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Fighting For Sanity

~ Sort of not depressed, flirting with mindfulness

Fighting For Sanity

Tag Archives: memories

Complaining not Allowed

02 Tuesday Aug 2011

Posted by Catriona in childhood, family, personal

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isolated, loss, memories, sad, unhappy, voice

The memories that bubble to the surface are laced with sadness. The happy ones seem to stay in the deep.

I think of Golders Green and I think of all those days in nursery or reception where I would be bored because I could read and the teacher was doing some sort of flashcards. I think of the time I cried because I didn’t want to go home with whichever child it was because I didn’t like her. I think of the occasion in year 4 when my teacher hadn’t believed that I had read my book so quickly and made me copy it out. I think of home and I think about playing quietly in the corner, out the way, of putting my toys back in the toy box although I cannot remember a single toy that went in there. I think of my sisters pulling each other’s hair out. I remember being afraid to go upstairs on my own and preparing to run upstairs and get what I needed as quickly as I could. I remember picking my first real book off the shelf to read. I remember standing at the door to 1sis room and watching my mother throw clean clothes into a room that was knee deep in clothes and junk, my sister’s security blanket. The red bag I loved that didn’t travel abroad with us but vanished somewhere.

These are the memories that return, not going out to museums and places with my mother, not going to work with my father, not the fun times at school, my best friend, the first time I went to a boy’s house after school to play or the good times we had on holiday.

I think of my next 2 schools and cannot remember any positive times. On the occasions I was invited to birthday parties I never felt sure or safe that I wasn’t there to be made fun of. I never had any certainty that I was invited because I was wanted. I’m not saying there were no good times, just that they have evaporated. As for life at home I remember crying in my bed and keeping out of the way. Family  barbecues were all about getting the feast marinaded and ready so my father could do the important bit of cooking it. Lots of running about and dancing attendance on him. Waking up after having had my one and only bike accident in the back of the car on the way to hospital with my mother saying in that exasperated tone I knew so well “she’s being sick in the car again”. I knew who was cleaning it up.

I don’t want to go on.

I’m wondering whether I’m being mean by deliberately choosing those memories but they evoke the emotions that I feel most about childhood: being nervous or scared, feeling isolated, afraid, that I had to do it on my own, that I had to be strong and survive. I remember that I wasn’t listened to, that my contributions didn’t matter, feeling that it wouldn’t make any difference if I was there or not. Am I exaggerating the reality? Probably, but it’s the perception that lasted.

I feel that I missed out on a “proper” childhood, of feeling carefree, going on silly holidays and doing silly things together as a family. Of spending time together in harmony. Of remembering times when there wasn’t someone, somewhere, being cross or complaining, however quietly.

Do I think that everyone else had an idyllic childhood filled with love and laughter? Not at all, but for me my whole childhood, and indeed much of my adulthood, is so tainted with unhappiness that I struggle to recall the good bits. When my peers are telling childhood tales I can never think of a positive one to match. So even the good memories are denied to me.

I wish I’d had a happier life. I wish my childhood had been full of fun and frolics. I miss what I never had and I do feel a sense of loss. Life’s not fair.

I also feel that I’m silly for writing this, that I’m just having a moan without being constructive. After all, my childhood is what it is, it’s made me who I am, I can’t change it so why am I bothering to complain about it. And it wasn’t that bad really.

It made me unhappy then and it makes me unhappy now. that’s why. And why do I feel the need to justify this? Because I’m not supposed to complain, I’m supposed to buck up and soldier on and make the best of it.

Well I’m learning to complain.

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Giving Birth for the First Time

13 Sunday Mar 2011

Posted by Catriona in personal

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Tags

ex1, giving birth, me, memories, painful

I have spent a lot of time, both in counselling, with 1sis or with friends talking about my childhood, teasing out the bits that hurt and why they hurt. I’ve looked at my parents, separately and together to look at their motivation and to understand them better.

I almost feel comfortable going back there as I know what it was about; the issues are relatively straightforward even though they still hurt. But I don’t like thinking of my early adulthood, from about 17 onwards for 10 maybe 15 years. Some of those years I have completely blanked. Not because anything particularly traumatic happened but because I was so miserable.

If I am to become an integrated complete human being I need to bring out all these memories that I have suppressed, to remember those painful parts. To cry at them, to get angry, to feel what it was like to live them. So the next few posts will be somewhat auto-biographical.

For a taster, the most painful moment I remember, and it was more painful because it was supposed to be so deliriously happy, was the moment I brought 1son home from hospital.

I had a fairly easy birth, using a waterpool and it was still a very new thing at the time so various professionals popped in to see how I was getting on so it was a warm and friendly environment. It was as straightforward and pain free as possible (that doesn’t meant it wasn’t still excruciating) but the water helped enormously and I had gas and air as well. I was aware that my mother had given birth once with gas and air and with nothing for the subsequent two and that on some level I wanted to compete with that. Ex1 was good, reading me Alice in Wonderland as a distraction in the early stages and holding my hand etc. in the latter.

I was put in a ward with only one other mother who was on her second child. I remember laying there enviously looking at her breastfeeding her baby while eating grapes, drinking tea and reading a book simultaneously. It would take a while before I got that proficient. In the meantime I just wanted to poke her eyes out. The midwives were very good at helping me attach baby to nipple but I had not realised how difficult it would be at first and it was not something my mother had warned me about.

After a good night’s sleep with baby in a room at the end of the ward so that nurses could keep an eye and mums could sleep I do remember walking to get breakfast without peeking in. I think I just felt a little raw and resentful and thought that since he wasn’t awake I might as well get fed first. It did no harm but of course I did feel slightly guilty at not rushing towards him.

Ex1 popped into hospital more than once, talking of cards received from friends and relatives with gifts and cheques. I didn’t realise until I came out that he’d been drinking the cheques. I think I went home on the third day and when ex1 came to pick me up I realised that he wasn’t quite sober. We had a taxi and the hospital insurance dictated that a nurse had to bring the baby to the car with parents following on behind.

We got home. We lived in a top floor flat that we had unfortunately bought (therein lies another tale) and within minutes, he was lying on the bed snoring his head off. Looking round the flat I realised he’d been on a bender ever since I’d given birth, merely sobering up slightly to come and see me. The flat was a tip. There was no food in the kitchen; there was nothing to eat. I couldn’t find any money and had to look down the back of the sofa and trawl through pockets to find enough money to order a pizza.

[At this point I pause typing and go and make a cup of tea.]

I lay there on the bed, with an insensible husband snoring so very very loudly, trying to feed our child, eat pizza and cry all at the same time. At this moment I contemplated for the first time what my mother had been trying to tell me for a while but I had not been ready to listen to, that I would have to separate from ex1 eventually. It took me another two years before I finally was ready to accept divorce which did equate in my mind as both failure and a broken promise.

That moment is etched into my memory. I was hoping to walk into a clean and tidy home, with a meal in the oven and a cup of tea made for me by an attentive partner. Maybe balloons along with the cards all up on a shelf. The contrast between my hopes and the reality was so vast that I felt devastated. Bringing home my first baby was supposed to be a perfect moment, a memory to treasure. Instead I felt so alone and isolated, that it was just me and my baby against the rest of the world and no-one was going to help us at all.

Furthermore, because it was supposed to be such a special moment, I never told anyone at the time or for years after. My mother would have got angry for me, would have ranted and railed which at the time I didn’t feel would help. When sitting with a bunch of mothers swapping birth stories it would be a conversation stopper. And I certainly can’t tell 1son that this is the enduring memory of his birth.

So that memory stays locked up. As I write this I’ve had tears well up and have felt tense but I haven’t actually bawled. I’m angry that a perfect moment was spoiled and I’m also angry that ex1 never said sorry for buggering up my life. He did, eventually, stop drinking and we get on reasonably well now and I’m reluctant to rock the boat.

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