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Trina: I didn't know how to be me,
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I was looking for a way to be happy.
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I was looking for who I wanted to be.
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I'm Trina Baldwin. I'm a single mum to my teenage son,
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and we're currently on our world schooling journey.
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At the moment we're living in Bali
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I'm from a small country town
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in far north Queensland, Mossman.
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I was your A-grade student. I was the good girl,
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the one with all the manners.
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When I hit my teenage years,
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I found that I didn't fit in, kind of went really overboard.
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At 15 years old, I found myself pregnant.
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I had no idea what was involved with being a parent
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I gave birth to my first son. He was born in the October,
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and I turned 16 in the December.
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I lost those years of my teenage life.
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Dona: I've always been huge on sleep for my kids.
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And I think even as they push into the teenage years,
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they still need just as much sleep right?
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Trina: Well...
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there's research that says that teenagers
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actually need more sleep.
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Dona: Right?
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Trina: Yeah.
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Dona: They gonna go back to those toddler years where
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Trina: Yeah.
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Dona: they're suddenly going through
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this massive growth spurt...
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Trina: I didn't realise it at the time that I'm adopted, so
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I think I carried with that. This part of I don't actually
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fit into the family, even though my family didn't do
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anything outwardly to make me not fit in.
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When I was 18, the laws changed that. You could actually
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get your original birth certificate.
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So I applied for that,
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wrote to the police, and I told them what I was doing,
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and could they help me at all?
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I received a letter back from the police saying
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it was a personal matter, they couldn't get involved.
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And the next day I received a letter from her saying that
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it was in the past, she hopes I've had a good life,
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but she didn't want anything to do with me.
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So that was quite devastating
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And I just thought, Okay, I have to leave that.
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And then I don't know whether it was six months
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or 12 months later, she actually called me
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and she explained that you know,
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she was shocked, and she's got a family and rah rah rah.
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Dona: We're not here to control our Children. Right?
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Like we have to put boundaries and help guide them,
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but like,
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if Kaia adamantly does not want to pull her hair back
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before she goes to school,
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are you really going to, like, fight that battle?
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Trina: I met Tony and
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yeah, this was my first really serious relationship.
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We were together for five years, and we built the house,
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and we both had good jobs and,
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things were going along fine. It was wonderful.
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We're getting married, and you're going to have a family,
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and we're going to have it all.
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A month to the day before our wedding,
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and a week to the day after I miscarried
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a planned child with Tony.
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He was killed in a car accident.
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My whole world was ripped apart.
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Everything that I thought life was about was gone.
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I guess I was in this state of
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not knowing who I was or what was going to go on
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with my life from then.
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I hit depression really bad, to the point of,
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you know, wanting to take my life.
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Later on down the track, I met Dylan's dad.
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So in hindsight I could see that I was quite vulnerable,
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and I was wanting what everyone else wants.
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I was wanting to be loved.
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There was so much control, and I just knew it wasn't right.
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It was more emotional violence,
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but when the physical started getting worse,
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I knew I had to get out of there.
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So Dylan was only three months old at that time.
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Dylan: I tried to do Rock to Fakie, but I couldn't.
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Trina: Which one is Rock to Fakie?
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Dylan: The one that you go up and you clip the copping,
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and then he got that, and then you go back down,
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and then forward again.
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Trina: Ah... okay.
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Dylan was about 18 months old,
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when I knew that something was different.
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He was having meltdowns,
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which are completely different to a tantrum.
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I thought it was me.
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You know?
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I thought it was the fact that,
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he'd come from a broken family and,
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there was a lot of trauma happened when I left his dad.
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I think he was 10 when he was officially diagnosed.
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And I remember the psychiatrist said to me,
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how do you feel if I write down a diagnosis
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of autism spectrum disorder for Dylan?
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The words I said to her was,
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! don't care if you call it the clap,
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as long as he gets support.
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Normal mainstream school has never ever worked for him.
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So at that stage, I thought,
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let's sell up everything,
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and we thought we'd give an international trip ago,
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and by this stage, I'd sort of
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kept researching more and more
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about alternative schooling methods,
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and I come across the whole concept of world schooling.
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Instructor: Try to cover the bolt here, and don't go over
it,
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and look forward because you're going to go there
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and then just press it down. Lean forward.
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Okay? Just keep following the board. Ready? Just like this.
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Trina: We've taken on the whole unschooling path now,
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and that's... part of that Is following your passion,
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and trusting and believing in that
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whatever you're passionate about you will learn
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the skills you need to follow out that passion.
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People who are world schools want to immerse themselves
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in the culture, they want to be able to give back
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to the areas that they're in.
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They all have a similar outlook on life,
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in that sense,
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but the most beneficial part of it was
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the connection with other people.
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But once again it's the whole community environment there,
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and he's accepted for his quirks.
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He's embraced, and then he gets to give back
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to other people as well.
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Instructor: Look back! Yeah!
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Trina: Anything is possible.
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I just look at all that I've been through in the past,
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and anything is possible,
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and if you put... if you just add that bit of curiosity,
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um, there's no need to live in...
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a tight, restricted way,
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where you can't be fully expressed yourself.