Day 203: Experiencing Trauma Part 3 | Death

Continuation from:

Day 201: Experiencing Trauma Part 1  |  The Sleepwalker

Day 202: Experiencing Trauma Part 2  | Nervous Breakdown

"Looking back at that whole situation now I again cannot fathom why these people did not send me to a child psychologist. I remember for months I was still traumatised by the 'weather' and I remember I would over the weekends refuse to leave the house if the weather looked unstable. If I was sitting in class towards the end of the school day I would simply stare out the window at the clouds. Just watch the clouds like a monster that was slowly, painfully turning from its dark corner to pounce. I would just sit there 'praying' to the skies, to please not storm on my way home. I was petrified that a storm might break out as I was leaving the school and I had to go 'out there' where I had minimal cover while I waited for my buss. "

Note: in relation to this previous comment where I said ' I again cannot fathom why these people did not send me to a child psychologist' - in a conversation with my mother yesterday -I was telling her that I was writing blogs about these 'childhood traumas' and asked her why they did not send me to a psychologist. She replied that they did send me to a school councilor for a few sessions and that in the end it was the councilor that said 'in time it will sort itself out' and therefore they sent me to school where the incident with the headmaster happened. So this does not instill me with a lot of confidence when it comes to child psychologists/councilors. Any way moving on -

A few weeks before my eleventh birthday I was sitting in my bedroom one afternoon doing homework and my mom walks into my room. She tells me that my father had a heart attack and is in hospital. We were planning on visiting him that evening but I found myself just getting angry instead of feeling upset or sad. By the time we got to the hospital and my sisters and mother were hugging him and crying I was like a fuming demon lol. I refused to give him a hug and I simply stood just inside the door glaring at him. I was pissed.

The next morning at 3 am my sisters wake me up to tell me that our father had died. He had 2 big heart attacks. So from there on out my experience shifted in various ways. The trauma of knowing my father was going to die had obviously taken an immense toll on my young mind. Now after my fathers death I started considering into my teenage years the reason for his death or at least contributing factors. It turned out that my father (who's heart was obviously quite weak) was under a lot of pressure at work because that morning that he had his heart attack the bank that he worked at - a whole bunch of bank employees were going to be retrenched. My father was the bank manager but did not know himself who would be retrenched and whether his own job was secure (his bank was merging with another bank). By the time he was preparing to go to work he was already having the first heart attack. My sister noticed that he was looking very pale and sweaty and asked him what was wrong, to which he replied 'nothing' and that she must please not say anything to my mother or sisters because they would just get worried. By the time he got to the bank he collapsed.

The reason why I shared this whole story with you is because this information created immense guilt within me towards my father. When I found out that he had the heart attack probably from worrying over potentially losing his job I realized that he was probably concerned for his family - to be able to provide for his wife and 4 daughters. From this I created immense guilt for being the reason why he died. Over the years I also considered that if it was not for our existing money system a man (or woman) would not have to die out of fear that they cannot provide for their family.

So, from there what developed in me was my father's depression - where I basically made the decision to 'take on' my fathers depression in 'honour of him' - yes I know it sounds weird - it so often does when we look back at the things we do and you're like 'what??' But yes I was pining myself to death in his honour - feeling his sadness from his life and my sadness for losing him. A few months after my father's death I started having strange dreams about him. The one was where I would see his coffin inside the crematory. The flames would start up and I would be trapped inside this dream watching at first the coffin then his body starting to burn. I remember inside the dream I would feel the trauma within my mind pulsing inside my mind, something which I consciously knew at all times was there but would never speak about. I was also to embarrassed to speak about it because we all tend to know that death is something that happens and it is something that you are supposed to 'get over'. Therefore, I knew that something was 'off' so to speak about the fact that I had never dealt with my fathers death and that this sadness constantly stayed with me. In the dream it would switch from him in the coffin to me - where for a few second I would be lying in the coffin feeling the heat of the flames increasing around me...

Day 202: Experiencing Trauma Part 2 | Nervous Breakdown

Continuation from:

Day 201: Experiencing Trauma Part 1  |  The Sleepwalker

These blogs are based on the following Interview:

Releasing Trauma - The Metaphysical Secrets of Imagination - Part 54

"Eventually my paranoia turned into sleep walking, where after an evening of sleeping over at a friends house, my friend would tell me the next morning that they were woken up in the middle of the night to noises coming from the kitchen. There lol they would find me unpacking their kitchen cupboards mumbling to myself. This sleep walking also happened at home where my mom and dad would often find me wandering up and down the passage way and often when they would go to bed they would find me sitting by their bedroom door. I would of course not remember any of this the next morning…"

Then In school I had a nervous breakdown: what happened was that a school bully turned his attentions onto me for months. Eventually my mind tried to cope with this experience and projected it outwards onto something else I could be afraid of. I mean if I look back at it now, a child who was relatively stable probably would have been ok, but my mind was very inverted, very unsure and it was as if my platform within my mind for being able to handle stress was simply not there or simply had no stable foundation. Therefore I started developing an intense fear of thunder storms - yes you heard me thunder storms. I remember one day my mom was late picking me up from school and when she did arrive hours later I was completely alone, no other child or car anywhere to be seen. I was standing on the side walk in front of the school sopping wet afraid that my mother was not going to pick me up. The fear of abandonment, of a parent going away was so fresh in my mind that this moment where my mother was late sent me into a new trauma which obviously my mind could not deal with. My mother finally arrived and off we went. On our way home due to all the rain and flooded roads our car broke down. Some people stopped and gave us a lift to their house where we waiting for my father to fetch us. My father took a very long time to come and fetch us (was probably only an hour but to me it felt very long) and I remember in my mind I was worried that he would not arrive or at least wondering 'why it was taking so long'. This whole dynamic really messed with my young mind - it was slowly unbalancing me.

The next day I wake up and it is cloudy outside. As I get up and prepare for school a weird kind of panic sets into my young mind and body and my mind starts explaining that I cannot go out into the rain. I told my mom but knew that she would not understand so also told her that I was not feeling well. The next day the same thing happened where I woke up and even though it was sunny I was completely paralysed with fear. My mother tried persuading me to go to school but I started crying hysterically mumbling about the weather and storms and that I just could not go out there. My mom and dad let me stay away from school for a few days and then realised they had a problem. Each morning they would try and coax me out of the house and I would literally grip onto the door frame and cry, begging them to not let me go 'out there where it might storm'. Eventually my parents saw a day when it was sunny and they convinced me probably with presents or something to get in the car so that they could take me to the doctor.

The doctor asked me some questions about what was going on in my life, in school and cleverly steered the conversation in the correct way to find out that a boy in my class had been bullying me for a few months. The school was contacted and the boy was removed to another class. Now the next step was to get me to the school 'councillor'. I don’t think this councillor was a councillor. It was simply the headmaster who stood as that role and pretended to know what a child needed. I am sure we all have some stories of people in the education or child care fields who really don’t know what they are doing and try and treat children according to their own frame of reference or some old school psychology method from the 1950's which would be found in the same textbooks as 'How to perform a Lobotomy'.

Anyway after speaking to me for a while and trying to tell me that everything was 'ok' he then said to me ok I am now going to say goodbye to my parents and go to my classroom. Of course complete fear overtook me and I immediately went and clung to my parents. Some how (cannot remember clearly) he gets me away from them and tells them to leave. Now I am in a complete state of panic and feel like my entire mind is collapsing in on itself. My parents start leaving and I remember just thinking of how to get to them, to not let them leave without me. I lie to the headmaster and tell him that I am ok but I just wanted to say bye to my parents properly. He agrees and I dash off crying like a mad thing, clinging like a monkey to my mom's dress. I am begging them not to leave me. At this stage my mother is crying because now she does not know what to do and the headmaster (realising he had been duped by a little kid) pulls me away from my mother picks me up and carries me in the opposite direction. As soon as my parents are out of sight he puts me down and tries to explain to me that I need to go to class. Shit I was completely beside myself. I beg and plead and I think at some stage I even threated him for 'taking him away from my parents' lol like he was some kidnapper. Anyways he was not going to be duped twice so he just said he is taking me to my class and there everything will be ok. He picked me up and threw me over his shoulder and off we go - me crying and begging and screaming for all the world to hear. We get to just outside the class room and he puts me down.

Now my hysteria has subsided to at least just a cry, because now I know my class mates are just inside and can hear me plus I am getting very tired. He opens the door slightly and asks for the teacher to come out and he explains to her what has happened and that she must please take me in and help me get settled. Shame I tried to explain to her my dilemma and that she please needs to let me go to my parents but she did not fall for it lol. Anyways she leads me into the classroom and even though I was still crying and felt completely constricted with panic - all that was stopping me now from complete hysteria was all of these faces starring at me. The teacher tactfully explains that I was not feeling well and that they must all please be nice to me and make me feel welcome. She explained that they were actually in the middle of a test, but that she would help me. So she sat next to me and would ask me the question and whether I would get them right or wrong she would fill in the correct answers and made sure I passed the test.

Looking back at that whole situation now I again cannot fathom why these people did not send me to a child psychologist. I remember for months I was still traumatised by the 'weather' and I remember I would over the weekends refuse to leave the house if the weather looked unstable. If I was sitting in class towards the end of the school day I would simply stare out the window at the clouds. Just watch the clouds like a monster that was slowly, painfully turning from its dark corner to pounce. I would just sit there 'praying' to the skies, to please not storm on my way home. I was petrified that a storm might break out as I was leaving the school and I had to go 'out there' where I had minimal cover while I waited for my buss.

Day 201: Experiencing Trauma Part 1 | The Sleepwalker

The other day I was sitting in on an Eqafe Interview and I could completely relate to what was being discussed.

Releasing Trauma - The Metaphysical Secrets of Imagination - Part 54

During the Interview I was looking back at my own experiences around childhood traumas, specifically around the years surrounding my fathers death. I had experiences great difficulty dealing with my fathers death for 2 reasons:

Firstly the fact that I knew he was going to die years before he died - let me explain. My father was a chain smoker. He developed a heart problem which was exacerbated by smoking. After my father had his first heart attack I remember the one day I went with when my father had a doctors appointment. I cannot remember how old I was then, but basically I was asked to sit outside the doctors room and wait while they talked. They left the door slightly ajar probably so that I would still be able to see my parents, not realizing that I could hear their conversation. So basically I heard the doctor tell my father that if he carried on smoking that eventually he would die from another heart attack - his heart was that weak. So as you can 'imagine' what shock this is for a young child to hear.

This became a burden which I carried with me for many many years probably up until the ager of about 28/29 when I was able to work with the information effectively to let it go. So for years I remembered what the doctor said and this settled itself into my mind and body as a perpetual fear that my father could die any day. Of course my father who also had depression, did not seem to concern himself with the doctors warnings and continued to chain smoke, which of course confirmed to me that any minute he was going to die. I don’t know why my father carried on chain smoking the way he did, whether it was because the addiction was to strong or because he did not care. I suspect that it was a combination of both points - meaning he had depression and from my own experience as I am sure other people are able to relate once in a 'depressive mind state' you pretty much become numb to what is happening around you and thus don’t 'care' about your life or even your health. Combine that with an additive personality or an addictive substance such as what most of us have experiences at some point or another and you are bound to end up with creating physical consequences due to the abuse of some form of substance or reckless behaviour.

Over the years my fear of my father dying turned into paranoia. If for example my father would not arrive back from work at a certain time, I would start fearing the worst and imagining (paranoia) all kinds of situations and that any minute we would get a phone call from the hospital. I would spend those evenings sitting near the windows to watch and see when his car would turn into the drive way, and when it did I would obviously feel immense relief. At least he was safe and with me - at least until tomorrow. This went on for years and eventually I started to develop a paranoid personality, where I would fear things like sleeping over at my sisters apartment or going for sleep overs at a friends house. I remember whenever a friend would invite me to a sleep over, I would be struck with anxiety and would try and first make excuses to get out of it. Therefore I rarely slept over and when I did I would often start becoming to paranoid (without understanding what was happening) that I would wait until my friend would fall asleep and then I would go and sit by the window and hope that some how my mom and dad knew that I was frightened and would come and fetch me.

Eventually my paranoia turned into sleep walking, where after an evening of sleeping over at a friends house, my friend would tell me the next morning that they were woken up in the middle of the night to noises coming from the kitchen. There lol they would find me unpacking their kitchen cupboards mumbling to myself. This sleep walking also happened at home where my mom and dad would often find me wandering up and down the passage way and often when they would go to bed they would find me sitting by their bedroom door. I would of course not remember any of this the next morning...