Glimpses of trauma

[kaberett]

Content notes: paranoia about death and serious illness.

My baby brother is in New Zealand, at the beginning of a four-month biking tour. Today is his birthday. He hasn't updated facebook since the 28th of November and he hasn't updated his tumblr for a bit longer than that. I know I know I know that this is because he is busy having enormous amounts of fun and hasn't been able to get online or charge his phone because he has been sleeping in fields, but - every time I stop and think about him for too long, I start convincing myself that he's actually died and my mother is going to hold off on telling me until I next see her. (She didn't tell me about Grossmutti's death for two or three days, until I saw her in person; she tried to avoid telling me about her cancer diagnosis until my first term at university was finished, i.e. to put it off several days until she next saw me in person.)

I'm kind of fascinated by the extent to which I can simultaneously recognise this as an utterly irrational conviction born of trauma, and be terrified that it's actually what's happened.

Comments

[raze]

One of the most frustrating things about paranoia/anxiety is that you can't think your way out of experiencing it. I hope you hear from your brother soon to help quell these feelings.

[jelazakazone]

I think your response is completely reasonable. I'm sure I'd feel exactly the same way. Heck, I'd probably think my brother was dead even without previous experiences of delayed notifcation :D

[wild_irises]

I am not worried about him, but I am concerned about you. Please let us know when you find out he's okay.

[kaberett]

Hah, so my mother has actually e-mailed me having a worry that he might have been savaged by sheep that left him for dead in a ditch, so I'm at least fairly confident that he's not SECRETLY DEAD at this point. ;) I will update (and also renew my resolve to actually apply CBT to my conviction that EVERYBODY IS DEAD...)

[crazyscot]

I haven't seen any news reports about harm befalling tourists recently. It's sufficiently rare that I expect I would have.

[kaberett]

Hah. Thank you. That does actually help.

[cadenzamuse]

Word. I still occasionally can't listen to voicemails, because voicemail = vague intimation something terrible has happened, and then I won't be able to get in touch with my parents, and they won't tell me what's happened until they collect me in person, and someone will be dead and they won't tell me. Ugh.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad./They may not mean to, but they do.

[silveradept]

And how rational it seems based on past experience. Hopefully, fears allayed soon through contact.