Becoming Myself: The True Story of Thomas Who Became Sara (18 page)

I drove away in my brown Mini Metro that day, with feelings of deep distress giving way to elation then back again. It was truly awful. I really had no idea what I was letting myself in for, but I also knew that I had reached the point of no return. And so I left Dublin for good. Now I had to work on the effects of thirty-five years of continual abuse, vilification, slander, physical violence, threats and constant rejection. This whole situation was compounded by the fact that I was suppressing my female identity, albeit with great difficulty. The overwhelming issue for me now was survival. As much as I felt my true identity was being ignored, I would simply have to fight to stay alive, every hour of every day for well over a year. And for quite some time to come, circumstances would intervene to make it impossible for me to go to that place within myself, to be the woman I was meant to be.

I seriously considered driving the car into a wall or a ditch and ending it all, but something kept me going to journey’s end. It was Friday 31 August 1995.

When I arrived at Maria’s house, she showed me to my room and prepared a meal for me. While I was unpacking my clothes I kept breaking down emotionally and felt completely overwhelmed by the enormity of my situation. I found it impossible to believe it was ever going to get any better. And for a while, I was right. The whole situation was just too much to cope with and so I resolved to put an end to it for once and for all. There was no question of me ending my life violently; that was for men to do, not me. There would be no hanging, shooting or driving my car into a wall or off a pier. On the contrary, it would be done gently and with dignity, there was to be no mess, just a quiet departure. I thought of how much better off everyone else would be when I was
gone. I had absolutely no doubt that my family would have been relieved by my departure from this life. Their consciences would be silenced with my silence. I went to bed around seven o’clock. I took my Rivitril tablets, which I had been prescribed for panic attacks, and nearly all of my supply of Aspirin with some alcohol. Slowly but surely, I became unconscious and my body became cold and turned blue.

It was at this stage that Maria had come to my room to check on me and to see if I had settled in. she knew immediately that something was seriously wrong. She could see that I was unconscious and that my body was changing colour. She saw the empty tablet bottles and knew that I had overdosed on my medication. I can only imagine what went through her mind on discovering me in this condition, but she felt strongly that there was not enough time to get an ambulance, and get me to hospital, so she and her husband Doney took very drastic action to bring me round.

In order to revive me, Maria and Doney dragged me from my bed and took me downstairs. They put me into a very, very cold bath in order to shock me back into consciousness. I started to come in and out of consciousness and as I did Maria poured cider vinegar down my throat. This was to get me to vomit up any tablets that may have been in my stomach. I vomited for quite some time and eventually was taken back to my bed. Maria sat and watched over me that whole night and used a hairdryer to keep my body temperature right. It worked and I managed to sleep safely and soundly for the rest of the night.

Some people will say that Maria took very serious and dangerous risks in handling the situation as she did, and some might argue that she could have cost me my life. But I am convinced that she did exactly what needed to be done in
order to not only save my life but also to prevent me from having to enter a psychiatric ward, which would most certainly have been a blight upon my life to this day. It wasn’t for me and Maria saved me from it. For that I am eternally grateful.

As extraordinary as it seems, Maria made sure that I was able to get up the next morning, to start a new job which I had secured in the Coach House. She felt that it was essential for me to get on with living a normal life and making sure I could earn a living. Was I thankful to her for all she had done? No, I have to say that I wasn’t in the least thankful. On the contrary, I resented having to cope with getting to work as I felt anything but fit for it: all I wanted was to curl up and sleep, forever. But I did start the next day.

It is hard to say how I was able to get through my first day and the days after that. It is as if I was operating on automatic pilot. But get through it I did and it became that bit easier with each passing day. And, even though it was clearly not the job for me, my employer gave me the idea to start my own computer training business, as he had been very impressed with my computer skills.

I put the idea to Maria and, true to form, she and Doney set up a training room for me at the back of their home and allowed me to use their side entrance for the students to come and go. The room was fabulous and within no time at all I was getting clients to come and learn to use the computer. It was very exciting, especially when the
FÁS CES
Supervisors started to send their employees to me. This was the beginning of a new life for me in business.

Maria had the most wonderful garden at the back of the cottage. You could go out the back door and up a narrow
path onto the lawn. There were trees which provided shade against the hot summer sun and added a balmy air in the warm afternoons. It was a real little haven and she and Doney took great care of it. It was wonderful to sit and relax, to read a book or just chat to each other, or better yet, just sit and reflect. However, not even this tranquil environment could compensate for the problems that were to arise over the following months; events that could so easily have pushed me completely over the edge and led me to commit suicide.

I wasn’t in Newcastle West long before I started to see the consultant. I rarely spent more than ten or more minutes with him after the initial interview. He passed me over to a psychologist, whose name escapes me. The psychologist urged me to write my story down and then if I wanted, burn it. I thought this to be a waste of time as I would only ever write my story if were to serve a better purpose than just getting everything off my chest.

I had told the consultant about my suicide attempt and he told me that he would have to sign me into a psychiatric ward for a minimum of three months, during which time I would be heavily sedated. I told him that this was not an option I was prepared to consider. He replied that I must at least give him a firm undertaking that I would not make another attempt to commit suicide and that I must agree to have my medication supervised. I told him honestly that I could not give him the undertaking as I was still suicidal. He made it clear that without such an undertaking and my unwillingness to consider sedation, that he was not prepared to prescribe me any more medication. I was left to battle my depression, anxiety attacks and suicidal tendencies alone. It was to be like climbing the tallest mountain naked and on my
knees. It was truly awful, but I was determined to do it and I did.

Following the advice of a new psychiatrist, I left Maria’s home in May 1996 and started a new life on my own. I was able to concentrate on building up my business, which I did with a fair degree of success. The business was doing so well I had to employ six people. We moved to much bigger premises, which meant I was able to expand the range of services I could provide and that we would have our own training rooms. The business was looking good and so was my future. It was a very positive time in my life and I was getting on very well with just about everyone. I was getting an increasing amount of business from
FÁS
and our presentation evenings were very well attended and well received. I’d commissioned a competition amongst the students on the Post-Leaving Cert course to design a business sign for me that would be in keeping with the town and the castle. It was a huge success, as was my involvement in the Knights of Desmond Festival. It was one the most successful ever and I was proud to be the chairman that year.

Everything was going great until September 1996 when Barbara called me and asked if I would travel to Dublin to meet her as there was something she wanted to ask me. I refused and insisted that she should travel to Limerick. She agreed and arrived a few days later. I really wish she hadn’t.

B
arbara arrived in Limerick on a Wednesday and stayed over with me. The reason she came to see me was to say that she had made the most awful mistake and she pleaded with me to give her a second chance. To my eternal regret, I gave her that second chance and paid dearly for doing so.

We discussed the possibility of reconciliation over the next few weeks and I agreed to spend Christmas with her in Dublin. She seemed like someone who really had changed and who was anxious to make a go of things, and, if truth be told, I really felt sorry for her.

Our Christmas together was pleasant enough and Barbara certainly seemed to be on her best behaviour so that, slowly but surely, my resistance to giving her a second chance began to erode and it was increasingly difficult to say no. Before I left Dublin and returned to Limerick, I had made the decision to say ‘yes’ and to give her a second chance. In March 1997 she and our two dogs moved to Limerick and we began trying to rebuild our relationship.

We put the house in Dublin up for sale as I did not want to have any attachments to Dublin. Barbara eventually agreed.
On the day of completion of the sale, I made it absolutely clear to Barbara that if she changed her mind and didn’t want to sell the house, to tell me, as I did not want her making a mistake. She assured me that she was happy to go ahead and so we signed the contracts and sold the house.

We divided what remained after clearing the mortgage between us and we were free to spend the money as we chose. I opted to invest it in the business. Barbara invested some of her money in the business, but unfortunately, she squandered a substantial part of it on drinking and smoking. All of this was to come back and haunt me later. And so it was that we left Dublin behind and moved to Limerick.

To help us get off to a positive start I booked a weekend in the Springfields guest house in Killarney, where we’d spent the first week of our honeymoon. I distinctly remember driving towards Castleisland with John Denver playing on the car cassette player. I had such terrible feelings of regret: I knew I’d made the most awful blunder in agreeing to try again with Barbara, but as I’d made it, I was determined to see it through.

For the first few months, things really did look like they were going to work out, but after the summer of 1997, Barbara was beginning to show all the signs of reverting to type. She became disinterested in me and began talking about how much she fancied one of my brothers. She later said that she regretted us getting back together. It was around October when I overheard her on the phone to her sister Mary, telling her that she had made a terrible mistake and that she should never have come to Limerick.

The months passed and I tried my damnedest to keep my new computer-training business going, while sinking further into the depression that engulfed me. We’d moved from
Newcastle West to a farmhouse in Rathfredagh, Co. Limerick, and for the first time in many years I came in contact with rats, who were living in our house. Barbara left the doors open for the dogs to come in and out at will, which, of course, was an open invitation to the rats; and they certainly took full advantage of the opportunity presented to them. I would come home from work late at night only to see the rats running into the house. While I tried to sit watching television, I would hear the rats in the kitchen and their droppings would be all over the kitchen table and worktops and in the drawers; everywhere really. No surprise then that I became increasingly ill and frequented my doctor with stomach and bowel problems, not to mention the ever-increasing stress and depression. I was reaping the whirlwind for having giving her a second chance.

Christmas 1997 was one of the stormiest for years and it knocked out the electricity around West Limerick. Ours was knocked out for five days, from Christmas Eve through most of Christmas. My neighbour Geraldine’s mother very kindly prepared some Christmas dinner for us, which was much appreciated. We passed away the time playing games like Frustration and listening to the radio. Barbara and I talked a lot about the future and it was becoming obvious that Barbara had deep feelings of regret about coming to Limerick.

It was in early January that the whole truth finally emerged. She had been in contact with the home help supervisor, who informed her that she would receive all her benefits again if she was living alone. She told me this in a way that left no doubt as to what she wanted me to do. So I asked her straight out: ‘Are you telling me that you want me to leave so you can get your benefits back?’

Her reply was short and very much to the point: ‘Well, if you want to, you can, and it would mean I’d get my benefits back.’ This felt hellish and I was at a loss as to what to do next. What is the point in trying to save a marriage where one person is so intent on ending it? I went around for days with my head in a spin. It didn’t help that she was back talking with our Dublin neighbour, making it obvious that she missed him. In the following April she sent him a vulgar and very explicit birthday card. I was astounded and extremely upset. Here was I trying my best to make this marriage work, after
she
asked me for a second chance and she seemed to be indifferent. What was it going to take for me to cop myself on. I told her that I was going to look for a place of my own.

Just as it seemed that things couldn’t get any more difficult with Barbara, I met Kathy, the mother of one of my employees, in April 1998. When I first met her, I was immediately impressed with her beauty and by her abilities. She was a true mother and homemaker and had all the qualities that were clearly missing in my own mother. She was also one of the most feminine women I’d ever met in my life and I very quickly found a place for her in my heart, which she holds to this day.