High Anxiety

I had anxiety as a child and it got worse when my mum left me at the school gate; all I wanted to do was run home after her (And I did, at least once a week) I used to say then that I hated school but I know now I didn’t. I was just afraid to be away from my mum and my home. My parents and the school thought I was being ‘difficult’ and disobedient (When I went home once in my vest and navy-blue PE knickers whilst the others were doing skipping or something, I remember overhearing my dad that evening saying “God Cath, can’t they lock her in the classroom or something? What the bloody hell is wrong with her. She’s not normal”) I wasn’t ‘normal’ and what was actually wrong with me has got a fancy name and acronym now – Separation Anxiety Disorder or SAD, which quite suits how it feels.

The school put me on ‘watch’ eventually but it didn’t stop me and the Great Escape continued until I went to grammar school. I was inordinately good at seeing escape opportunities which prompted my dad, during an episode of Colditz, to say “Cath, they want her in there. They’d all be home by next Sunday”

Separation anxiety disorder is not ‘normal’ in a child’s development (ergo, I wasn’t normal). It’s a serious emotional problem characterised by extreme distress when a child is away from the primary caregiver. It manifested itself in me as fear. I was always afraid. Afraid that something terrible would happen to my mum and mostly afraid I was going to be kidnapped or get lost (didn’t stop me running away from school in my pants though, did it?)

I was adept at school avoidance and would do anything to stay at home but sadly for me my mum was even more adept at making me go (“You’ll end up like Lenny” – the grown man who lived with his mother over the road and had to be called in for tea every night. “Here, let me put some holy water on your head; that’ll cure your headache” and other such bon mots) I got physically sick – a lot. I vommed at the drop of a hat. The top of the stairs was a favourite, so much so my dad had to replace a square of carpet and it didn’t quite match the rest. My mum was furious for years about it. The smell of Dettol and the sight of the old orange washing up/sick bowl are forever etched in my memory. She kept it in the spare room in the end for ease of access.

Sleep was a stranger most nights. I was a little insomniac; afraid of being alone, the dark and worried about nightmares about separation. It did mean that I read voraciously though. Enid Blyton, Brer Rabbit, What Katy Did, Little Women, the dictionary, the Bible (!), our previously unread Encyclopaedia Britannica’s …….and, most worryingly, Fanny Hill – Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. I found it in a box in the garage, aged 10. I had no idea what ‘springing bosoms’ or ‘delicious down’ was then and almost caused my dad to have a seizure when I asked at dinner one evening what a ‘mound of Venus’ was. He clearly knew but my mum didn’t. She said “isn’t it a statue with no arms?” My dad just said “yes – eat your tea and stop asking questions”

Separation anxiety disorder occurs because a child feels unsafe in some way but I wasn’t unsafe at home. We had a lovely house in a nice, tree lined suburban street. My parents were always there, however, my mum was terribly over-protective. Obsessively so. I know now that she was afraid she’d lose me, having lost 5 babies before they adopted me. She wouldn’t let me go on slides, in swimming pools, cross roads alone and most bizarrely, allow me to use electrical appliances (I still have no idea why) She once put my Louby-Lou doll on a garden incinerator because she heard that they were flammable if left by an open fire. I tried to explain that we only had a gas fire so the risk was negligible but if fell on deaf ears. It was like she had to prove its flammability by burning it. Brilliantly, it took ages to combust and I recall my dad ‘helping the fire along’ with a squirt of paraffin. I now know that parents and children can feed one another’s anxieties.

What is key in this is adoption. The day our primal wound is opened is the day the attachment bond and the emotional connection formed between an infant and its mother is broken. From the moment an adoptee leaves its mother, the coping mechanisms begin. We add another way of being and forever revert back to those coping mechanisms. They are deeply imprinted in our neurological system. However, there is another expectation which comes from living with a non-biological family. Verrier calls this the adaptive response. The baby searches for genetic cues: Shape of face, eyes, mouth; Colour of skin, eyes, hair; Sounds of heartbeat, tone of voice; Scent of parents; Feel of skin, hair. Everything is unfamiliar so the baby cannot relax and remains highly vigilant.

Whilst I am sure my parents tried to make me feel a secure attachment bond to them, the initial terrifying and traumatic separation from my mother contributed massively to my separation anxiety. It’s the trauma that cannot be recalled but is remembered.

If you read about helping a child with separation anxiety disorder now, parents are given great advice on education, empathy, listening, respect and talking about it with the child. In a 1960’s semi in Birmingham, it was a different story all together.

I was often sent to my room to “think about things” – all I thought about was that I was on my own.

My parents were not demonstrative or great talkers at all (as were many of their time) and found it easier not to talk about anything. My dad went in the garden or shed and my mum prayed to one of the array of statues of saints that were dotted around the house. I went to my room. Neither they or I understood my behaviour and it became something we didn’t talk about (except for the day of the coming home in my knickers, of course)

None of us anticipated separation issues very well, either. I once went on a school trip for 5 days to Ireland and despite me saying I really didn’t want to go, off I jolly well went (It was with the school. You know, the place that caused me most anxiety?) My mum had to fly over after 2 days and bring me home as I was becoming more and more hysterical. Well, I had told them I didn’t want to go. My mum was stoically catholic about it all but my dad was bloody furious. The garden and shed were immaculate for a good few weeks after my shameful return.

I went through my grammar school years in a constant state of anxiety, leaving on the first day I could, with no intention to return for A-levels (Not that my parents encouraged further education – “what you need, lady, is a job”) I still feel anxious when thinking about it and I left school 39 years ago. An old school friend tried to get me to go to a high school reunion with her a few years ago. I had other plans…..❤️