It was explained to me a while ago about the formation of the limbic area in the brain. I hope I am remembering this correctly. It's the part of the brain that deals with the flight/fight/freeze syndrome. It learns how to develop from the experiences that are around the child at a early age. Once formed, it is responsible for telling the brain how to react in a stressful/dangerous situation.
I believe that my early years, and the experiences and emotions surrounding me at that time, are partly responsible for my depression. I'll be as brief as I can.
My father died 2 months before I was born. What terrible emotions must my mother have gone through at that time? Such a great loss. When she was in hospital having me, there would have been fathers visiting their newborn children. In those days they kept the mother in hospital for a week after giving birth. Such sadness. Any anyone who came to see us would have brought more sadness. My father's parents never got over losing their only son, I saw this for myself 20+ years later.
Then, when I was 20 months old, my mother died. So, more sadness and grief than you could poke a stick at. Back then there was no time spent on a child's feelings. So no-one would have considered me, what I needed, what I felt or what was best for me.
I had always thought this all happened when I was a baby. An actual baby, in your arms-type baby. It was only looking at one of my grandsons at almost 2 yrs old that it struck me how he would be fully aware if his mum left and didn't ever come back. I mean, that's how it must have seemed to me back then. One day she's here, the next she's gone. A baby knows its mother, knows her smell and her touch, has bonded with her. And then the mother is suddenly not there. Instead, there are my grandparents, all of them suffering their own grief. I don't know how they dealt with it all either.
So that's the first part of where I believe my depression comes from.
The second part comes from the rest of my upbringing. I was brought up by my maternal grandparents. Any time I have tried to suggest this be a reason, my aunt (she's lovely) always said that they did the best that possibly could for me and defended them to the hilt. The thing is, and this is very important, someone can work very hard, doing the best they can, but it is still very possible that what they did could have been very wrong for me.
A couple of examples:
No, I couldn't be brought up by my aunt. She offered, she had 2 girls my age, it would have been a younger family upbringing. The reason? My grandparents feared they wouldn't see much of me because my uncle was in the forces and stationed all over the place. That's selfish and definitely does not put the child's interests first. Instead I spend my out of school time with grandparents who were in their early 70s when I was 10. You do the math.
Schools here have catchment areas, so that whatever school you go to, the other kids in the neighbourhood will go there too. I was sent to a private junior school, where kids were driven in from all over the place. So no friends outside of school, no idea where they lived.
Then I was moved from the high school that all the local kids were going to. Instead I was sent to one close to home. All the kids from there lived two bus journeys away and I was not allowed to see them outside of school. While I fully understand that my grandparents were trying to give me the best education, I completely lacked the social skills to make friends. You're thinking I would have been making friends inside school? I was very quiet, but to a certain extent yes, I was making some friends there. This group of friends lived within a street of one another and met outside of school and at the weekend. I was not allowed to do this, so I was always a bit of an outsider.
I did have one friend, a girl who lived a few doors down from us. I think she had been deemed 'suitable'. One friend. One.
My upbringing was very strict. My grandfather believed the old 'children should be seen and not heard'. An early memory, as an example, when I was about 4. He called me into the room and told me to sit on a chair. I was there several minutes before I realised the radio was playing 'listen with mother' and I had been called so that I could listen to the story. Come on, if you were going to do that, you'd have had the child on your lap, wouldn't you? Not glare and disappear behind the newspaper.
I was so jealous of my two cousins. They had friends and bikes and made things with their mum. One time I was there they had made a little puppet theatre and they gave a show to the other kids and to me and my grandmother. There was so much life going on there. I think I was about ten then. Life at home was old and dark, my grandparents would have been in their early 70s and their house was stuck in the 1950s.
There are lots of people who have suffered a far worse childhood than mine. I was never hit, I was never abused in any form. So I know I've been pretty lucky really. However, the end result is that:
I have depression and anxiety
I don't make friends
I don't leave the house unless it's really necessary
None of my family have ever heard this. I firmly believe they don't want to. People often see what they want to see, and talk so they don't have to listen.
I spent two years living close to my family. I went to see them occasionally. At the end of the two years I moved to another job in another part of the country. While I had lived there I did not make a single friend. I had a boyfriend who came to see me every so often, but I didn't leave with so much as a phone number to keep in touch with anyone. I imagine my family thought I was enjoying life there and going out to the pub etc. Nope. I don't make friends.
I feel exhausted now that I've put all this down.
I do hope you haven't found it boring.
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