How Do You Reclaim a Life That Was Taken from You In Childhood?

Feeling a deep sense of sadness from emotional trauma and suffering decades of mental health challenges, Judy's childhood years were overshadowed by a complete lack of confidence. Judy King, author of Agnes, will be sharing her story from painful beginnings to becoming the star of her own life. Welcome, Judy.

Thank you. I'm really looking— I've been really looking forward to this interview. Oh yes, we've been having a—

I'm very happy to be here. Oh good, we've been having a great chat, you know, prior to pressing record. And you know, your childhood is unbelievable, but what's even better is the person that you are now. You suffered a really traumatic childhood. You were unwanted, you were abused and abandoned. That would have been very difficult to process as a young child. How did you cope, Judy?

I had amnesia about quite a lot of my childhood, so I just didn't remember it. I think what happened was there's a survival process within us that you just block things out. I just moved from one horrendous situation to another by blocking it out. Well, I didn't have the ability as a child or the The mental development. Well, my mental development didn't progress very much at all until I went into therapy. I think I just blocked it out, and I tried to make up— I mean, most children do this. You love your parents no matter how terrible they are. My efforts were put into trying to change them, into trying to make them into the parents my friends had. That was a lot of my effort, and especially with my mother. Because my grandmother had told me that I was to look after her because my younger— my 2 younger brothers were sent to boarding school. Lucky them. It was decided that as my father was a traveling salesman, that I should be home, be home looking after my mother. But the problem with— which was really psychologically damaging, was that my mother When my father came home, she didn't want me there. She wanted him all to herself. But when he wasn't there, she sort of clung to me. That kind of rejection and extreme was very extremely damaging. I hung around her for a few crumbs. I can remember once seeing a dog, you know, that was beaten and banged around, and then this rather neurotic woman would lift it up and say, oh, Choo-Choo, my darling, my little thing. And it would just stand there shivering, waiting for another one of those amazing moments when it was going to be mollycoddled in this very ridiculous way. Seeing it as almost a kind of metaphor for some of what I experienced, that sort of feeling of just waiting there for— and it wasn't going to be a hug. But just some sweet talk, because my mother was—I can't remember ever being hugged by either of my parents. Just that sort of baby talk that she used to do from time to time. But children like me, and I did, especially once I was a little older and I went to senior school, I just made up a completely new life. This would be something that most. children would do. You— I made up a life based on the anecdotes I heard when I was traveling to school from the other girls, my other classmates. So I made up that my mother and I made a cake and we went to take it to my brother in his boarding school for his birthday. I mean, fat chance.

I believe that your mother was quite narcissistic and actually jealous of you, and your father was quite abusive.

Now being able to analyze it, I think that she had the— she had the power. I don't think, I knew. I mean, she was a scary girl. She was one scary, um, lady. And, um, so I think that that was a way of getting back at her, is to abuse the daughter. I mean, I think— I mean, I'm confused about this. That's why I'm blubbering. But I think that that was probably underlying. And I think she knew finally when I called her out on it late in life, you know, when I went to visit her and I threw all the past at her for an answer why. She was amazed.

Tell me, Judy, a little bit. Can you just walk us through a little bit of what your childhood was actually like? Because you say that you were Abandoned and abused. And just walk us through a little bit of what you experienced as a child.

My mother was anxious, intolerant, lazy. So, uh, I used to— I mean, she got so lazy that she would scream out to me in the house to come up the, up the hall and bring her Her cigarettes were just on the dressing table over from the bed where she was lying. Whenever I asked her a question or contradicted her, she would just hit me over the head, cuff me, you know, like that. And I was scared of her. I mean, you know, it was, it was quite a business trying to figure out how to stay alive with her, you know.

Mm-hmm.

So I made myself scarce.

Yes.

Wherever I could. We all did. We just stayed away. I made relationships with the neighbors. I reached out to all the various neighbors around where we lived, and I sought affection in their house. In some ways, I was lucky that my parents didn't— weren't interested in me because I was free to go wherever I wanted, especially when my father was home. So I was free to visit other people and to become, wherever I could, a little part of their life. In reality, I always knew I was like a stray cat being given a bowl of milk. You know things in the back of your mind, but you don't really— they don't really filter right. Well, it's a complete lack of articulation and the power to analyze it at that age.

Yes, and I guess it would be a bit of a lack of power over your own life at that age.

What, what made me, in a way, the fact was, and I think how I stayed alive in many cases, is that my mother depended on me. And, and that just made me— I, I quickly came up with solutions for problems, you know, and my mind would be Rushing. I've done that ever since. So it made me a tremendous problem solver. I was relevant then in the way I could help her, serve her. I was sort of like her servant. I mean, in reality, she stole my childhood and she never had an adult life, which made her vulnerable in many respects. Because in the end of the life, having had lots inherited lots of money, she lost the lot. By being a problem solver and by being astute in staying alive, I'm still alive and I've got enough money to feel comfortable.

And I believe that your grandmother was quite abusive. Your mother was, you know, narcissistic and abusive to you. Do you feel that there is like that intergenerational trauma My grandmother ran the show.

She was the grand matriarch. I mean, I used to think of her like, you know, the Pope. She was infallible. She made all the decisions and everybody in the family worked for her. Well, she favored the boys over the girls. So all her sons worked for her. Her husband died in his 40s. And so she was forced to take over Australian Cotton Manufacturing, it was called. They had a factory in Alexander— Alexandria, and they made cotton waste. So she was forced to take over the business. As a woman, the only way a woman could run her own life was if her husband died and she took over that position.

Yeah.

I don't know why I'm telling you this, but I think it's— it was in my mind that that was Acceptable for a woman. Anyway, she ran the show and she ran our lives. And my father worked for her along with all of her 4 sons. She was very religious in the old-style Irish religious sense. The person that she deferred to was God. She had so many. She had 13 children, 11 of which survived. So she was very busy with all these children, so there was no room. They were either good or bad. She wasn't able to engage in a fictional sense with what was— this one, you know, character had this characteristic or that characteristic, or— it was very stultified conversation. And she didn't have the time for someone like me who was disturbed. When my parents moved to live in the country, I failed everything at school. And I was taken to her by my parents. And at that stage, I couldn't concentrate on anything. I mean, from the age of 15, as a teenager, was when my father started coming into my bedroom. And sodomizing me. I didn't remember that. All I remember— the only clue I have that that was happening was that my body would rise up and I would occupy the space with the guardian angel who was in the painting above my head. My uncle had done a painting— a drawing of the guardian angel. And I had this— I remember rising up like Lazarus from the dead and moving into this painting, well, drawing above my bed. I didn't have any memory of that until much later on. I mean, the memories, my memories came back, the whole idea of when I started going to this psychiatrist in Palmer. He made a diagnosis for the first time. He said, you're suffering from chronic anxiety. Anyone in this state of chronic anxiety won't be able to take in what they read. They might be able to read the words, but they won't be able to— the chronic anxiety doesn't allow you to concentrate. Because the whole time it's like you're You're living as if you're about to be attacked by a lion.

With your level of abuse, your nervous system would have been on edge all the time. And you can't possibly— you can't possibly take in information if you're on high alert all the time. If you're—

Exactly.

You're not focused, you're not present.

I mean, the idea of enjoying yourself is about a million miles away. You're trying to survive and cope. Which is what I managed to do, otherwise I wouldn't be talking to you now.

Exactly. And did your mother know that your father was sexually abusing you?

I think she did, and that's what made her even more aggressive towards me. I think she did, because later on when I confronted her, not long before she died, she said, did he do that to you? Did he do that to you? I'm sorry. But in a way that— the way she, she, she phrased her expression was that, um, she knew.

Is that why when you were an older teenager, is that how you ended up finding yourself in a boarding house and you didn't even know how you got there?

I, I just was— when I— I mean, I was innocent and very vulnerable and with no one to look after me. I was just drifting around the world, drifting around Sydney. I was raped by my uncle when I went to live with him. It was very easy to abuse me because there was no one behind to defend me, or no one that I was going to go to.

That's just so traumatic. I mean, it's so hard for a child to live like that or process those emotions. It would have been It's so challenging for you.

The thing with my uncle was that he— and it was very much of a sort of Catholic thing— that if you abuse someone or had sex with them, a child or whatever, they were the perpetrator. That these men saw that they'd been provoked by the flirtation of the child. The teenager, you know? That's the secret. I mean, I figured that was what was in their mind. So after that, he had to get rid of me. And his wife was always jealous of me. He was kind of obsessed with me. He used to take me everywhere he went. And I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to leave. I lived on the North Shore, and there were friends of mine on the North Shore who would have taken me to live with them. Happily. But of course, in terms of my grandmother and what other people would say, they closed ranks when it came to a family member. And she told my uncle that he had to come and get me and put some sense into me. Because all the time I was with him, he was saying, plug in, plug in, plug in, Judith. And I was thinking, well, I don't know what he's talking about. Well, Mostly I didn't know what people were talking about around me. Finally, when I went— I found myself in a boarding house. Well, it was a boarding house in Coogee. Elderly people. It was from there that miraculously I managed to get a job in import-export in York Street, Sydney. Because I applied for jobs but I had no training and No finesse in managing an interview. So I managed to get a job. Getting my own job meant that I'd kind of liberate— and my parents and my grandmother, which she did try and interfere once more in my life by sending me to— enrolling me in nursing in St. Vincent's Hospital. Well, I lasted about 6 months and they threw me out.

Oh, no.

And after that, I was on my own. The family that might have helped me and that actually destroyed possibilities I had from other people were out of my life. And I'd spend a lot of my time trying to convince them, trying to get in with them, to get their approval. Even when I made a lot of money, and I did, I had a child after being raped by— Oh, my God. A guy. I went to a home for what was called unwed girl mothers in Croydon, and I did that on my own. I took a false identity, and I met this wonderful nun there called Sister Wilfred, and she really helped me. The baby was adopted out from then, and after that, having the experience of going hungry in Kuchi. and being cold without an overcoat, I decided when I finally got the opportunity to work in real estate that I would never be— a bit like Scarlett O'Hara, you know, Gone with the Wind— I would never be hungry or cold.

Again.

Or any of it again. So when I got my big chance to work in a real estate office in Paddington, I went for it. I worked 7 days a week. the guy I worked for was called Bill Bridges. He was quite a notorious guy in that area, a bit like Sydney's version of Rackman in London. So he was, at that stage, it was a working-class area being gentrified.

Yeah.

And he would buy a whole row of houses. And people were quite— owners were quite glad to get rid of them because they were earning a pittance in rent. And the the repair factor wasn't tenable for what the amount they were earning. So I asked him, if I found a property that you could make 100% from, would you put up the money? And he laughed and said, well, you won't do that. You won't be able to do that. But I did find something and he put up the money. And after that, I had £1,000. I used to lie in bed and think, now what will I do? I went on as a kind of— I did the real estate course, and then I opened my own business in— on the corner of Jersey Road and Hargrave Street. I bought a building there, and then I went and, and that introduced me to art because there were a lot of artists in that area.

Yes.

At that time. Because they saw the benefit in these beautiful houses on the edge of the city. I started buying and selling the houses. I mirrored what I learned from working in his office. They'd contact the council for the address of a lot of these rundown buildings, rows of terrace houses, and then the people were, as I mentioned before, very glad to offload them.

Yeah.

They were of no benefit to them.

What I find amazing in that part of your story there is that even though you had been abused, you have dyslexia, you had all these other challenges, you had anxiety, and you had chronic fear, but then even with all of that, you still moved forward. You have such a survival instinct in you, you know. You, you saw an opportunity And you went for it. And I believe that you did incredibly well through being a property owner. And it's just amazing because other people would just maybe curl up in a corner and just not cope with their life at all. But you've had all of this and you did well for yourself, which is, you know, a testament to your character.

Well, I don't understand it myself, but I just think that On my own, once I was on my own, I was able to achieve the target that I set myself. I probably applied 100% determination. It was— I think it's a high level of determination to achieve an objective. Once I was no longer hampered, but of course emotionally I was crippled, so on my own without being involved in any relationships, I was able to achieve, fortunately, because the capital that I earned in Paddington and the investments that I had more or less has kept me afloat through some very— some downturns in bad relationships, which is where I was lost. Unfortunately, an abused child is drawn back to the abuse they know. Without being aware of it.

Yes.

So the love relationship is a reunion with the abuse of the past.

That's so true, because didn't you have like 3 marriages and all of them were abusive?

2.

Oh, you had 2. Pardon. You had 2. And you actually went overseas. You lived in London and now you're living in Spain.

It was when my father died that that I no longer had any interest in the business. And I think it was because I was trying to get his attention and have him claim me as his daughter. Once he was no longer there, the impetus had gone. I just had no drive to get out of bed in the morning and go to the office. Until one day in the office, this very handsome architect worked in. walked in. I focused on him mainly just because— and also he was an architect, so I was very ashamed of never being able to study or go to university. I would have loved to have. He was so much above me.

Yes.

So it just happened that he was trying to get rid of— he owned a house in Balmain with his mother, so I helped him sell that house, we left Australia together to discover the world with investments behind us in Australia. We set off and we went to Bali and we traveled up through to Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia. We stopped through all our way up to Honolulu and Japan and then we crossed To the West Coast of America, San Francisco. And then we drove the Big Sur down to California, to Los Angeles. Then down to Mexico for a month. And then we came up the East Coast of America, stopping in New Orleans, up to New York, and then across to London where we got a flat. And he worked as an architect. And I got a job in King's Road selling old antique scientific instruments. The lady I worked for, she used to buy the stuff at Sotheby's and Christie's, and she had a list of people who were investors that were looking for particular things. That was what happened. And then we traveled around Europe in a Volkswagen Kombi. But our relationship was never put to the test in a way. I mean, we were living the life of Riley.

Yes.

And we went to Lech and we were skiing there for a month. It wasn't until it was put to the test.

Judy, how did your trauma— did your trauma manifest differently in your adult life?

It just was how I saw myself. I saw myself as worth nothing. And I obviously overrated other people. I mean, just people who could read, fluently read a book, already were sort of standing on my shoulders. It was just that I had no sense of being of any value.

Right.

But I mean, other people obviously saw that I had enormous value, especially economically. And being able to help them.

I suppose that's what abuse does. It just destroys you on a soul level.

Well, I'd never been given— I'd never been given an idea of myself. And so the idea I had of myself, apart from the things I made up to be in line with my peers, the idea I'd been given was that I was worthless. Someone has to affirm who you are somewhere along the line.

And yes, I suppose that's why you were doing so much to try and get your parents' approval. Like, you've— you lost interest in your business once your father died because you were doing it.

Yes, because I wasn't doing it for myself.

Yeah, that's what trauma does do. Did it obviously shape how you viewed love and trust in relationships?

Oh, I was a completely infantile romantic. I mean, you know, it was the good looks and, you know, I mean, I didn't have an idea of people having any depth or specific being kind and generous or— I didn't see the world like that. I saw other people in a very superficial way. That's how I saw my husband, you know. He was the sort of knight in shining armor. But I was incredibly immature when it came to interpersonal relationships.

I believe that it wasn't until later in life that you actually sought out— that you realized that you had to do something and you sought out Therapy, and you tried quite a few. Why is it that psychotherapy worked for you and the others didn't?

Well, it was after, um, I fled from my second marriage in London, which was a very coercive relationship, you know, and I was absolutely a ghost on legs, you know, and I fled for my life back to Mallorca. Mallorca was always my kind of reforming space.

Yes.

And firstly, I mean, I was very, very frail emotionally. Through a friend, I went to a therapist who was an English psychologist, and she made such a good assessment that I ended up supporting her down to her underpants, you might say. You know, I lent her money. I started doing her shopping. I paid for her to go to London to see a specialist because she had an autoimmune disease of some kind.

Autoimmune disease.

Yeah, autoimmune disease. So I was lavishing, but I was completely unable to see what a charlatan she was. She was able to manipulate me and I was completely blind. It just staggers me when I think about it now, how completely blind I was. Because in many respects, I can be incredibly astute. It's that my emotional track was blighted. It was blind. I mean, I suppose it was blind. That's how I survived, by being blind to my parents. I'm not very... I don't have this psychological information, the analytical articulation. Pulling this out of the air is that, you know, that's— to find a reason for how. Anyway, one day I was in the bank, and a girl in the bank— because I knew there was something wrong with this therapy I was having, or not having.

Mm-hmm.

And I started going to London to the Psychoanalytical Institute to try and see What is this therapy? What's it all about? I went to this psychiatrist in Palma in desperation to get rid of the English psychotherapist. With luck, I met this English woman in London and she told me, this woman is one bad woman. You should get rid of her. It was after that that I sent her a registered letter saying, no more therapy. And I didn't answer the phone. I was so frightened of her for 2 weeks. But after that, through someone in my local bank, I got a recommendation for a psychiatrist in Palma. The problem was he didn't speak English. Desperate for support after the fractious former experience, I agreed that If he'd take me on, I was there. I'd have to do the therapy in Spanish. He said it's quite unusual for people after a certain age to be able to change, but we'll see how it goes. I'm still with him.

And that's— what age did you start that, Judy?

So I was in my 60s, so I was about 64.

Yeah, see, people put limitations on whether you can change, like if you're over 50 or whatever, forget it, you're set in stone. It's not true. It's all about, you know, the mindset, all about the desire, you know, to change.

And I was always trying to figure things out, but, you know, I was blinded by what had happened to me. I wasn't granted a clear vision to articulate anything. And so with him, I finally had found the person I'd been searching for. all my life, really. And here we were doing it in Spanish.

You obviously understood a bit because you live in Spain, so you obviously could understand what he was saying.

Yes, yes, no, I was saying finding language for things that are very personal, finding the words for very personal things in another language is a struggle, but it happened. And it was a wonderfully lucky encounter. And it was after that that I went back to Australia To try and remember by going back to the places where I grew up. So by association, by going back in 2006, and that's when I started to write the book. It was a story of uncovering what lay behind my amnesia.

Yes.

Childhood amnesia, you understand?

Yes, yes. I mean, that's incredible. That's a very courageous thing to do, is to face your demons, really, isn't it? Face the shadow, the dark shadow side of yourself that you've, you know, pushed aside. And most people will never want to bring it up, but you actually came back to Australia and tried to make sense of it all.

Well, what I chose to do is like become my own investigative journalist on my own behalf. So I chose to live in a in a flat, in a serviced apartment in Potts Point, on my own. It was an adventure to go back to where I used to live in Chatswood, and as it happened, in Gordon, I was lucky to meet someone in the street who pointed me in the right direction that brought back the first memory of the past. in Lennox Street, Gordon. I met this old lady who'd been— all her life she'd lived there since she was a young girl. And she reminded me of an electrocution that had taken place in front of our house where I used to live with my mother. And that brought back the memory of a young boy who was electrocuted. And I always believed it was my fault because I was holding his hand And I was wearing gumboots. He picked up a live wire that had come down in a storm and was lying there like a huge snake in front of our house, in the small area of land in front of our house. So that was what started to kick off, break into the amnesia of the past. I've rather told you that in a rather muddled way. I'm sorry. That's okay.

No, that's all right, that's all right. Yeah, well, it is— when you visit places from the past, it does wake up memories in you. And what I love about your story is you're so, uh, determined to keep moving forward and keep healing. You don't— you haven't given up on yourself. You haven't just accepted that that's my lot. You keep— you keep wanting to transform and Evolve, which is incredible.

I mean, now it's, it's been all worthwhile. I didn't like the state I was in before. Now, for the first time— well, it's taken a long time, and you don't realize that you, you've changed. You just suddenly, you get an insight and you think, oh, I've never thought of it like that before. In my case, it's been a building of small insights that have sort of joined together, is the— has been my liberation from the past abuse which blighted my life, that has allowed me to enter the world, to be able to see life and celebrate life.

What, if you don't mind me saying, You're 82 years old now. Oh, that's what I am. Yes, and you've written the book. What's life like for you now?

It's a surprise. It was the psychiatrist's idea for me to write. He said, why don't you write? As we started to uncover and he started to articulate the past, as the memories came back when I came back from Australia, I said, well, I don't know how to do that. And I didn't feel confident with words at all. Bit by bit, I started to do it, and I think it was so hard. I think cleaning the floor or the fridge or anything, any menial task, was heaven compared to having to—

A distraction. It was a distraction.

Anything apart from having to write. Anyway, somehow I managed to do it. I sent them the manuscript to the— it was at the time of COVID— to the Literary Consultancy in London. And it happened to be picked up there by an editor called Frankie Bailey. And she liked it. And she asked them if she could get in touch with me and deal with me direct. So I said— I was so surprised. I said, of course. And that was a fantastic time I had with her. Because she said— I'd written the whole thing in the first person. And she said, I think probably a better way of tackling this story is to write the story in the third person and then put the memories in the first person. So I agreed. She was a professional. Perfect. And so I had the most exciting and singularly wonderful experience with her through the lockdowns of COVID exchanging emails, and I'd send her a chapter and she'd send it back, and so it went on. And that's how the manuscript came together.

And did you find that writing this book was healing for you?

Oh, absolutely. It was so cathartic to do that. It's so— it was so healing. It's because it's sort of like creating yourself. It's like you put those things that have happened to you down, and out of that you pull yourself. The self that was blotted out underneath all that. It's the only kind of way I can think of putting it. So the real me that was under there, I, by writing, I'd sort of lifted it off, if you understand.

I do. It sounds incredible. It's why so many people say, you know, journaling is so therapeutic.

You know, I think it's true. I think it's true because you— well, I can remember that book, you know, The Color Purple.

Oh, yes.

Where she started writing to God because she had no one else to write to. And so she started putting down, writing what had happened to her, but addressing it to God. I think it's enormously therapeutic because you also are externalizing it into words and onto another object, onto a piece of paper or a screen or whatever. So you're pulling it out of yourself and putting it somewhere else, um, and that has to be helpful.

You know, your story really proves that it's never too late to seek help, make those changes. And like I said in the beginning, how you've now become the star of your own life as opposed to the victim It's true, it's true, it's true.

I mean, there's always going to be the ghosts of the past. They'll always be there shadowing you, but the central person is strong enough to manage, manage, push them aside. Yeah.

That's the way—

I mean, like everyone, I have good days and bad days like we all do, um, but I feel, um, I feel happy in my own silence. And that was the thing I was the most afraid of.

It is, isn't it? When you have that sort of head talk and trauma and everything, silence and being with yourself sometimes can be terrifying.

Especially when I'm, I'm with someone and they don't say anything. I used to be terrified of that, you know. I'd be If they just— there was silence between us, I'd be in a panic.

You think that they would be rejecting you?

Well, I don't know why it was like that, but perhaps it has to do with the fact that the abuse came in silence.

Oh, wow.

Well, maybe. I don't know, but I just felt somehow when someone else was talking, It meant that I was kind of obliterated, you know. I mean, I was sort of free.

Yes, yes.

It's sort of like waiting for something to happen, you know. Whereas there's a— I mean, I've learned that one of the most beautiful things about being with other people is companionable silence. That you're there together looking at the world, or trees, or the garden, Or something beautiful.

I suppose you can measure that as a level of healing when you feel comfortable in that scenario.

It's in all those ways. It's in all those ways that, that you can measure change.

Yes.

It's, it's in the memory of how you used to feel and how you now feel. And it's in very small ways, in small Small moments that you recognize, that I do, that I've recognized. You know, that I— I mean, if I'm walking along the street and someone gave me a sour look, I'd be affected by that. Mm-hmm. But now I walk along the street and I think, oh dear, nothing. Nothing. And it was like when I went back to Australia for the launch. I felt free that I could just be there. And the people at the launch were people that cared for me and were celebrating the book in a very positive way. It's— I'm no longer attracted to people against myself. That's another specific result of my efforts on my behalf, writing the book.

Yes.

And going on the journeys I've gone on to try and uncover the past. In those kind of ways, I know that I'm still the same person. All of those fears I had that were in the world that would manifest themselves in all sorts of ways no longer exist.

I'm so happy for you. Judy, what advice would you give to those healing from childhood trauma and seeking their own path to recovery?

Well, I hope, I hope that my— what I've done, the book, will give people, other people, adult sufferers, encouragement. Because, well, obviously therapy, to find a good psychiatrist, preferably a psychiatrist, but that's because I had a psychiatrist, or a good therapist. And be ready for the long run because it— there's no quick fix to this, to healing.

Yes.

It's a long-term commitment. And it took being with Louise, my psychiatrist, it wasn't— it took about 3 years before I really started to notice difference, a difference. I started to feel stronger. I mean, the other thing that I had a problem with, which is what happened, which was how I got addicted to my first therapist, was that I have a dependence issue. I quickly get dependent on someone else.

Hmm.

And so that, that, that, that That's a problem. I mean, that's— so you can still, you can go on going the same way without recognizing it. The same characters in different costumes?

Yes, yes.

So it was by living alone and staying alone a lot of the time, but he still— whenever I was going off on the wrong track, as in the past, he would steer me back onto Well, he's obviously been a godsend in your life. Oh, and what showed me how— what a good psychiatrist he is, what a good psychiatrist he is, was when I thanked him. I said, Luis, thank you so much for everything you've done. And he said, I didn't do anything. It was you that did it.

Very wise, very wise.

And that's the crux of it, isn't it, Rita?

Yes, you've got to do the work yourself. No one can do it for you. You have to have the courage to help yourself.

You can only be guided by someone else.

And that's what I've taken from your story, and that's what I hope all our listeners or the audience takes from your story, is the courage that doesn't matter what's happened to you, you never gave up. And you really backed yourself and you realized that, yeah, that you've had to do the work.

And while there's life, there's hope, isn't it? That's the old saying.

What a great way to end, Judy. I love that. Thank you so much for coming on.

Well, thank you to you.

Oh, thank you for sharing your story. And for all our listeners and the people watching this, Judy's details will be in the show notes. So if you want to buy Judy's book, It will be there, and I can tell you it's a fantastic read. And Judy is testament that doesn't matter what age, you can do something to help yourself. Thank you, Judy.

Okay, thank you very much, Rita. It's been a great pleasure talking with you.