A history, in brief. One of the most traumatic events of my past was the loss of my older brother when I was nearly 4. This was something my mother never recovered from, and something that would profoundly impact the rest of my life. Looking back I’ve come to believe that my lack of understanding as a child led to psychological disturbances. I think I had childhood anxiety and something I once read described as ‘magical thinking’.
I don’t remember anyone explaining properly to me what had happened. Perhaps they did, but I don’t remember it and I grew up with very confused thoughts about the matter. I wished every single night, for what I recall as years, for him to come back. I prayed tirelessly and made silent pacts with God. If I could just behave well enough, he’d be back.
I felt intensely lonely and shame ridden. I imagined my brother as a perfect person and couldn’t understand why he had gone. The fact everyone was so upset showed me he was perfect and that I wasn’t enough to make them happy. I learnt that he was good and I was bad. I was convinced God had taken the wrong one. And I grew with these thoughts. It was only many many years later, after much mental torment and a life lived through symptoms of BPD that I looked back on this thinking and realised how damaging it was for the personality that was forming.
I have a lot of sympathy now for that little girl, and anger that she was failed. Surely someone should have seen I wasn’t ok? That my family wasn’t? Surely someone could have helped? It was the 80s and things were different, maybe now they would, maybe not. But anyway these realisations are important to me and I think I need to invest in caring for that poor girl now.
Mad Miss E’s Recovery 