On the 6th of August 2024 I spoke for almost an hour at the Rising Sun Inn in Kensington (South Australia) as part of the annual Raising The Bar Adelaide speakers event.
I am terrified of public speaking and as far as I'm concerned, I'm not a public speaker’s asshole (pardon the French) and probably never will be. I became a member of Speakers Tribe Adelaide and attended meetings over a 12 month period, throwing my hat in (begrudgingly) to speak a number of times, and with each go I lost 3 years off my life from fear.
Needless to say I did not renew my membership.
Event hostess Krystal introduces me to my audience
My chosen title for this talk was "Have You Ever Felt Like You Didn't Have A Voice" and naturally my autobiography Seventy Thousand Camels, A Motivational Survivor’s Memoir served as the titular content. Towards the second half of my talk I introduced OGWADABWAH! A Life Lived on the Spectrum which elicited a lot of interest and compiled the bulk of the Q & A which followed my presentation.
Unfortunately I broke down when twice speaking about my life and, as unprofessional as this seems, it actually elicited a great deal of esteem and empathy from my audience who later met me with hugs, words of gratitude and heartfelt platitudes.
For me public speaking really does nothing personally but it is a necessary tool in order to get an otherwise unknown and their wares out there. I do find however that if I don’t try and stick to a format - as public speaking tutorials try and teach you to do - I can and do get what I need to say out. I definitely ahhh and uhmm and I don’t hold the floor with a commanding posture or non verbal body language, but I can tell a story and especially my story. As my publisher told me after the fact (he too had a speaking gig at this event on the same night but at a different pub), ‘at least you went out there and did it despite your fears. Some people never face their fears. Fear limits growth and you did not allow yourself to be limited.’
I would like to thank Sophie Schultze (Norwood Council) the event co-ordinator for including me this year, my publisher Scott Zarcinas for recommending I sign up to the event, and my hosts on the night Krystal and 'Ticker' for guiding me through a very difficult evening given I was and am experiencing some significant personal issues at the moment. Also a huge thank you to Tibii Disability Services’ George Foumakis and Lisa Burgess who head OGWADABWAH!'s co-author Edan Galbraith's Supported Independent Living services and all of his neverending issues, and, to my husband Adam Brewer for stepping in a few times during the Q & A in order to explain in greater detail items pertaining to disability support and the adult prison system.
Every experience is AN EXPERIENCE.
Om Shanti Om 🕉
When truth is stranger than fiction (or in my case, non-fiction)
If you have read my autobiography published in 2019, Seventy Thousand Camels A Motivational Survivor’s Memoir, then you’ll likely assume my story is about maternal narcissistic abuse and you’d be right about your assumption or shall I say, presumption.
When one puts out a non-fiction account, one is only working with what they knew at the time correct? To alter the narrative of one’s original work means significant editing or, following up on the original with a sequel. I’m not about to re-write my autobiography as a Part Two project nor am I in a financial position to edit or add to the original publication but I may embark into something later in the future that I will title simply Gloria and that will inadvertently alter the narrative of Seventy Thousand Camels supported by spiritual annotation.
Gloria in her full Glory…. somewhere in Rome before I was even a thought (I think?)
Insofar as only having sold a few hundred copies you my reader will need to view this blog’s version to understand that Seventy Thousand Camel’s narrative has indeed progressed to something else entirely.
With the few public and radio presentations I’ve given so far I have marketed Seventy Thousand Camels as the sorry story of a child markedly abused by a career mad and neurotic single mother who is most likely afflicted by Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Fast forward to 2024 and the author is beginning to feel her mother like other diagnosed and undiagnosed members of her immediate family, may very well be living on the spectrum and afflicted by Autism Spectrum Disorder. It is a documented fact that ASD may sometimes present as NPD due to the very real difficulty Auties have with understanding and expressing emotions which can be interpreted as a lack of empathy or love towards another.
Then of course there’s the Autism Meltdown which in various Auties can present in unmitigated attacks of rage, self-harm, and direct verbal and/or physical abuse towards another or others. Incidents of potentially dangerous Autistic Meltdown my son Edan unleashes on unsuspecting bystanders can be found in my second book OGWADABWAH! A Life Lived on the Spectrum and is very similar in parts to what I was subjected to living with my mother. My son even self-harmed the way Gloria did, not ever having witnessed his grandmother’s behaviour like I have. Then of course there are the blood curdling screams, horrible profanities, threats, blaming, and ultimately physical (and in my son’s case only, property) violence.
Both Gloria and Edan are afflicted by feelings of self-importance, superiority, and infantile thinking. Their ability to look after themselves or others is limited and often compromised by an arrogant or impulsive attitude. Their view of the world is skewered as is their outrageous sense of justice. Acquired life skills without meaningful support and guidance by professionals or a consistent invested party are just a melee of inadequate choices, personal disasters, and interpersonal disappointments. Many Auties cannot look after a dog let alone parent a child.
I am the daughter of a woman who is Autistic, and the mother of a diagnosed Autie and possibly an undiagnosed one. My children’s father is also very likely Asperger’s Syndrome, and my half-brother Pietro is Intellectually Disabled with a sub diagnosis of Autism.
On the 11th of August 11th 2024 (11 being a master number in Numerology) my brother’s SIL carer took Pietro to Liverpool Hospital in Sydney’s West to see my mother who had been hospitalised a week prior but no-one knew about this my brother’s care providers included. It was I who needed to ring around to find where Gloria had been taken to. With my being estranged from Gloria almost ten years I rely on Pietro’s care providers for updates on how she is travelling, or, on the occasional phone call she pays my husband Adam as I refuse to give Gloria my mobile number for reasons my readers, family, and friends know only too well.
Gloria had been admitted because she was experiencing trouble breathing. Hospital staff later informed me Gloria had pneumonia, an irregular heartbeat and her kidneys were becoming compromised by the large doses of antibiotics needed to dissolve the pneumonia. Pietro’s carer called me from the hospital painting a dire picture of my egg donor;
“I see a little old lady in a hospital bed who is definitely at death’s door. You really should speak to her Adel. I can give her my mobile right now.”
I argued with the carer (as I’d already done previously during) that she sees a little old lady lying in a hospital bed, but I see the sum total of everything my mother put me and others through. Read my book if you want to know more! I yelled at her.
So I agreed to speak to my mother after ten years of extreme low contact and our voices never having met through the ether of ear to ear vocalisation.
I was cold and unapologetic; “Ciao ma; che ti succede?” I asked her in Italian (Hi mum, what is happening to you?)
At Concord Repatriation Hospital 10th September 2024
“I’m unwell figlia, but it’s so nice to hear from you. How have you been?”
From that moment on I began to soften. The ice had been broken and I readily made plans to go and visit my mother, especially when nursing staff informed me (and then pleaded with me in order to help her understand) that Gloria was being extremely difficult and was trying to discharge herself from Liverpool hospital as well as refusing life saving penicillin for pneumonia.
There were a few phone calls made to Gloria after this; first at the hospital, then when she was finally discharged at her home in Mt Pritchard NSW. One of the things Gloria said to me was; “No matter the appearances or what you may have thought of me, just know that I have always loved you.”
I decided I needed to go to Sydney and see her before something unavoidable could occur. I also needed to safeguard Pietro’s inheritance as Gloria still had not attended to a will. I explained to an eternally naive woman that if she didn’t leave a will whatever she left in her Estate would go to the state and they would take a substantial cut for managing it moving forward. Finding out I was also not her next of kin (via the nurses when I begged them for medical updates), I reiterated to Gloria that I couldn’t ask for details or help her if she didn’t change me to her next of kin from her granddaughter whose assistance I wasn’t altogether certain of at this point.
Ego melts away in the LIGHT of humility and compassion.
Unfortunately the next day I had to return to Adelaide. I’m no longer someone who can withstand the trials of travel, living out of a suitcase, or uncomfortable accommodation and Sydney truly isn’t my most favourite place in the world. I genuinely didn’t think that only a few days later on the 26th of September, I would receive a phone call urging me back to Sydney because Gloria was definitely on her way out this time.
I’ll never forget this day….NEVER! I was on shift with my client at a cooking program when my mother’s best friends, Michael and Miroslava sent the missed calls followed by text messages. I immediately ran outside and called Liverpool Hospital. There was more I needed to tell Gloria and it needed to be said immediately.
In the next three videos below you will witness my second visit to Gloria. The first time I laid eyes on my mother after ten long years (my choice) was the day prior on the 9th of September. Gloria was standing in the corridor outside her room talking to nursing staff - more than likely arguing about being kept in hospital against her will, or, refusing medication.
I approached Gloria with a $30 bunch of flowers in one hand, my little pink suitcase wheeled behind me in the other but who I saw was so far removed from the woman I remembered it was palpably painful.
There standing in a dirty pink and white dressing gown was my ghoul; a five foot nothing 89 year old woman who looked so old she was barely recognisable. As her eyes came into focus with mine once Gloria recognised it was me walking towards her, they suddenly widened with in disbelief.
“It’s a miracle!” she exclaimed loudly to the nurses who watched me approach their patient. I wonder how my face appeared to them as the only thing I allowed myself to see was Gloria, with the only feeling I held on to at that surreal moment in time was pure and utter relief. We hugged and we both cried instantaneously. In that precise moment Gloria was no longer my ghoul but my mother; the decades of resentment and anger evaporated instantaneously.
At this point Gloria was still in the Emergency Department and the desk nurse couldn’t pass a cordless phone to my mother as there were none; all phones were attached to walls there but “Her granddaughter is in there with her, perhaps you could ask her to put her mobile to your mother’s ear?” the nurse asked me.
I explained this was most likely impossible, but would she (the nurse) kindly ask my daughter if she would facilitate it?
