got pregnant. And I didn't know
11:36
Speaker 2: I was pregnant at first because I hadn't had my
11:38
Speaker 2: parents for months. We were living on a very restricted diet,
11:42
Speaker 2: and he would not let me go over the Ganges
11:44
Speaker 2: River to see a doctor. So by the time I
11:48
Speaker 2: went to see a doctor, she said, oh, you know,
11:50
Speaker 2: you're pregnant. And when I went back to the ashram,
11:54
Speaker 2: a part and he thought, oh, amazing, I'm going to
11:56
Speaker 2: have this holy baby. And no, no, no, I had
12:00
Speaker 2: to go to Delhi and have an abortion. And it
12:04
Speaker 2: was horrendous. I was six months pregnant. I was six
12:07
Speaker 2: months pregnant, and you know, the baby had to be delivered.
12:11
Speaker 2: It was only when I was writing my book The
12:15
Speaker 2: Serpent Rising. When I wrote that chapter, because I was
12:18
Speaker 2: still quite ambivalent, I thought, oh my god, this is
12:22
Speaker 2: really really dangerous. Stuff, and later I found most of
12:28
Speaker 2: the women there had abortions, and this was actually quite
12:31
Speaker 2: common through India at the time with gurus. So that's
12:37
Speaker 2: sort of and he lost interest in me after that
12:40
Speaker 2: because I was like his main devotee. He sort of
12:44
Speaker 2: saw himself as the reincarnation of Krishna and I was
12:48
Speaker 2: his closest devote and I thought I was rather har
12:53
Speaker 2: quite deluded, look strangely my way out And when I
12:59
Speaker 2: left him, I was still in Ivland. I still thought,
13:01
Speaker 2: you know, have I made a mistake my way out?
13:04
Speaker 2: Which a lot of anti cultists don't like me saying was.
13:09
Speaker 2: I ended up joining the raj Niche group in Puna,
13:11
Speaker 2: the Orange people, and.
13:14
Speaker 1: That was I don't know what. I don't know what
13:17
Speaker 1: they are. What explained to me what.
13:18
Speaker 2: Those they are Baguan Rajniche. They ended up going to
13:22
Speaker 2: Oregon and they were the subject of The Wild Wild Country,
13:26
Speaker 2: very very well known Netflix series. So I went to
13:31
Speaker 2: you haven't heard of Osho? Many of your listeners will
13:35
Speaker 2: know of Osho.
13:37
Speaker 1: I'm in Oregon.
13:38
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, well Oregon, that's where there's been books. It
13:45
Speaker 2: was scandalous. But when I first went there in Puna,
13:48
Speaker 2: a lot of therapists from Esslin went to Puna and
13:53
Speaker 2: Rajnice was very very critical of the hypocrisy of many
13:56
Speaker 2: of these Hindu gurus, many of them saying they were
13:59
Speaker 2: seal it and having sex with their disciples, and he
14:03
Speaker 2: believed that we should be doing therapy and dance and
14:07
Speaker 2: there should not be any denial of sexual urges whatever.
14:11
Speaker 2: So it was very very radical at the time. So
14:14
Speaker 2: that was when I was in Perna. I spent two
14:16
Speaker 2: years there. That was my first experience of therapy, and
14:20
Speaker 2: it was some of it was very extreme. It wasn't
14:23
Speaker 2: safe for some people, but it was extraordinary for me
14:28
Speaker 2: because I had my whole life I'd been told to
14:31
Speaker 2: push down my emotions. I wasn't allowed to get angry.
14:33
Speaker 2: It wasn't able to show any sorrow around my parents
14:36
Speaker 2: or my mother and to be able to go into
14:39
Speaker 2: a therapy room and this huge catharsis. But the group
14:44
Speaker 2: did end up, and I wasn't living inside the ashram itself.
14:49
Speaker 2: We were renting apartments around. There were only a few
14:52
Speaker 2: in the inner circle living with Baguan runch Niche. They
14:56
Speaker 2: moved to Oregon. I think that was the late seventies
15:00
Speaker 2: early eighties and that was huge news because the group deteriorated.
15:07
Speaker 2: They developed a commune called raj Niche Purim, and that
15:12
Speaker 2: was huge news in America because it became quite a
15:15
Speaker 2: destructive cult. Some of them ended up in prison. He
15:19
Speaker 2: was removed from America. But there was abuse going on
15:24
Speaker 2: in the raj Niche Aushamonpuna that I was not aware of,
15:27
Speaker 2: of younger girls. I had no idea, and that's only
15:31
Speaker 2: just comeing to light in the last few years. So
15:34
Speaker 2: some of the anti cultists, the people who you know,
15:37
Speaker 2: trying to shine a light on colts, don't like me
15:40
Speaker 2: saying I had a good experience, but I actually did.
15:42
Speaker 2: It was a breakthrough for me. And after that I
15:45
Speaker 2: ended up in Brisbane.
15:47
Speaker 1: Let's talk about how things shifted for you, how you
15:50
Speaker 1: got out, how you became aware that you needed to
15:54
Speaker 1: get out, and we'll get into the book, all right.
16:01
Speaker 2: So that well, I just became disillusioned this is in
16:05
Speaker 2: Poona and ended up going to Brisbane and I met
16:11
Speaker 2: my future husband, Kevin, and straight away, you know, we
16:15
Speaker 2: got married and had two children, and I found it
16:18
Speaker 2: very easy to settle into that sort of life, which
16:20
Speaker 2: sounds quite extraordinary, but I had suppressed a lot. I
16:24
Speaker 2: just loved being a mom. I had two children. It
16:28
Speaker 2: was only some years later when I began writing the
16:31
Speaker 2: book that I got clarity on what I went through.
16:35
Speaker 2: You know, I still didn't really get therapy to the
16:39
Speaker 2: nineteen nineties, and I think it was the nineteen nineties
16:44
Speaker 2: when I really started unpacking a lot of these issues
16:49
Speaker 2: in my life. I mean, I just think writing true
16:53
Speaker 2: stories and memoir can be a hugely healing thing that
16:58
Speaker 2: you know, it's a way of getting rid of shame
17:00
Speaker 2: and making sense of things. And during this time when
17:04
Speaker 2: I had bringing up my two children, I was also
17:08
Speaker 2: flying over to New Zealand a lot to help my
17:10
Speaker 2: mother and still dealing with my sister. And you know,
17:15
Speaker 2: one time I went over there two thousand and five,
17:18
Speaker 2: she actually assaulted me in public. So I was still
17:22
Speaker 2: a psychiatrist actually recommended to me that I should cut
17:24
Speaker 2: off from my whole family, but you know I did
17:28
Speaker 2: for a while, but I wanted to help my mother
17:31
Speaker 2: and my aunt. It was during this time two thousand
17:37
Speaker 2: and five I began working on my father's story, So
17:41
Speaker 2: that was the next part of the healing process. Even
17:44
Speaker 2: though I was starting to see psychologist and having a
17:47
Speaker 2: bit of therapy. It took me quite a few years
17:50
Speaker 2: to write My Father's Story because it was a biography
17:54
Speaker 2: threaded with memoir, and I took a break and did
17:57
Speaker 2: a PhD, which was mostly a waste of time. I
18:00
Speaker 2: did a PhD in journalism, and then when that book
18:04
Speaker 2: came out, it was it was just huge. There was this,
18:09
Speaker 2: you know, this unknown aviator in the ranks of Amy
18:13
Speaker 2: Johnson and Kingsford Smith and the great aviators of the world.
18:17
Speaker 2: Here's this unsung aviator who actually survived because most of
18:21
Speaker 2: them died in crushes. And it was interesting because the
18:26
Speaker 2: publisher made me take out a lot of the family
18:28
Speaker 2: dysfunction from the last few chapters of the book. But
18:32
Speaker 2: when it came out, that's what interested people, and that's
18:35
Speaker 2: why it was shortlisted for the New South Wales History Award.
18:38
Speaker 2: They said, you know, this profound story of intergenerational trauma.
18:43
Speaker 2: So that was like that was my next book, my
18:46
Speaker 2: Father's Suitcase. That planted a seed of my Father's Suitcase.
18:50
Speaker 2: But I had no plan to write about my sister
18:53
Speaker 2: at all. It just it was two years ago in January.
18:58
Speaker 2: I just sat down and the booked poured out of
19:00
Speaker 2: me and I was like, oh my god, this is
19:03
Speaker 2: oh to go back a bit. The Serpent Rising, when
19:06
Speaker 2: it first came out in nineteen eighty eight, was perhaps
19:12
Speaker 2: the very first book to shine a light, I believe,
19:16
Speaker 2: of what was really going on with some of these
19:20
Speaker 2: gurus and their misuse of power. And I did feel
19:24
Speaker 2: a bit of shame after I published it, because I thought,
19:27
Speaker 2: no one else is talking about this stuff, you know,
19:29
Speaker 2: maybe it's me. And it was only like ten years
19:33
Speaker 2: later that all these stories came out in the press
19:37
Speaker 2: of sexual abuse and mind control whatever, And the same
19:41
Speaker 2: thing happened when I started writing this book about my sister.
19:44
Speaker 2: I thought, no one's talking about civiling abuse. It's a
19:51
Speaker 2: taboo topic. It is the most common form of family violence,
19:57
Speaker 2: and it's dismissed. It's ignored. It's dismissed as sibling rivalry,
20:02
Speaker 2: which is something quite different. We're talking about patterns of
20:06
Speaker 2: violence and patterns of abuse, and I believe it's the
20:10
Speaker 2: missing piece of family violence. We talk a lot about
20:14
Speaker 2: societal attitudes with men, We've got to check it goes
20:18
Speaker 2: back a lot to that family unit because the victims
20:23
Speaker 2: and perpetrators often go on to repeat those patterns as
20:28
Speaker 2: an adult relationships. It's called repetition compulsion, and that's exactly
20:33
Speaker 2: what happened to me. So it's very strange. I started
20:38
Speaker 2: writing this book when I was what was it?
20:42
Speaker 1: In what sense did that happen to you?
20:45
Speaker 2: I can't hear you.
20:46
Speaker 1: Oh, I said, in what sense? You said? And that's
20:49
Speaker 1: exactly what happened to me. Clarify that, please.
20:55
Speaker 2: Oh, I've just missed the threat of all we're talking about.
20:58
Speaker 1: Well, you're talking about your sister. You're an intergenerational trial.
21:02
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, intergenerational trauma. Because I
21:06
Speaker 2: ended up with this guru being blamed for his abuse
21:13
Speaker 2: and violence. And then I ended up, even despite that
21:16
Speaker 2: therapy at POONA, I ended up with three men, including
21:20
Speaker 2: my husband, who were abusive and violent to me. Oh.
21:25
Speaker 2: And it was only then that I thought, oh my god,
21:28
Speaker 2: I really really need help. And that's what happens with
21:35
Speaker 2: the sibling abuse that you know, we go on to
21:39
Speaker 2: repeat those patterns of being a perpetrator and a victim.
21:42
Speaker 2: And there has been some research on this, but we're
21:45
Speaker 2: not talking about it. It's like, you know, this whole
21:49
Speaker 2: there's this sense that we need to get along with
21:53
Speaker 2: our siblings, and there's something wrong if we don't, because
21:56
Speaker 2: I carried so much shame about and my parents fed it.
22:00
Speaker 2: The family fed it that I didn't get along with
22:02
Speaker 2: my sister and I should have cut off from her
22:06
Speaker 2: very early on instead of fawning and being friends with her.
22:11
Speaker 2: And when my book came out, I mean so many people.
22:15
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, we have kind of a delay here. So
22:20
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about the book. Your father's suitcase. Why
22:27
Speaker 1: did you want to write the book? And who's it for?
22:33
Speaker 2: I I think I answered that question about why. I
22:37
Speaker 2: just sat down and wrote it, and I couldn't believe it.
22:39
Speaker 2: It came up very very quickly, and I thought, oh
22:42
Speaker 2: what am I doing? I can't write this book because
22:44
Speaker 2: my sister's still alive, so I won't be able to
22:47
Speaker 2: publish it. And this book's literally poured out of me.
22:50
Speaker 2: Like unlike my father's Sundown of the Skies took a decade,
22:55
Speaker 2: this took like six weeks, and I thought, what is
22:58
Speaker 2: going on? I sent a rough draft off to a
23:01
Speaker 2: manuscript assessor and thinking I can't publish this book. And
23:06
Speaker 2: I got an email from my brother to say not
23:09
Speaker 2: a phone call my brother that my sister was dying.
23:14
Speaker 2: So she actually died before the book came out.
23:18
Speaker 1: She died of.
23:22
Speaker 2: This terrible disease like made cow disease, very very very
23:26
Speaker 2: quick that it affected the cruits felled Jacob disease. So
23:31
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe it. It was like, Oh my God,
23:35
Speaker 2: And that actually gave me. It was a gift in
23:38
Speaker 2: a way. It gave me the freedom to write and
23:42
Speaker 2: publish a book. The beauty about writing this book, I
23:47
Speaker 2: was very angry with my sister, which when I began
23:50
Speaker 2: writing it, and I don't want to give it away,
23:53
Speaker 2: but she betrayed me hugely with Sundown of the Sky.
23:58
Speaker 2: She actually lagiarized and published her own version and I
24:02
Speaker 2: had to take legal action to get it off the shelves.
24:05
Speaker 2: It was a huge betrayal. She did it very quickly,
24:08
Speaker 2: and people knew and didn't tell me. But while I
24:11
Speaker 2: was writing the book, and many many people have commented
24:15
Speaker 2: on this, towards the end, I actually felt a deep
24:18
Speaker 2: compassion towards her because she had had such a difficult life,
24:23
Speaker 2: didn't get the support she needed. And towards the end
24:27
Speaker 2: of the book, I was angry at those that had
24:30
Speaker 2: enabled this abuse, that had made excuses for it. That
24:34
Speaker 2: you know, were bystanders, especially my brother. So the book
24:38
Speaker 2: was just extraordinary the way it just sort of, you know,
24:42
Speaker 2: had a lot of editing. The initial writing was very quick,
24:45
Speaker 2: there was a lot of editing involved, and then when
24:47
Speaker 2: it came out for so many people to say, oh
24:51
Speaker 2: my god, that happened to me. I didn't know it
24:55
Speaker 2: was civiling abuse. I've had interviewers and photographers burst into
24:59
Speaker 2: tears and say, my brother was violent to me, and
25:01
Speaker 2: now he's violent to his wife. I didn't even know
25:04
Speaker 2: there was such a thing. So, you know, the book
25:11
Speaker 2: sort of, you know, it just has really really had
25:15
Speaker 2: a resonance with a lot of people, and even people
25:19
Speaker 2: who have thought, oh, I had a friend who didn't
25:21
Speaker 2: get on with a sister, and I've always been judgmental
25:24
Speaker 2: of her, but now I won't be. I understand.
25:29
Speaker 1: What you've been through is harrowing. I mean I can't
25:33
Speaker 1: imagine going through that, living through that with your sister,
25:38
Speaker 1: in a family, having your mom, your dad, your brother
25:41
Speaker 1: there all as you said, basically enabling the abuse. That
25:49
Speaker 1: does What does that do? What does that do to you?
25:53
Speaker 2: Oh? Well, well, I had complex post traumatic stress disorder.
25:58
Speaker 2: You know, I manage life most the time. Sometimes I don't.
26:02
Speaker 2: And you've got to realize that was compounded by the
26:05
Speaker 2: abuse that I went through in India and then the
26:07
Speaker 2: abuse I went through the nineteen nineties. So I think
26:10
Speaker 2: I got up this morning and thought, oh my god,
26:13
Speaker 2: you know you're surviving really well, it's a miracle. I
26:16
Speaker 2: could have resorted to drugs or alcohol or whatever whatever.
26:20
Speaker 2: But yeah, look, simpling abuse, the effects are very long
26:26
Speaker 2: lasting and it's something that we as a society have
26:30
Speaker 2: to address.
26:34
Speaker 1: As we kind of wind down here, how do people
26:37
Speaker 1: learn more about you and your books? What's the best way?
26:44
Speaker 2: On my website Wwwmriygarden dot com dot au. I'm on
26:50
Speaker 2: social media. You can easily find me. Just google me.
26:53
Speaker 2: I'm on Instagram, Facebook, and the books available worldwide. It's
26:58
Speaker 2: on Amazon as well.
27:03
Speaker 1: Okay, and we'll have all that linked up here at
27:05
Speaker 1: the show notes page at the Trauma Therapist podcast dot com. Mary.
27:10
Speaker 1: Appreciate you very intense and congratulations on the book.
27:20
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
27:21
Speaker 1: Thank you all right, take care