Trauma
People find love in the blink of an eye. Religion in a burning bush. A higher calling at the crossroads of life. I call it out for the hokum it is. Love comes along rarely, slowly, sometimes never. Religion? I’d rather take opium. And a higher calling? That’s someone else’s game. As for me, it’s hard enough just living down here. I am a sceptic, and sometimes a cynic. But never say never. Yesterday was my falling in love and finding religion and discovering a higher truth all in one conversation. A few words, a definition really, suddenly explains my life for the past thirty odd years, answers questions, lays to rest long ago ghosts. No, I have not been inhaling or otherwise abusing any substance. It just feels the way I imagine a person feels when he falls in love at first sight or recognises his spiritual guru – that Eureka moment. A revelation. An epiphany. Finding God (no, not that, there’s a limit to everything). Coming back to life. Cliché, trite, convenient. But definitely Something.
I let slip the word fraud. That I have felt like one all my life. And a young person, wise from her own experience of life, someone who listens and understands, responds with these words: It sounds like a delayed reaction to trauma, PTSD even, and Imposter Syndrome. You have spent your life trying to be someone you don’t believe you really are.
And just like that, so much makes sense.
I lived through severe and prolonged trauma the year I was fourteen. It was repetitive, I learnt to steel myself for the next episode. Until it ended in a loss so profound that I’m still struggling to make sense of it, let alone coming to terms with it. When the repeated attempts ended in suicide, I said Rest in peace. We would all be at peace finally. But I was wrong. There was no peace. There were two deaths that night – one life ended literally and the other life, mine, as I had known it, ended too. I wandered down a path I had never imagined taking. I lost my innocence and childhood and adolescence in that year. I went straight from being a kid to being an adult in many ways. One year of trauma and endless years of reaction. Only I didn’t have a name for it until now. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder doesn’t only affect soldiers in wartime situations. It can affect anyone who has dealt with severe trauma – abuse, rape, death, divorce, physical injury. In my case, a brother’s suicide.
After a decade-long hiatus, spent merely reacting and responding to outer stimulus and refusing to acknowledge the raw grief alive within, there was a delayed and severe reaction to trauma, most probably triggered by post partum hormones. Suppressed once again by a busy life and no time to stop and think, it flared up again during my son’s adolescence. I acted out my teenage tantrums right alongside his. I know now he was far more mature about dealing with his adolescence than I was. And I had twenty seven years on him. Years later, there was another episode when my mother died. These were the times the trauma acted out. Periods of intense stress gave it a way to bubble to the surface. But most of the time, apparently, I am an excellent actress. I keep the memories of trauma so well hidden that it feels like I have led two parallel lives since I was fourteen. The person I allow everyone to see is principled, intelligent, compassionate, loyal, loving, aggressive, assertive, stubborn. There’s only one problem: I don’t believe in this person myself. The real me is locked away and only emerges in nightmares and silence. I need to be much stronger, so much more resilient before I can ask who that person really is and confront her. Right now, she seems to be equally frightening and frightened, an entity hidden away from the happy world around her.
One fallout of this underlying and deeply suppressed reaction to trauma is a life spent compensating. Good daughter, good wife, good mother, good sister. Trying to make up for the loss of a child to parents who seemed gone away, though they were right there, attentive and loving. Then trying to be the perfect mother who would not lose a child the way my mom did. Always so hard on my older son. And so hard on myself. Never cutting either of us any slack. And yet, knowing deep down that I would never be good enough. Faking perfection is tough. I want to scream each time I’m praised for being a good daughter, a wonderful mother. I laugh inside hysterically when accused of acting the good girl so that I can be the preferred one, the favourite, the pet.
In reality, I have to work hard to stop sabotaging myself every step of the way. Too much happiness? I end it before it begins to hurt, setting myself up for the inevitable fall. My alternate self doesn’t condone long periods of happiness. So relationships are often left behind, broken, unresolved, littering my life. Success of any kind? It must be a fluke. Appreciation from others? Turn and run, deny it, reject it.
Too long a period of calm and peace? Tragedy must be around the corner. When it does not manifest, I tend to panic, creating situations that might trigger it. Because just waiting for it to happen, as I have convinced myself it must, is too hard to bear. I practice funerals of people I love. It can’t possibly hurt the way it did the first time, I try and talk myself into believing, not if I am prepared for it. I like to think that I have cried all my tears already. This repeated assertion helps when the panic sets in.
I have spent my life trying to be someone I don’t really believe I am. The good girl. The rule follower. The loyal friend. The dependable person. The loving wife. The perfect daughter. The best mom. My mind works tirelessly to convince myself I am all of these. Ask my people. They will tell you it’s true. Yet deep within, under all the layers of mind and heart is the voice that breathes: Fraud. Fraud. Fraud.
I can’t articulate what it is that has me convinced of this. I can’t define who I am, if what I am is fraudulent. The feeling doesn’t originate in my mind or in my heart. This comes from deeper within, a place I cannot find and I don’t know how to get to.
And yet, I have been in a happy, rock steady relationship for thirty years. This is one relationship I don’t dare trifle with, maybe I know in some deep dark corner of my mind that it has saved me from myself. It is my lifeline. I keep it safe mostly. That doesn’t stop me from feeling often that it is someone else in the relationship, someone else who deserves the love and support of a wonderful partner. That I am still in it is something I credit in large part to my partner. And to my rational mind, which can claim this one victory over the trauma. And one more thing. In my experience, even in the worst of times, that persistent little thing called Hope finds a way to stop you from completely destroying yourself. So that’s what has kept me from drowning: my partner, the rational mind and hope.
PTSD. Trauma. Big dramatic words. Intertwined, connected. They fit only on the big screen, it seems. But there are too many of us walking around with these hidden away. We are a cast of thousands, millions even, playing the walking dead, Zombies and other interesting characters in our secret movies. Maybe it’s time to emerge into the light of day and talk about trauma. Teach kids and young people coping tactics. Acknowledge the hurt inside, bring it to the surface, face it, and let it go. Live the best life. Be happy. Fight back.
Postscript: This piece was written almost a year ago. A year in which so much has changed – mostly for the better. I can’t claim a miracle. More a case of being in the right place at the right time – and finding my way at last. This piece is still valid and true; it speaks of my recent past, just not my present. Or the future.