I was 14 my sister approx 16 or 17. She tells me she is going to kill herself by gassing herself in the bathroom. She ignores my pleas not to go ahead and she goes onto the bathroom locks the door and I hear her turn on the gas. I'm pounding on the door for her to come out. She doesn't so I call my father who I most probably knew would react the way he did. Which was breaking down the door and belting her. I cant remember anything after she came out, and got belted. Maybe she blamed me for calling my father, but I don't remember. I am 67 and 20 months ago my partner of 18 years threw himself of a cliff, killing himself. His suicide has opened up memories of my sisters attempt and I am stumped as to why I cant remember anything after she was rescued. We have never got on over the years and for me she triggers old stuff and its stressful for me trying to relate. It like I don't trust her and I feel like she is superficial with me, and she doesn't want to talk about the past as I now realise how ot affected me and I feel quite traumatized by what she did and cant talk to her about it to get some resolution.
Also can't find from her as to what happened after she was rescued. Is this called disassociative memory and why does one not remember?
Any help appreciated
12 Replies
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Since there are three years of my life I cannot remember at all, and I've been talking to someone about this only recently, I feel obliged to respond to you here.
I don't know the name of it, though I am told it is a protective thing we do to shield ourselves from our surroundings; memories which hold us back, sights which stop us in the street, we block out. The earlier we do it, the more likely it is we will continue to do it as we age.
For you it appears to be the case where you've witnessed your sister's breakdown, and the follow up which came from a lack of understanding on your father's part. Whilst his reaction may or may not make sense given the climate of how things were during your youth for both your family and the country as a whole - because laws change over time, that's a given, back then your father may have been doing what was considered the right response, whereas now we can view it in a different light - it has clearly left you with a mental scar which has recently reopened due to what has occurred with your spouse.
One thing it may be useful to consider is whether you want to know what it is you do not remember, though you must not feel pressured into having to know the truth. It may simply be that you felt your sister's emotion that day, and it stuck with you. Blocking something out doesn't always equate to something terrible, simply that it was better for you at the time to forget what occurred in order to survive. Bogging oneself down with memories is not progressive, and your fourteen year old self knew that in the same way that you would know not to touch the stove; it's a reflex thing. You don't think about doing it, but it's the best thing for you to do.
Naturally I do not know of your relationship with your sister today, or if your father is in contact. Personally, I believe it would be a good idea to talk to one, if noth both of them about it. Either of them could have their own recollections which may affect how they do or don't get along with you today, and airing the memories and questions may help to break down that barrier. What you don't want to do is think too hard, because you'll leave yourself with false memories and that will make things harder for you - I was careful not to say X or y could have occurred, in order to not plant false memories. Alternatively there may be some inexpensive therapists who may carry out a Skype session with you to help you see back to the time surrounding your sister's attempted suicide. I don't know if this is possible yet, but I'm not it is worth a try and something I will be trying myself; I want to remember, and so I'm going to find a way how to. For yourself, if you want to know whether out of curiousity or to relax...whatever reason, if you decide you want to know, the best way to get the truth is to talk. To a therapist or to a family member there that day. My biggest recommendation is to not ponder on it for too long, because then it will become a far greater deal for you than it already is, and you will have to talk to someone regardless. It's best now to decide what it is you want to happen, and then to do so whilst the choice is there, providing that makes sense to you.
Good luck with this.
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Thanks Leaping Lizard for your reply which is helpful. I agree with points raised and looking back there was so much I didn't understand. How she felt how my father felt and why he reacted the way he did. I think he most probably suffers from PTSD himself as a he went through a lot as a boy adult himself. He was refugee immigrant and no family support himself. At the time I can see now all I was feeling was how abandoned I felt by her breakdown, and it was shocking to me that she wanted to die.
My father eventually shot himself suicide when I was 23..so I think he may have had an untreated mental illness same for my sister, I could be wrong but she don't want to speak about it, and over the years we have been estranged which is where we are at now. So I will work on myself at the moment I feel I am making progress and do see a counsellor. I think somehow she blamed me and what I am finding out is how easily I have accepted people putting stuff onto me and how I have been a Miss Fixit. Thanks a lot
Your sister being superficial.she probably feels you betrayed her...even thou we were trying to save her...the outcome was she got a spanking...for crying out for help was met witj shaming.
I have just recently come to same conclusion, after almost 54 years of wondering what on earth I did to her, to receive the cold shoulder from her. I've had so much pain from her rejection and somehow she had a lot of power over me. I now see she as 16 year old, was met by further pain and rejection from my father, she didn't get the love and support from him that she needed and I was the person who got him and was complicit. She cant see I was caught between a rock and a hard place. But I think I cant remember her reaction to me cause I think she blamed me and I was somehow overwhelmed by that. Cause now since Mark died I am throwing blame back at people who are negative and I am finding that hard!!
Hi Nessa3 just thinking about the betrayal. I would have betrayed myself if I hadn't tried to save her. Its hard for me to get my head around this as I agree with you that she must have felt betrayed by my actions in getting my father to break the door down. So my conclusions are that she really wanted to go ahead and I should have done nothing? She feels betrayed when she's rescued? She has told me about het intention, made me an accomplice to her suicide and then feels betrayed cause I prevent het carrying it out. I don't know how serious she was, but it certainly traumatised me, and how much I am only just realising. When I spoke to her last time I had contact I tried to speak to her about her motivations re her attempt. She got angry and told me that happened 50 years ago get over it. Cheers
Often the psyche will do what it needs to protect us, so it may cause us to dissociate in the moment(s) of trauma if it feels we're about to be overwhelmed.
Trauma affects the brain which can impair memory consolidation which can cause there to be gaps in memory. (For more about this watch part one of this webinar series: healmyptsd.com/ptsd-webinars)
I understand that resolution would be ideal and it can be frustrating not to get it from your sister. Do know, however, that healing can happen without remembering everything, so it's possible to move ahead in other ways.
Thanks Michele I listened to your talk on shrink rap radio with Dr Dave. I am blown away by how trauma can affect us and as I have just opened the lid on mine cant believe how emotionally stuck I had been. Even my relationship with Mark was like a band aid! He was lovely person, but Its like I had to go through another suicide to get answers on how to get off the treadmill of running from feeling my pain? Can you point me in the direction of how to get resolution without remembering. I believe you have written some books, I went to our library but they didn't have your books, so I think I may have to try another source? Thanks a lot for sharing your experience.
You will looooovvve the podcasts. Those are my 6 favorite experts and they go deep into what happens during trauma, why and, most importantly, how to fix it.
Yes, I have written three books about trauma, PTSD, how trauma affects the brain, how trauma alters identity, and how to heal. The books are all available through bookstores and also here: healmyptsd.com/ptsd-books
Resolution without remembering can happen in so many ways, most successfully, in my personal and professional experience, when facilitated through alternative processes.
I am very new to this forum having originally joined the anxiety and depression site of health unlocked. From what I was told by my doctor I have GAD, which developed very quickly after a traumatic experience related to a health scare. My question is however whether there can be an overlap between GAD and PTSD.
I feel I have learned so much from you and others even just reading this thread. I really feel for Byjiar. I have not had anything like such traumatic experiences as Byjiar but there are many similarities particular in her relationship with her sister so I am wondering if buried and traumatic memories from childhood could be affecting me also. I had a loving mother and can remember alot about my interactions with her in my childhood but not much about my father and sister except some bad memories. My father, I am fairly sure suffered from his experiences of being quite seriously physically abused as a child as well as traumatic wartime experiences. As a result he was a rather cold and punitive father but not physically abusive. My sister and I were both very rejected by him all through our lives but were well loved by our mother. He was able to relate to us as babies and toddlers but not once we reached around 5 because according to my mother, my father felt we rejected him when we reached that sort of age. As they had one girl I was also made to feel I should have been born a boy who they jokingly named as Jimmy and that boys were better than girls. I really wished I had been a boy and dressed as one until around 11 years of age.
My sister was very jealous as an 18 month old after I was born and turned to my father . It is possible therefore that in some ways she had a double rejection if he then turned away from her when she was around 5 and began to assert her independence etc.
She bullied me all through our childhood and throughout our adult lives I have felt that she has a need to both seek attention from me but at the same time continue to try to hurt me whenever she can to the extent that I have grown to find the little child within me both hates and fears her. The rational side of me feels sorry for her but still wants to get away and have nothing to do with her. However I still feel sorry for her and feel I have to see her out of duty but I keep contact minimal. One face to face contact of a day a year but no phone calls at all. Emails and letters as much as she wants and I always reply promptly. She lives around 250 miles away.
When she was around 50 she became hospitalised from what at the time was described as psychotic depression from which I do not feel she has ever fully recovered. It was triggered when a client committed suicide who she felt she had failed in her role as a social worker. I too went into social work and progressed to be a service manager but she remained as a frontline social worker throughout her career which compounded her jealousy I believe. Her only son has Asperger's syndrome as does her husband, this is a big challenge for them and my husband and I have tried to support them over the years. My only daughter has married and has a very successful career.
My sister, in my view, and from what she has been told by psychiatrists, appears to have border personality disorder from developmental trauma in childhood but does not accept this.
I always considered myself stable and positive throughout my life until I had a health scare which spiralled me into what appeared to be the development of GAD and an episode of depression 2 years ago.
With the use of antidepressants I have appeared to recover really well but have been left with remaining minor physical daily symptoms of breathlessness which have lead me to believe that I am still stuck in fight or flight mode. I realise that the antidepressants only mask symptoms but in my case appear to have helped me to gain more insight into myself and others, possibly by reducing suppressed anxieties and self image issues I did not even realise I had.
I am beginning to think there are elements of my condition which relate to PTSD for several reasons:
The first is that I developed GAD following the health scare in which my GP wrongly thought I could have cancer of the oesophagus and put me on an urgent cancer pathway having an endoscopy within a week. I had the test without the more usual sedation out of choice so I could hear the result quickly as I have been very anxious about getting cancer since childhood. This was the only manifestation that I was at all a nervous person before I became ill. The test in itself was quite traumatic. I was eventually given the all clear but only after my anxiety and fear had built up to such an extent I had become terrified and began to experience really frightening symptoms of anxiety I had never had before.
I then realised that I had over reacted so greatly to to health scare because I had just had a major row with my sister following the death of my mother because her death made me feel liberated to stand up to her bullying for only the second time in my life.
This created the symptom of finding it difficult to swallow which was what lead to the GP thinking I may have cancer.
My recovery from my illness has helped me realise how much I was bullied by my sister and that I still remain under pressure from her throughout my adult life.
It lead me to set the boundaries with her I described earlier.
I have only met her once since my illness, we met for the day in London.
There were good moments in it but also moments which we argued and finally some moments in which we opened up a little with each other which was good but also made me realise how we see our childhood very differently. She in my view has put a positive gloss on the way we were treated by our father.
There was an emotional moment at the end of the visit for me when we were getting onto the tube together and I needed to help her to hold on or she would have fallen. I suddenly felt genuinely sorry for her and saw her as a vulnerable old lady who needed help. It is really odd but all my symptoms disappeared for around 6 weeks after that but have gradually crept back again. I became able to cry about it for a short while but am back to finding it difficult to cry again now. I do not feel I have mourned the death of either parent properly.
I forgot to mention that I had alot of dreams about both her and both my parents in which I felt some anxiety and guilt but were not frightening dreams. They started not long after I became ill and gradually disappeared after nearly a year. They were replaced by dreams related to my work which was also very stressful and in which I had to shoulder alot of responsibility. This was particularly so in the temporary contracts I took to troubleshoot difficult situations in which I was often seen as the baddy by exhausted and demoralised social work teams. I left my main social work manager role feeling devalued but did feel valued eventually again in my contract roles as I was able to turn around many failing teams. However those final roles just before retirement did take a huge amount out of me. This was particularly true of the last role in which I experienced the death of my mother, I had been very close to, during the role whilst also managing the huge demands of an inspection by Ofsted the county council was undergoing.
Really sorry this has been such a long post. Interestingly however I have experienced some relief just in writing it.
My questions are, do you think I have some elements of PTSD?
Will seeing more of my sister further traumatise me or help me to heal?
I am very stressed even contemplating seeing her and only do it out of duty once a year. My husband and daughter feel I should keep away from her and see her as having caused my illness in the first place.
Finally is there anything else that could help me? I certainly intend to try to get your podcasts etc and read books others recommend.
I would be so grateful for comments from you or anyone else on this website.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this.
Kim.
PS I have suddenly seen the significance of the false name I adopted when originally joining health unlocked in January 2019. I did it as an unconscious act, it just sort of happened when I was trying to think of a name!!!!
I agree with MichelleR. Ok, you are dealing with several things here. The gap in your memory, your sister's reaction but most importantly, the death of your partner in such dramatic circumstances. On top of that, it hits you in a moment of your life when many people feel quite lonely. I don't know if that is the case. About your memory: my suggestion would be sit with what happened, what you can remember, no more and understand that you did the right thing by calling your dad. You were a kid and your sister had no right to throw that on you. In my experience, if she was really willing to end her life, she wouldn't have told anyone for fear of being stopped, wait until being alone in the house and just get it done. I have the feeling- and forgive me if I am wrong- that it was one of those over dramatic gestures that we do when we are this young and we don't know better. It was not your fault. It backfired on her and your father shouldn't have punish her like that. Let it go. Let that unfair guilt go. You don't remember for a reason and you did what you had to do. About your sister, her reaction sounds to me like deep shame for what SHE did and anger because of the punishment. Sorry, girl, you messed up, your little sis did what she was supposed to do, deal with it. It is her problem, hers, not yours. Again, you did the right thing by any standards. You have to understand that from the mind of an adult.
About your partner, what a tragedy. I don't know if you are getting any support with that, but if you are not, I very much urge you to do so, see a good therapist, take good care of yourself. It is a terrible, terrible thing to happen and if something should stop us from going all the way and checking out, it should be the certainty of the trauma we will leave behind, even if we can only think of the poor people that will find us. Take care. I send you my signature big, warm, Mediterranean hug.
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