Why did I study massage?
To get the story right, I have to go back to my time at university. I started out studying teaching at university, thinking I could help kids with learning challenges. I loved the academic side, I did quite well and found out that I wasn’t dumb after all, but standing in front of a class was another story. After three and a half years, I realised I just couldn't do it. Each placement revealed more and more that I wasn’t suited to teaching. I even asked to re-do one, but the damage had already been done. My confidence was gone. In the end, I had to let Uni go.
How to be me? No idea!
At the same time, I had personal things that I had to deal with. I was trying to start over on my own, and had to make sure I kept on track with the changes that were happening. The people around me didn't understand, and instead of giving me space, they tried to help in their way which would have been good for them, not me.
I was trying to reclaim the person I could be. I knew it would be a struggle, but I had to get my spirit back, and to do that I had to find out who I was again. Living with dyslexia and autism made university challenging, but pushing through was good for me. I also have cPTSD from years of mistreatment but I used autistic masking to get by. It worked, in a way, but it also kept me numb to what I needed. When my daughter heard me laugh for the first time in years, she was shocked.
What next?
When I finally stepped away from teaching, I felt relief and fear mixed together. In the next year I tried to see if I could finish my degree, but the last practicum stopped me. To get by, in that year, I delivered newspapers, did junk mail runs, and tutoring. Centrelink wanted me to start working with the minimum training allowed and I wanted to get qualified properly, so that’s why I did those other jobs.
Centrelink sent me to a careers adviser because I had no idea what I should do. Test results pointed me towards care work or health, like medicine, physio or psychology, but the idea of 4 or 6 years study was not even worth thinking about. The adviser suggested counselling, but I felt that I had too much work do on myself to be able to help others with their problems.
I have to do something!
I felt like I was going backwards, and I was spending all my energy just trying to stand my ground. People wore me out. I needed a complete shift. The adviser had mentioned massage therapy, but at the time I didn’t even consider that as a possibility. But I realised I had to challenge my own thinking. That is what I have to do to work with the cPTSD. If I don’t keep doing things to keep me busy and challenged, no matter how small – my cPTSD can take over and stop me from doing anything. At that time massage seemed the last thing that I wanted to do, but I knew it was what I needed to do to get back into living.
I applied to TAFE, but struggled to write a convincing essay about why I wanted to do massage. I got put on the emergency list. So looked for another option and found SIBT in Charmhaven. They offered a therapeutic massage course near home, which made things easier.
Scary beginnings at nearly 50
The idea of working so close to people scared me, but I forced myself to give it a go. The classes were in the evening, which pushed me even more outside my comfort zone. But I managed. Studying the body made sense to me in a way teaching never did. Wanting to work as soon as possible, I enrolled in the full-time remedial massage program.
New life - new confidence.
My first job was working with a physiotherapist, then I started experimenting with working on people out in the open at markets. That is where I started to realize that I could feel where people needed to be loosened up, even through layers of clothes. This was really good for me, as it got me out and I wanted to show massage to the public. Many people still had the wrong idea of what massage was, and I felt that it was a part of my job to educate people. The markets were the place where myofascial release therapy started. More at a later time.