Connections

 

Lately I'm feeling really “alone”. Trauma impacts our lives. It creates anxiety and depression, things that I now realize I've suffered since childhood. It creates isolation. Isolation isn't just being physically alone. It's being emotionally alone. It's being around other people but not being connected. I was just watching an episode of the tv show Bones and in it Booth and Brennen are leaving the Jeffersonian. All the characters are connected. They are like family and their friendships make them family. They all really care for one another and they are both saddened by their colleagues leaving , and happy for their future. I've never felt that kind of connection in my life. I think the closest I've felt was when I worked at Bathurst Animal Clinic. I was there for nine years and we (the staff) had a good camaraderie, and socialized outside of work. But those friendships didn't maintain when I left the clinic. While I remained friendly with the clinic and still used it for my animals care, not being part of the staff excluded me from the social contact. And when I left the job there was no parting party, no good luck with your new venture, no hugs, no “we'll miss you's”. So I guess our connections were superficial.

I learned at a very young age that if you are vulnerable you'll get hurt. When we open ourselves up emotionally and get hurt, we're reluctant to allow ourselves to be that vulnerable again. And that invisible wall we put up to protect ourselves, isolates us.

I wonder now if being self employed, working freelance, was a way to protect myself from getting too attached. A way of keeping enough distance to not get hurt.

Isolation. You might be around people and interacting with them, but you're not 'connected'. Everyone is at arms length. Fear of being hurt, embarrassed, humiliated, and belittled creates the perfect storm for isolation.

It's a vicious circle. Trauma leads to anxiety and depression, which lead us to isolate, which feeds trauma.

My dad was a loner. He didn't have any friends. He had work friends but they were confined to 'at work'. My mother once told me that my dad told her that he lost all his friends in the war and didn't want to let anyone get that close again. My dad was uncomfortable with connection. And indeed he never let anyone get too close. Not even us. He was detached from his family and emotionally detached from us. There was no love or affection or deep emotional connections shown between my parents either. Lots of obligation and duty, but no real affection. I think the trauma of the war caused my dads isolation. My mothers narcissism caused hers .

The 'surface' connections we have with co-workers etc. act like a bandaid to mask the emotional wounds caused by trauma. But the forced isolation of the pandemic has ripped that bandaid off. And now I'm really feeling the absence of connection. The absence of being loved. The absence of being 'part' of something. The absence of ever having felt 'special' to someone. Even with the extended family I have (cousins), I feel like I'm on the outside looking in. I've never been “part” of a family. Never belonged anywhere. And now I fear that I've become the person they pity. Even recent texts to my cousin have been ignored. That new connection is waning

Parents Childhoods

My parents grew up in times of hardship. They had rough childhoods . My grandfather on my mothers side was widowed and left with five young children. He got remarried to a woman several years his junior and they had five more children. My mothers step-mother, as she was always referred to (I don't know her name) was a nasty piece of work. I suppose I could say in her defence that she likely married because God forbid you were a 'spinster' in those days. She probably saw my grandfather as a good catch because he had his own business . She knew she was inheriting five kids but perhaps she was not prepared to give birth to five more. Whatever the case, she was cruel to the children. She beat them. She humiliated them. She was psychologically and physically abusive. And even though my grandfather ran his own factory (sewing) and they should have been financially middle class, snippets of stories told over the years suggested that he, like most Irish men of the time, drank away most of his income. It was the plight of many an Irish wife in the 1930's to try to feed their families with the pittance given them after their husbands spent the bulk of their wages at a local pub. Add in a healthy dose of Catholicism, no birth control, and babies born whether you wanted them or not .... ya .... it was a rough life. Now of course there were happy families. And those that only had a few children. Even poor happy families. My mother had relatives who were not as impoverished and whom she loved and envied for for their tight family units. She was unlucky to have a mother who died before she was old enough to remember her, and to have had the misfortune of inheriting a wicked step mother. She grew up in a time where the 'class' system still existed. The upper class. The middle class. The lower class. And those who were so poor as to be without a class. I think because of my grandfathers status in the community, being a factory owner, my mothers family probably were in the middle class but functioning on a lower class income due to drinking $$ away. What class you were in. How people perceived you, was very important. Keeping up appearances it was called. Even if you had nothing, you had to appear as if you had everything. I'm sure my mother and her siblings would have some memories of fun times. From what little was shared, it would seem that was when they were older. I remember my mother telling me how she and her sister (my Auntie Betty) used to cycle all around Ireland on fun day trips. Interestingly, my mother and all her siblings of age, joined the British Army/Navy/Air Corps as a way to get out of Ireland. According to my mom, they all wanted to get to England for a better life. Eventually the whole family, including my grandfather, made it to England. I don't know what my maternal grandmothers name was or what kind of person she was , or if she was the love of my grandfathers life, how old she was when she died, or if my grandfather was devastated by her death. I know that she left behind five very young children. And I think I remember being told that there was a sixth child that only lived a few months. I don't know my moms step-mother died of , or her name (Margaret??). I don't think she was alive at the time Granddad moved to England. And I don't know who the extended family of cousins are. I think I met some of them when I was a teenager on a visit to England/Ireland, but I really don't remember them. I don't know who my grandfathers brother was, but I know that two brothers married two sisters. The O'Sullivan brothers married the Brown sisters. My mother had an Auntie Mary whom I met on our visit to Ireland. I wonder if she was my grandmothers sister .... the other Brown sister. She had a son named Willy who was around my mothers age, so perhaps he was my mothers cousin? Willy had siblings but I don't know who they are. I don't remember my Granddad Danny but I know he knew me. I think he died when I was around three years old. I think there might be a few photo's of me with him. There are no photo albums. Just loose photos in drawers with no information written on the backs. I do remember my mom telling me that my granddad used to spoon feed me whiskey.

My dad grew up in England. He had a sister and a brother. Doris and George. His mother died when he was about twelve years old. I don't know her name. I think she was of German descent because my dad talked about his Uncle Oysh which is a German name. My dad knew his grand parents because his grand mother had an African Grey Parrot, and his Uncle Oysh used to teach the parrot to swear in German. My dads mom had a Pomeranian dog named Breenie who died just a couple of weeks after she did. My dad said they believed the dog died of a broken heart because she stopped eating and pined for his mom. He also told me that everyday after dinner his mom used to have an hour rest . She would sit in her rocking chair with Breenie on her lap and everyone knew not to disturb her 'me' time. I think they lived in the country or a rural area. I recall something about a bakery. My dad loved baked goods and bread and always said that he loved the smell of fresh baked goods > reminded him of his childhood. Did my dads family run a bakery? I remember my dad talking about his dad making deliveries by horse drawn wagon. And the horse was named Mary. And his dad had a wire haired terrier and loved that type of dog. And all his dogs had the same name. He only had one at a time but they were all called by the same name. For the life of me though, I can't remember what that name was. I think it was something fairly generic though, like Rover or Rusty or Roger. I think all of that might have been life before his mother died. After his mother died, his dad re-married a woman named Kit and she was a widow with two children. Bill and Barbara. And then she had a daughter with my my grandpa. Brenda. So my dad had two full siblings. George and Doris. Two step siblings. Bill and Babs. And a half sister. Brenda. I think, but I'm not sure, that after my grandpa married Kit, they lived in a more urban area. I think this because my dad spoke about how during the war, all the children were sent to stay with foster families in the country to protect them from German bombs being dropped on English cities. Due to fear that German bombing would cause civilian deaths , the British government decided to evacuate children, mothers with infants and the infirm from British towns and cities. The first wave of the evacuation was September 1^st, 1939 - the day Germany invaded Poland and two days before the British declaration of war. My dad would have been 13yrs old at the time . Over the course of three days 1.5 million women and children were sent to rural locations considered to be safe.

My dad was with a foster family for about a year and then he decided to leave and go to work. He worked for a blacksmith at one point. He joined the Royal Navy as soon as he was able and was sent to war. I think his childhood was not awful compared to some. He wasn't abused and had fond memories of his mother, grand parents, and Uncle Oysh. He did have the trauma of losing his mother and being shipped off to live with strangers just a year after her death. And of course, the war itself.

I don't remember my Grandpa George. I don't know if he was still alive when I was born. I think I might have met Kit though. Briefly on our visit to England. All I really remember about Kit is that my mother didn't like her and spoke badly of her. I can't recall seeing any photos of my dads family. He really didn't talk much about his life. His brother George was killed in the war. His sister Doris disappeared and assumed dead by the family. And he lost all his navy friends in the war. As it turned out, his sister was not killed. She got pregnant out of wedlock and I guess felt she couldn't return home, or simply didn't want to. I don't know the circumstances of the father of her child .... it might have been a great romance with a tragic ending. Somehow she ended up in New Zealand and her son found my dad when he (my dad) was in his 60's, and reconnected them. We met her when we went to Australia after my sister died. We made a side trip to New Zealand to spend a week with Doris. She was awesome. I really really liked her. And she had a cat named Dutch. Her son, my cousin, is quite a bit older than I am. We stayed in touch for a few years after our visit to NZ, but then lost touch again. My dad and his sister were both terrible letter writers and this was before email .....

Somewhere along the line my dad disconnected with family. I know he had some friends after the war because he was in the police force and used to go to pubs with his friends. That's how he met my mom. It was his police sergeant and friend, Dickie Dunn, who introduced him to my mom. I think my mother was friends with the wife, so they set my mom and dad up on a date. I seem to recall Dad saying he drove a motorcylce . And of course, as a London Bobby, a bicycle :-) I'm not sure when exactly or why my dad withdrew from having friends. Maybe coming to Canada and not knowing anyone was a trigger.