Bad Thoughts

When I was very young, I developed a way of dealing with the memories of events that were so painful (to me) that I couldn't bear to dwell on what had happened. None of these traumas were anything like those that cause people to develop Dissociative Identity Disorder, and I never got close to creating an alternate persona to take over in times of trouble. And yet, I must have been very sensitive and empathic for relatively minor incidents to cause such turmoil in my brain.

One of the earliest "bad thoughts" occured when I was perhaps 4 or 5 years old. My mother and I were taking a train to visit a relative - possibly cousin Molly. We had to change trains in Brighton (a very large station), and we had some time to kill, so my mother ordered a coffee from the café which - like most stations - was far from cheap. I suspect she had only just got off work as a nurse and needed the caffeine to carry her through the stress of the trip. I know it must have been important to her as it used up most of the available cash she had with her. It was served up in a china mug, so she had to drink it there - she couldn't take it with her. As it was handed to her, they announced that our train was at the platform. Immediately, I sensed the multitude of dilemmas. There was the uncertainty of how long the train would be there before it departed. She could drink the coffee quickly, and burn her mouth. She could wait till it was cool, drink it, and risk missing the train. She could just leave it behind and waste those precious pennies she'd worked so hard for. I'm quite certain that I was agonizing over these far more than she was, although perhaps I did pick something up from her demeanor.

I don't recall which option she chose - possibly a combination of all three. I'm sure she didn't finish the cup. I know whatever happened in the end wasn't something I wanted to remember. Wasting the money hit me the hardest, even at that tender age. So I took the memory, and stored it away in my brain. Compartmentalized it. In the pocket I called 'Bad Thoughts'.

The pocket grew over time. I'd open it to insert a new thought, and shudder in horror at the stored ones that oozed out momentarily as I did so. Sometimes, in the depths of the night, I'd sneak a quick peek in to test my mental fortitude. It would always leave me reeling, though.

In order to write this, I've had to take one of those quick peeks. It's got better over the years, and I suspect much of what went in there has vanished without trace. There's still a few memories that fight to escape, however - clear as the day I stored them.

One that fights against staying hidden is the Incident of the Eggy Toast. While at my last year at boarding school, I was assigned to Newton House. What this meant was that, although as one of the few girl pupils I stayed at one of the teacher's houses, I took all my meals with the Newton boys, sitting at the house head table with the prefects and head boy. The head boy this year was Damian McKinney, on whom I had an inexplicable crush. One Sunday morning, I ended up sitting next to him at his usual place at the head of the long table, my fried Sue across from me, and my other friend Kate to my right. Further down were all "the boys" - those strange creatures who thought I was strange and always gave me a wide berth. On the menu today was "eggy toast", bread dipped in egg and then fried, a very popular but rare treat at the school. The silver platter with servings for the whole table had been placed in front of Damian, ready for him to serve up and distribute after we were all seated. We were standing behind our chairs, waiting for the school chaplain to finish saying grace...

...and I saw the platter start to wobble and tip over. No-one else had noticed. I hoped it would not fall before grace was over, but it didn't seem like my hope would come true. I reached out in an attempt to balance it, hoping that I could do so without interrupting the reverent silence. However, I was a very clumsy teenager, and instead of helping the platter find a more stable spot on the table, I either missed it entirely, or aided it on its loud and tragic journey to the floor. All eyes were on me. I knew that no-one would believe I'd been trying to rescue their meal, as all they saw was my movement and the crash. It must have looked like I had deliberately pushed it off the table. To make matters worse, the kitchen informed us there were no spare portions, and our entire table went without the main breakfast course that morning.

The trauma of what happened that day is what makes it still so very very difficult for me to act in times of emergency. It wasn't the first, nor last time that I made a move to right a wrong, only to find out that in my haste I ended up making things worse than they were before. I just hope I never have this tested in a life-threatening situation.

In the grand scheme of things, these may appear minor incidents compared to those that befall others. Not all my "bad thoughts" are memories - some are things I wanted to do, but never dared. Things I knew would be the wrong thing to do. Impulses that were best buried. Even projections of disasters that might have happened if events had gone differently. As my life went on, fewer thoughts were assigned to that pocket, but it never went away.

I think I'm going to close it back up now, after letting those two out for you all to gaze upon. With any luck, it will stay closed for quite some time.