Subliminal

Subliminal

Based on a True Story

James Green


USD 21,99

Format: 13,5 X 21,5
Number of Pages: 184
ISBN: 978-3-99064-532-1
Release Date: 12.02.2019
Mental disorders are no longer frowned upon. Anyone can be susceptible to have a mental disorder. These disorders sometimes arise out of the circumstances of one’s life story. James Green a sufferer himself offers solutions and advice to those who have and who live with this disorder.
Chapter One
DISORIENTATION
“First they come in flashes, then they come in floods: Memories.”
(Author unknown)
I was on the Piccadilly line London underground with my wife and my daughter when I had a major panic attack. The anxiety that I was experiencing was horrendous, I had this overwhelming fear of imminent death. As panic and fear began to sink their heavy claws into me, only one thing mattered – I had to get off the train. Moving or not, I had to get off this train. I pulled at the train doors, I rattled the frame, I pushed at the windows. My wife and my seven-year-old daughter were terrified by the wave of panic that had washed over me as I fought with all my might to get off a train that was hurtling at forty miles per hour, thirty metres below the city of London. The train finally stopped at Piccadilly Circus station. I rushed out onto the platform panicking, looking for a way out away from the masses of people but when I looked at the signs which were in English, EXIT-WAY OUT – I could not understand them,which made me even more anxious. I was so confused and disorientated that I didn’t know where I was or why I was there. I remember looking at Marina my wife and my daughter Sarah
and I could not understand why they were looking at me with such a shocked expression. I was desperately looking for a way out, my mind was in turmoil and my heart was thumping and beating so fast. All my senses were so heightened as though I was in direct danger from something but I didn’t know what. Then I noticed that people were walking up the steps, so I thought that this must be the way out. So, I frantically sprinted up the steps as quickly as I could pushing people out of the way until I finally got to the top. Once I reached outside I felt a slight sense of relief; however, I still didn’t feel safe. I went over to a bench nearby to sit down and to try and make sense of what was happening to me. Meanwhile, Marina and Sarah had caught up and they were staring at me with great concern. Sarah had tears in her eyes and my wife was shocked at what had just taken place. She asked me what the matter was and why I was acting so strange and erratic, but I just looked at her, wondering who this woman was and not really understanding what she was saying. It all sounded so confusing to me. I was wondering how this woman knew me, I didn’t recognize her, my own wife. But I sensed that she wasn’t going to do me any harm. Marina stood next to me and stroked my head gently with compassion to calm me down, with Sarah close to her side, gripping hold of her arm looking at me bewildered. Throughout this whole bizarre experience, I couldn’t speak, I don’t know why. Each time I desperately tried to say something, but nothing came out, as if I was verbally paralyzed. Eventually, after about fifteen minutes, I came to my senses and everything returned to some sort of normality. I hugged both of them and I assured them that everything was okay with me. Marina insisted that I go straight away to a hospital. She knew that I was a workaholic and that I had been working so hard prior to our holiday in London. She thought that I had definitely snapped and that I needed medical care. I was transfixed by the idea that our holiday in London was set to come to a very abrupt end if I couldn’t get my act together. I tried to put the pieces back together as quickly as I could. I was determined to make sure that we saw out our hard-earned trip in the best way we could. I convinced her that we should carry on with our holiday in London, and that as soon as we got back to Germany where we lived and worked that I would seek help. I had had incidents similar to this one prior to my coming to London, but I thought that it was due to too much stress with work, and that once I was
on holiday that I would be all right. I had kept it a secret from my family and my friends that I had been having panic attacks so as not to worry them. I live in a sleepy quaint little German village surrounded by hills and forests. Most of the men who live in the village are farmers. It’s a tight-knit community, if anybody needed any help, there was no hesitation from the rest of the community to offer a lending hand. I feel relatively satisfied and safe here. Two weeks later after arriving back in Germany from our holiday in London I was checking into a clinic in Germany in a town called Neukirchen. Just before Marina, Sarah and I arrived there, many worrying thoughts were running through my mind. I kept thinking that the doctors and the nurses would pump me full of medication to keep me sedentary. Or that they would find something wrong with me and that they would have to keep me there indefinitely. I was hyping myself up into a state where I couldn’t concentrate on my driving; my wife had to take over and drive the last part of the journey to the clinic. When we eventually arrived, we proceeded to make our way to the reception desk. I was having extreme difficulty filling in the administration form. I couldn’t even write my name or my address …. I just couldn’t concentrate properly. My wife and my daughter looked at me in desperation. I noticed that seeing me in this state, was making Sarah feel uneasy. My wife took over the filling in of the form as she knew that it was too much for me to handle. I felt ashamed and I was embarrassed that she had
to do this for me, I felt like a helpless child whose mother had to help him. Once we had finished with all the paperwork which the institution required, the nurse showed me to my room where I would be spending the next six weeks. My wife and my daughter helped me to bring some of my belongings to the room. I hugged Marina quite tightly and I felt the tears roll down my face, I didn’t want her to leave me here. I gave Sarah a big hug and we said our goodbyes with tears in our eyes. They left the room and once I had shut the door and I leaned back against the wall, I cried uncontrollably for what seemed like hours. I looked around the room, it wasn’t big, there was a single bed, a small wardrobe,
a desk and a chair. The walls were painted a pastel colour of beige which was pleasant on the eyes. On the desk was a block of A4 paper and a pencil, to draw with. There was also a journal to write down anything. I had my own small bathroom with a shower and a toilet. My room was on the first f loor and as I looked out of the window I could look down onto the grassed area where there was white garden furniture. I tried to turn the handle to swing the window open, so that I could let some
fresh air into the room, but the window would only tilt inwards and could not swing open. Then I suddenly realised that it was probably meant to do this in case some of the patients decide to try and jump out. As a thirty-nine-year-old who had served in the Royal Engineers of the British Army I had never felt so lonely and so vulnerable like this before, not knowing what to expect at this clinic. I
wasn’t in control and I wasn’t exactly sure what was wrong with me. It was scary to me, intimidating even. I felt like a small boy being abandoned by the only two people who I really trusted and loved, but of course, they knew that I needed help and that this was the right place to get it. And deep down I knew that too. My recovery must come first so that the two people who I love most in life didn’t come last. In London, that was my wake-up call. I couldn’t ignore that incident, not like the other ones I had
had. One incident happened while I was watching a programme on television. I just started crying for no reason at all. Also, there were days where I had blackouts and I couldn’t remember things, losing concentration. I started to get angry over stuff for no real reason, but this incident in London really scared me. After unpacking my belongings, I stood in front of the window staring out in a trance-like state, not really looking at anything in particular. Then a knock at my bedroom door jolted me back
into consciousness again. It was a nurse who had come to my room to hand me a timetable of all the therapy sessions that I was going to have in the time that I was going to spend at the clinic. There was a young guy with her who was going to give me an induction on where everything was at this institution; so that I would know exactly where to go for certain treatment sessions. That evening at six p.m. I made my way down the hallway to the dining hall where all the patients ate their meals. It was on the same f loor as my room. I reached the dining hall and I sat down at the table designated for me, which I shared with another three people. I looked sheepishly around at all the tables where the other patients were busy eating their meals. However, I noticed one young girl, she must have been in her
late twenties, sat picking at her food with a fork. It was quite apparent by seeing how extremely thin she was that she had an eating disorder. I remember thinking to myself; after all the events in my life, I’ve ended up here as the only Brit in a psychosomatic clinic surrounded by hectares of forest in the middle of Germany. For the next three weeks, one of the rules was that we were not allowed to use our mobile phones to contact our family or our friends. We were not allowed to use our computers regarding work; we couldn’t even watch television or listen to the radio. The reason for all of this was apparently so that the patients, in conjunction with the therapist, would be able to focus on our psychosomatic disorders and not be distracted by any external inf luences. Well, the next day was my first session to talk with a therapist. I introduced myself and the first thing that I said to her was, “I’m
not sure why I’m here exactly, I feel out of place as I am not mentally ill like all these other people that are here.” “Mmm … of course you’re not,” replied the therapist with a slight nod of her head and a grin on her face. In this session, we just made small talk with one another to familiarise ourselves
with one another. The following day as I told her of the incident that had occurred in London and a few more incidents leading up to that particular one, we both had to chuckle over the comment that I had made in my first session about how I wasn’t ill like the other people there. I had to start admitting to myself that there was something not right. I had been admitted to this clinic by my local doctor on the grounds of Burnout Syndrome that had occurred from my years of being a workaholic and a perfectionist. Over the next six weeks of therapy sessions at this institution, I would remember painful but also enjoyable experiences from my past, which I had apparently suppressed for many years. For quite some time I had been getting flashbacks from my past, and I was trying to deal with them in my
own way. Also, I knew that sometimes, I used to react to what some people used to say to me, and I knew that it wasn’t right how I had snapped at them. I could feel that they had trigged something in me. Well, this is my story …
It was a sunny May morning at about nine a.m. when I made my way across from the building where I was accommodated to the building where my therapist had her office. The buildings were situated in what I would call a small park, with grassed areas, flowers, bushes and all of this was surrounded by a vast forest. This would be my third session with her and she had told me the last time when I had seen her that this time she wanted me to tell her a little bit about myself and about England, from the earliest age that I could remember. So, the last two times that I had spoken to her, I had sat in a chair a short distance from her only this time she had asked me if I would like to lie down on the sofa while I talked.
I said, “No I’m okay sitting thanks.” I was still partly in denial that there was anything wrong with me and I thought that I didn’t need to lie down like the ill people. I asked her if I could start off at the year when I was born to give her a little bit of background information about my parents and then lead up from there to experiences of what I could start to remember? She nodded, and I started to explain.
In 1959 I was born in a town called Ipswich in the east of England, surrounded by lovely countryside. My father Edward who was a cabinet maker by trade was about a hundred and seventy centimetres
tall, slim built with slicked back black hair. He had met my mother Eileen in 1954. She was from London, and she was an attractive lady with long shoulder length black hair and quite petite. My father had been in the Royal Air Force stationed in Egypt. They had met one time in London when he was on leave from Egypt. When he returned to Egypt they kept in contact by writing letters. A year later he had finished his two-year contract with the Royal Airforce and he returned to London to marry my
mother. After a short period of living together in London, they moved to Ipswich. It seemed like they were quite happy living and working in Ipswich, and it wasn’t long before my sister Ann was born in 1960, then my second sister Heather was born in 1961. Things seemed to be moving along nicely for the next few years. I must have been about the age of six or seven and I could recall my hearing the Beatles on the radio and my watching the Rolling Stones on television, but in black and white as they
didn’t have colour television then. I remembered that we were living at seven Ashcroft Lane and I had to go to a school called Clifford Elementary school, just around the corner from where
we were living. One day, on my way home from school, I was walking past the back gardens of the houses and I could see bed sheets pegged on the clothes lines drying in the soft warm breeze. As I looked up I saw just a few clouds in the light blue sky. It seemed so tranquil, with just the odd car going by on the main road, it was all so peaceful. Once I reached home I opened the front door to see my mother sitting on the stairs in front of me crying inconsolably. I timidly walked towards the stairs and I sat down beside her. I asked her what was wrong. She didn’t answer me. It made me feel so sorry for her. I felt so helpless that I couldn’t do anything to console her. I just sat next to her, hoping that my being there gave her the feeling that she wasn’t alone. After a short while, she managed
to compose herself slightly, and in-between her bouts of sobbing, she reassured me that all was fine, and that she would soon be okay. But looking back on that situation knowing what I know now, I realised that she was frustrated and that she was not satisfied with how her life was unfolding.
I started bedwetting practically every night as the situation with my parents got more intense as time went on. This caused more arguments with them regarding me. I felt so guilty that I was constantly
doing this almost every night in my sleep, but I couldn’t stop it. The constant arguing which I heard between them made me feel unsafe and insecure. Around the same time period, one day, my mother came to the school to pick me up. She usually only did this, so that she could then go on to one of her friends, and she could drop my sisters and me off while she went off somewhere else for a few hours.
Anyway, my teacher called my mother into the classroom to speak to her. That day all the children had to draw a picture in art class and all I had drawn were black lines about ten centimetres long, with a pencil, all over the paper. She felt that I was very disturbed about something happening at home; not just because of the marks that I had drawn on the paper, but because she had noticed that I was becoming more and more withdrawn. While they were talking in the classroom I had to sit out in the hallway and I had to wait for them to finish. I could faintly hear them even though the door was closed, but as all the other pupils had already gone off home there was a stony silence in the hallway.
That evening I could hear my parents discussing the issue regarding me, but they hadn’t once spoken to me about it. As time went on my mother kept breaking up with my father for short stints at a time, and each time she took me to London to stay with relatives where I had to enrol in the local school every time. Then after a certain amount of time, she would return to my father in Ipswich again and this procedure would be repeated over and over again. Each time when my mum and I came
back from London we would move to a different house. This occurred three times from what I can recollect, and that meant three different schools before I eventually ended up at Clifford Elementary School as number four. This was very stressful for me, my not really having a sense of belonging
and no permanent friends. Each time that I had changed schools I was reluctant to make new friends again as I didn’t want to experience the heart-rending feeling when I had to eventually leave them behind, when I would have to move again. By doing this I became even lonelier. Feeling lonely is not being alone, it’s the feeling that nobody cares. While my mother and I were staying in London I overheard my uncle Alan, her brother, talking about me. He was a tall man with a deep voice and he was quite assertive. I heard him always telling my mother how I should grow up and stop being a cry
baby. I’m too timid that I should be more outgoing and assertive. I’m always afraid of everything, I needed to toughen up. Of course, constantly hearing this put my confidence and my self-esteem right down. This stuck in my head for many years, I knew that what he was saying was true, but I couldn’t help it. With the continuous uncertainty, all the time of going to different schools and living with different people in unfamiliar places made me like this. My parents were always arguing about money
and a multitude of other things made me fearful all the time. This made me highly sensitive to everything. It was as if I was in survival mode twenty-four hours a day. What also bothered
me was that I never knew where my sisters were staying when my mother took me to London each time. In 1966, my third sister Susan was born. We were living at seven Ashcroft Lane at the time. My mother and my father were debating about breaking up completely now, or making a new start together in Australia or Canada. This was the last resort to salvage their marriage; to give it one last chance and try to work it out. We had relatives in both countries who would be able to assist us in getting there. My uncle David who was my mother’s twin brother, lived in Australia, and my mother’s cousin Robert
lived in Canada. I thought at the time, that perhaps everything would get better then. My parents would stop arguing and being angry with one another. I imagined them being happy living in this other country that we would be moving to. At around this time, I even stopped my bedwetting. The deciding factor for my parents in choosing Canada was that Robert’s brother was in the process of emigrating to Canada from England, with his family. I believe that my parents must have thought, that if they were
brave enough to take the risk and to take the plunge to move to Canada, then we are going too. I remembered saying to myself just before we emigrated to Canada – when I’m living in Canada
I want to become strong and confident; not weak and scared all the time like I am in England. I have to make sure that I do this. “Do you mind if I have a few minutes break?” I asked. “Of course not, take your time there is no rush,” my therapist replied. I felt a little strange explaining all this information about me and my family to her, but I knew deep down that I had to do it if she was going to help me to get better. I had never spoken about this to anyone before, except my wife. So, I got up out of my chair and I took a big deep breath and I walked over to the window. As I looked out of the window for a brief moment, I calibrated my thoughts. After a few minutes, I sat down and I carried on.

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