Marie Laveau, 26, talks about her mental health experiences, the challenges within the Sri Lankan Tamil community and the benefits of therapeutic counselling.
Thanks for agreeing to take part in this. So to start this off, how would you describe your experience with mental health?
I’ve struggled a lot. I didn’t have the best support from my family but then I think this attitude is sadly accepted across the South Asian community so I have had to get through life on my own really. All the trauma I have experienced was from my childhood. Children are quite resilient, and they box away a lot of their emotions because they simply do not know how to deal with them, and unfortunately that was the same for me. I stepped out and started receiving private counselling, which really helped with how I dealt with things on a daily basis. During that time, I was taught that I have a very small ‘window of tolerance’. And when faced with uncomfortable events my response goes into complete overdrive where I’m overthinking and it can become very difficult to tell myself that it’s not as bad as I think it is or it’s all going to be ok. I commend myself and take so much pride in taking the initiative to step out and find support.
It’s great to hear that you to took the initiative to get counselling. Tell me more about the South Asian culture that you come from. With the stigma attached to mental health within the South Asian community, did you find it challenging to open up to others?
I think mental health will always be a taboo topic in the South Asian community and this comes down to how the previous generations dealt with it. The Tamil diaspora, having fled from a war torn country, were so focused on surviving in a new country, ensuring they could provide for their families and making ends meet that I’m sure they didn’t have the time to sit down and discuss their mental health issues. I’ve seen it with my own parents. For me, there was also the stigma of growing up in a Christian household and community. Some people would tell me ‘God is going to heal you’. There is nothing wrong with having faith, but the same the God who has created you has also given you a brain to think with and He’s also provided you with resources to understand mental health, so use them wisely. I understand those people who are totally dependent on God to heal but when I was younger it was really hard to talk to my friends about my mental health because they just did not know how to support me with what I was going through. For example, in the past I have told them that I have been so low that I used to self-harm. They came back to me with ‘have you prayed about it?’, ‘have you read the bible recently?’ or ‘have you gone to church recently?’. Honestly, at the time it was not helpful at all. Although looking back on it now, I cannot fault them because they were young and did not know any better. If anything, I feel guilty for introducing them to the complexity of my mental health.
What I have learnt is, when you go through something on your own, you realise what not to say to someone if they ever were to come to you for support. At this stage in my life, I’ve been working towards marriage, after that there’ll be children, and I’m not ready for that. That’s still a long while to go but when there are kids in the picture, I don’t want them to feel isolated like how I felt when I was a child.
When you say you felt isolated; is this from society, the community or your family?
When I was a teenager, I did not know who to reach out to. From church, there were older girls that I reached out to out of desperation because I was trying to make sense of all the trauma I had been through and I remember the encounters not being so helpful. I would then beat myself up for reaching out in the first place and wished I never said anything because I have just given away a big part of myself and who I am to this ‘someone’. I cannot fault them because they were only saying things that they thought would be helpful to me. Not finding what I was searching for, I ended up isolating myself.
Yes, I knew very early on that I couldn’t be vulnerable with a lot of people which I think is a really sad way to feel as a teenage girl. I had to hide my vulnerabilities and ultimately it messed up my development. I did this for a long time because I did not want to bother anyone.
I did not want to tell someone ‘this is what I am going through and I need some help’, especially when most of the people I opened up to would unleash the religious jargon i.e. ‘you need to pray’, ‘you need to read the bible’ or ‘you need to fast’. Erm – okay, well I have tried all of that and it was not helping so at that point I did not know what to do or who to speak to.
Do you have the same mindset with people now?
Oh yes absolutely. I have realised that with my friends I had taken a step back on being open with them about my mental health for their own good. The only person that I am vulnerable with is my partner. He is very good with everything I have to unload on him but I can’t really remember the last time I was vulnerable with anyone else.
I think it’s the fact that I’m very distrusting of people. If you were to put your toe out of line then I’d immediately go back to that ‘window of tolerance’ and I go down the path of ‘I absolutely will not give you another chance’. I’ve tried to break up with my partner so many times and he would make me realise that my reason isn’t good enough for us to break up. He has forced me to challenge my boundaries and it has been a learning curve.
Define that ‘boundary’.
It’s a wall I have put up where I just do not let anyone in because I know that I’m self-sufficient. For example, if someone that I love very much was to walk out on me then I wouldn’t try to call them back or if they were to hurt me then I would push them away first. I know there are people who will not push that boundary, whereas my partner will keep challenging me.
Just so I understand, you push someone away to see if they will either give up or keep coming back?
Yes. It sounds quite sadistic in a way. It’s almost like I’m asking someone to prove themselves worthy of their presence in my life but realistically who am I to even think that?! Sometimes I have to remind myself that I’m not better than anyone and they’re not better than me. So when people say sorry, I should give them a real chance because I know that I would want to be treated the same way, but yes I know I’m not like that unfortunately (laughs).
In that sense I know it’s unfair but where I’ve been put in a position of fight or flight, not literally but in my childhood there’s been sexual trauma and when people don’t believe what you’re disclosing then what am I supposed to do? It’s a horrible thing where a child has to grow up so quickly and say to themselves, ‘okay so this is what’s happened so I’ve just got to get on with it’. As a child I just didn’t know when I would revisit this trauma, and it’s unfortunate that it all came out when I was older but I guess that was better in a way.
You mentioned that you had to grow up quite quickly. Is this the reason why you’ve set these measures in place to protect yourself and why you’re self-sufficient?
Yes, measures would be the perfect word for it. Life experience has saved me a lot of drama. I don’t know if you know all the drama that goes on with Asian aunties? It’s saved me a lot of ‘friendship dramas’ and ‘relationship dramas’ too.
Yeah, so ‘one strike and you’re out’ sort of thing. It’s saved me a lot of tears.
Is that something you want to change?
Yes and no. Yes because I want to live authentically and not as a robot, not so black and white because I know that life is way more colourful. Yes, I could just give in but also no I’m not trying to change because I know what people are like and they are capable of anything, absolutely anything! Which is a sad way to view life but I just know that’s reality.
I like the way you described it. Life is not black and white but you want to see things more colourfully. What do you mean by ‘authentically’?
Live life and all experiences fully rather than having that nagging sense at the back of my head saying ‘they aren’t who they really are’ or ‘things could go wrong’. A lot of these insecurities have been deep rooted from my childhood and I’m still having to push back against them as an adult. I was really spiralling out of control around this time last year, maybe it was the Christmas 2018. I was constantly thinking about self-harming. In fact, I was doing it.
I was constantly having suicidal thoughts, and panic attacks like never before. Sleep paralysis was the scariest thing in the world. My partner saw me go through this horrible pit of darkness and he knew something wasn’t right. To be honest with you, most of the time he sat in the pit with me if that makes sense. I eventually told him ‘I think I need to get help, I’m not going to end up in a good place if I continue like this’. I’ve been in that place before, and even though I’ve got myself out of the pit in the past, it was such a battle because at the time I tried overdosing on few occasions. So when I finally started going counselling last year, the counsellor and I started to unpack a load of shit and my mind felt like a riverbank after a storm. Before it’s clear, but after a storm it’s muddy, murky and disgusting. That’s what I felt like for so long. I remember after one session, I was walking along a dual carriageway with heavy lorries going by at 50mph, and I thought to myself, just one step and I could end all the pain. That is what was going through my mind but then I would always end up thinking about my family, my partner and how I could never put them through that much pain. That guilt initially kept me alive.
Apart from disclosing this to your therapist, have you spoken to anyone else about these thoughts in your mind?
No. I know what my friends can handle and what they can’t. I also know that my immediate family are sort of traditional so I wouldn’t tell them things like this. I know who I can and who I can’t speak to which is a blessing in disguise.
How helpful was counselling for you?
It gave me some skills to deal with everyday life and I do generally keep going back to that ‘window of tolerance’ but it is a slightly better now than before, but sometimes I react in the worst way and I really question why I responded that way but I still can’t quite put my finger on it.
I think it’s going to be a lifelong process, which is a struggle for me because I’m all about getting things done quickly and efficiently. I’ve accepted this and the fact that a lot of things are falling into the ‘acceptance’ pile, whereas before I didn’t even have an acceptance pile..
Can you give me an example?
Acceptance that I won’t stop therapy any time soon because it has taught me a lot about myself. Acceptance that though I am terrified of having children, I am taking mental notes from my friends and family about how to raise them because I’m hopeful I’ll have a family of my own one day. Acceptance that though I was not planning to get married at all because of failed relationships around me, I am - in fact - in a very loving relationship with my partner.
I’d like to think I’ve been very self-sufficient all my life. Just because people say they are going to be there for you doesn’t mean they really are. Words are very fleeting. Words have no meaning when they come to people, well nearly most people that I’ve encountered. But my partner would tell me how he was going to prove to me that he was committed to this relationship, and to me it was eye opening and emotional in a way because I’ve never had anyone do that before. I’ve never had to deal with someone who has overstepped my boundaries and pushed back against my ‘wall’. I remember one time when my partner and I were fighting and he said ‘why do you still have your boundaries up with me?! We’ve been together for three years and you still can’t seem to see that I am committed to making this work’. It was a hard thing for me to deal with. The fact that someone was willing to be there for me even though I was pushing everything back at them.
Is this the case now?
Yes, because during my moment of weakness I don’t think I’d ever want to give anyone that satisfaction to say ‘if it wasn’t for me then you wouldn’t have got out of this’. That validation means that I am then in debt to them. Sorry, my head is very twisted! It’s very much like self-preservation. I don’t have to beg someone to help me, and that’s been a hard learning curve with my partner because he’s always said ‘what will it take for you to realise that you can be your own person but when we come together, you aren’t going to lose the independence you’ve built up all this time’. It’s annoying when he’s right!
Sorry to go back to that point again, but if you had those thoughts running through your mind, why did you allow him to be in the ‘pit’ with you?
It was half giving up and half acceptance that he is going to be around for a long time because he matched his words to his actions. I think he’s actually jumped through the most rings of fire than anyone else. Poor guy! As I’ve mentioned before, I take pride in doing things myself and I only ever go to my partner if it gets really bad. Even though the riverbank is muddy and murky, I can now come up above the water and get my bearings, whereas before I would get completely lost in it. So there are times when he’ll check up on me and say ‘I haven’t heard from you all day, what’s going on?’ so it’s really nice that he’s been picking up on the clues when I go into a mood. It’s a lot of hard work (laughs).
*Part two will be published soon*