Imagine a huge enlargement of a black and white photo (shades of grey actually). It is a cross section of part of a building - grey, cold, stone, poorly lit. The room at the centre has a group of people standing around, talking about the thin pale girl crouching in the shadows. The one bare light globe casts shadows around the edge of the room where she tries to hide. The group of people are a mismatched lot - a housewife, a computer professional, a senior nurse, some students, a few teachers, some elderly maiden-aunt types. They are all there, standing in judgement, criticising, scolding, condemning the one cowering in the floor. She is broken, sobbing and unsure of even how to stand up, let alone walk out of this room of condemnation. The very substance of her being is being dragged out and ripped apart by their words. The one person she can trust is in the next room waiting for her to come out. But the door doesn't have a handle and he doesn't know how to get in to help her out. God is there, but forgotten in the attic, waiting for her to call to him for help.

That girl is me - at my lowest ebb. That room is the pit of despair. I was 18 when this scene became part of my inner reality. It didn't really happen that way, that is just how I picture it when I look back on that dark time.

My childhood was very lonely, but it wasn't until my time with Rowland that anyone acknowledged that and labelled it as loneliness. I guess I had known it all along, but just put it down to not being happy, but people in my family saying that I was really lucky to have had such a happy childhood, so I always knew that reality was different to outside perceptions. I was effectively an only child due to the deaths of my two older sisters, one before I was born and one when I was 12. The sister I knew was 9 years older than me and we weren't close. My parents are both very introverted people and they had almost no social life. My father worked long hours and was an aloof and unapproachable sort of person - actually I was quite scared of him. He was a very intimidating person who was 'always right'. He had a brilliant mind with which no-one could argue. My mother is inconsistently and unpredictably perfectionistic. We also shared our house with an elderly relative who didn't understand children or teenagers at all. I only a few fair-weather friends at school, but I did have a couple of long term friends in our church youth group (one who I later married).

I was the bottom of the pecking order both at home and school. My sister was fairly bright and bossed me around. Both my parents are highly intellectual people - what my kids would call 'serious brains'. Then I came along. I had no motivation to work hard, was noisy, disorganized and fidgety, and had poor ability to stick at a task until it was finished. My mother remembers me as a little child being very active and noisy. In my parents' eyes I was an attention-seeker who needed to be reined in at all costs, and being a sensitive type who was scared of the possible consequences of disobedience, I forced myself into the mould they desired, but I always had a slightly rebellious streak hiding away inside and craved the freedom to be me. They were very judgemental of absolutely everyone. They would be oh-so-polite to their faces, but when we were at home or in the car they would criticize everyone else's motivation as being egocentric, insecure or paranoid. They also had an absolute loathing of "gushing", "raving" or "making a fuss" so praise was always faint, obscured, or open to misinterpretation. They were experts in 'damning with faint praise' so, as a child, when Mum praised me for anything, I didn't take her words literally, but assumed that I wasn't really good enough and I felt I could never live up to their expectations.

My father believed that if I wanted affection, I should seek him out, which I didn't. He never sought me out, never complimented me and never praised me (in case I should get a swelled head no doubt). I know he had major difficulties with egocentrism, as he was always reducing everyone else's actions to ego issues, even condemning some normal behaviour on the part of my children as being attention-seeking and therefore less than ideal.

With all that background of 'not being good enough' at whatever I attempted, it was no wonder that, when I started training to be a nurse and was criticized openly and vehemently by a senior nurse, I completely came undone and saw myself as a total failure at everything. It is this time that is depicted in the black and white photo.

I should have been an excellent nurse, I was an A grade student in the classwork and cared very much about the patients and their welfare. I just had a bit of difficulty getting everything absolutely 100% correct under pressure in a practical context. My fragile emotional state just wasn't up to dealing with anything less than praise-worthy perfection. So I rapidly became convinced that I was incapable of being a good nurse, I withdrew from the course and drifted in a sea of uncertainty, inadequacy and despairing depression. Over many years I grieved over my failure to achieve that goal. I really had something of an identity crisis - not knowing who I was or what I should be doing in life. The one thing that stopped me taking my own life was that my boyfriend (now my husband) stood by me and loved me regardless of how depressed or confused I was.

My fundamental personality make-up, combined with my upbringing, together with the events surrounding the nursing debacle, meant that I became very subject to how I believed others would judge me. Believing they would readily condemn me for just about anything - this led to perfectionism and translated to how I viewed God as well. I always saw myself as somehow not living up to His expectations. The concept of God's merciful forgiveness of ALL my shortcomings was beyond my comprehension. I always assumed that I could never be 'good enough', that I would only be worthy of some punishment or ridicule, as punishment was a fairly big part of my childhood.

One of these punishment issues has had long-term ramifications. Mum used to strap me for not eating the foods I didn't like. She thought I was being belligerent, but I only ever didn't eat things I really didn't like, some to the point that they made me feel sick as I ate and would gag as I tried to swallow them. It really wasn't an issue of me being deliberately fussy to draw attention to myself but that is how they saw it

Mum is very proud of being the same weight that she was when they married, and I think she sees me as being weak-willed because I have put on about 17 kilos since I married. If I was to have a larger than the smallest serving of desert she would always say "you'll get fat*" When I was very slim, she would sometimes joke that I was "a great fat thing" in one breath and then say that I was fine in the next, and I never knew really which was the message I should believe. To her everything is a matter of willpower and self-discipline, and knowing this attitude of hers, I have always believed that she sees me as weak-willed and undisciplined.

I have never had many friends at all - not at school, work, church or anywhere really. Great many acquaintances, but all very superficial. My husband and I are superficially known by hundreds of people, but I can't say I have one really close friend other than him. I did have one first-rate long term friendship some years go, but they moved overseas and even though they have now moved back to Australia, we have largely lost touch. I have tried to analyse why I don't have close friends, but have never come up with a satisfactory reason. Several times I have participated in exercises where people have given me feedback that says I am cool and aloof. That being so, I probably put people off, one way or another. Also I find it difficult to hear what people are saying when I am in a group situation, so I probably don't react the way people think I should. Recently I have started making a concerted effort not to talk about myself and my family with others, but that leaves me with very little to talk about - possibly reinforcing people's impression of me cool and aloof. But I don't want to bore them to death either. It's not easy.

As time marched on after the nursing debacle, I gradually made changes in how I see things. The black and white photo gradually took on tinges of colour, movement and life. A window opened a little to let in some fresh air, the blinds opened up to let in the sunshine, the door opened and the stairs to the attic unblocked. But still there were dark grey areas and even some menacing black patches in the corners.

I had been thinking about being counselled for a very long time. Early last year whilst at a Christian conference, I promised God that I would no longer make excuses, so when I hit a major obstacle sometime near Easter last year, I decided I had to do something about it. As both my husband and I are involved in Christian ministry, I wanted to be counselled by someone with ministry experience and based on biblical foundations. We live in a relatively remote area, so going to someone once a week over a number of weeks or months was not really an option. The Retreat format was ideal.

I know someone who had participated in one of Rowland's Retreats and found it extremely valuable, so I began the process feeling quite positive about it. In the past I had been prevented from seeking counselling by my own fears, by the unlimited nature of the process and the probable cost. I had assumed that the face-to-face component would be more difficult than it turned out to be, but I knew what we would talk about from working my way through the 19 questions, and there was nothing in them that I hadn't thought about before, so I decided that I had to step out in faith believing that I could deal with it with God's help.

As I worked through the 19 questions, I became aware that the majority of my difficulties were the result of the type of life I had as a child and how my basic personality type led to me responding to the situations that arose as I grew up. I had worked through many aspects of this over the years, particularly those related to fears, inner healing and psychology, through reading many self-help books, and working through issues with prayer. But I still had significant baggage related to my self-image; the physical, intellectual and gifts-related aspects.

Rowland encouraged me to think more positively about myself and be more pro-active in not allowing my fears to overrule logic. I have to adjust my self-talk and not revert to being the child within when relating to my mother, as I get very defensive and usually shut down rather than communicate with her as an equal adult. On occasions when I have confronted things, it has ended in tears (my mother's) and frustration (mine), which I have difficulty dealing with.

One current issue for me has been that of the nature of my own ministry. I was able to study theology part time while my husband was training for the ordained ministry, and I loved it (except the exams!), but for all sorts of reasons I was only able to complete a degree-level certificate and not the whole degree. Then as years went by I found myself being more and more frustrated and bored by working in an office job to keep the family above water financially when I would much rather be involved in ministry of some sort, or doing something creative with my time. But as last year progressed, I began to come into my own place rather than being just seen as a minister's wife who doesn't quite fit the normal mould. (My husband does not minister in a parish context, so I have more freedom to do some things in our church than I would if he was our Pastor.)

I have always assumed I would be seen as having little ability and no authority to be in any recognized ministry. But last year I stepped out in faith and found that I was not being judged or condemned as I had feared. I am now involved in the church council, chair our worship committee, assist with liturgy and occasionally preach. Last year I was the co-ordinator of a camp for teenagers which was a major step out in faith, and it was in that context that I accepted the authority that God had given me. In some ways it seems as though I had put myself on hold until I felt secure enough to step out. Now that I have stepped out, I am affirmed that my ministry is valid its own right, not just that I am married to a minister and therefore have a ministry almost by default.

I am still finding my way, and don't know where it will end up. But one thing Rowland said to me made a lot of sense. That is that the journey itself is valuable, and if I keep doing what I am led to do, my own style of ministry will unfold. Paid full-time ministry may not be an option due to my tender-spots, those scars I have from being emotionally battered in the past, causing me to be vulnerable sometimes. But I can accept that. I am a lot more comfortable with myself as God created me since doing the Retreat. I found the whole process very affirming and I have more confidence in a number of subtle ways in different situations.

And so now I can view my picture in full colour. Sometimes when I lose focus and allow myself to slip back to my old ways of thinking, and I see the dark shadows and grey areas come back to haunt me, but I know that I can trust God to keep the colours there, the windows open and the lights on. I still have 'issues' with my mother, but there is new colour on the walls and furnishings that brings joy - even if I don't yet feel that I can share it with her.