My Deep-Seated Fear of Abandonment
And how I think it all started
In the summer of 1994, when I was about 10 years old, my parents put me on a plane and sent me to London. No one accompanied me. I was all by myself.
I had no way of knowing this back then, but that trip came to be one of the defining experiences of my life, which continues to haunt me to this very day. In fact, it was only recently, while I was getting ready to leave Istanbul and come back to London, that I came to realize how deeply traumatic that trip had been for me and how it left an indelible scar in my psyche, the pain of which keeps flaring up whenever I travel somewhere.
But why would anyone do something like that to their child?
As fucked up as the whole thing sounds, my parents did not wish to do me harm. On the contrary. They were sending me to London so that I could improve my English. I had just completed the English preparatory level in middle school, so my parents thought it would be a good idea to send me to London so that I could practice my newly acquired skills. Plus, my uncle lived there, and I was going to stay with him, so what could go wrong?
Turns out, pretty much everything.
The problem was, I didn’t know my uncle. I’ve seen him once before in my life, the year before, when I was 9 years old. He was basically a stranger to me, slightly more familiar than a random guy on the street.
As a leftist university student in the 1970s, my uncle was very active politically, and having graduated, he went to the United Kingdom to improve his English (a family pattern, I guess), where he was forced to stay after the military coup in 1980 that bulldozed over the Turkish Left. His citizenship was revoked in the mid-80s, and he couldn’t set foot in Turkey until 1993, which was when I first saw him.
I don’t remember much from my first encounter with him except for one vivid memory that has been etched in my mind. I don’t even know how we got to the topic in the first place, but for one reason or another, my uncle had the brilliant idea of telling me, a 9-year-old kid, that he was an atheist. I obviously had no fucking idea what an atheist was, so when I asked him for clarification, he told me that an atheist was someone who didn’t believe in God and that no such thing as “God” actually existed.
As you can imagine, this revelation came as a major shock. Not that I was raised religious or anything, but the idea of “God” was commonplace enough among my family, a thing I took for granted, and the possibility that there was no such thing was not something I could wrap my head around at that time. And so, I ran to my parents and told them that my uncle didn’t believe in God. I don’t exactly remember what/if my parents said anything to him, but I do remember him being mildly irritated and telling me that I shouldn’t tell my parents everything we talked about amongst each other.
The reason I am telling you this little story is that, looking back at it now, I realize that the fact that he could just come out and say something like that to a 9-year-old (granted, he was never married and had no kids of his own, so he probably didn’t have the necessary credentials) seems to me to be a pretty major red flag about his capabilities to look after a child on his own.
My parents, however, obviously had other ideas and saw no problem with sending me to stay with him in London.
And here I should probably pause a minute and make an important clarification. When I say “my parents,” what I mostly mean is my father. If I had to guess, I would guess that my mom probably didn’t think it was a good idea for me to go. But she must also have felt powerless to say “no” to my father, who believed that it was for my own good and that I was old enough to handle it, whatever the fuck that means.
I don’t remember much from the trip itself. I remember saying goodbye to my parents as a lady from Turkish Airlines came to pick me up to get me through the customs and safely on the plane. It was my first time on a plane and the first time I was going abroad. Moreover, as I’ve just realized while typing these words, it was the very first time I was leaving my parents and going somewhere by myself for any amount of time. (And the more I write, the angrier I get since it becomes more and more clear to me how ridiculous the whole idea was. I was 10 years old, for God’s sake.)
When I got to London, everything was new, so I was fine at first. My uncle came to pick me up (I don’t remember exactly, but someone else, probably a flight attendant, must have gotten me through customs in London as well), and we headed to where he lived.
This was daytime. When it got to the evening, though, the reality of the situation hit me and hit me hard. I was alone with this man, who, theoretically, was my uncle but also a stranger as far as I was concerned, and there was no going back home. I had this immense sadness wash over me, and I started crying. I wanted to go back and see my mother.
Looking back now, I guess there was another, deeper emotion that got me in its grip at the time, and that was fear. I (must have) had this terrifying feeling that I was abandoned and that I was never going to see my parents again. I wonder, and I am speculating now, whether I also thought deep down that it was all my fault, that my parents didn’t love me, or that I must have done something terribly wrong to deserve this “punishment.” To the (almost) 40-year-old Doğa writing these words, this all sounds quite unreasonable, ridiculous even. But what about the 10-year-old Doğa, crying his eyes out in his uncle’s apartment?
And that was another thing. I was told not to cry. That I was not supposed to cry. I would have these phone calls with my parents in Turkey where my father and my aunt would sternly remind me that I shouldn’t be crying, while also pressuring my mom to follow their lead and tell me the same thing, although I could tell from her voice that she was crying, too.
And so, I felt like I had no business crying. I was being ridiculous, and I better get a handle on myself. I had a desperate need to please my father and not upset him. After all, he made it very clear that he sent me to London for my own good. Meanwhile, my uncle was also at his wit’s end with me, and I was afraid of annoying him, too. I was obviously not doing a very good job of it, however, since during one of my crying bouts, he pretty much exploded and told me to shut up (in English and in those words). It must have left its mark, since I still remember it vividly to this day.
I was planning to tell this story in one go, following it up with an analysis of what it meant for me and how it was a constant, though (for a long time at least), unrecognized presence in my life. But (re)living through the whole thing in my head and trying to put it into words as a coherent narrative is taking its toll, both mentally and emotionally. So I’ll stop here for now and hopefully pick it up later.
Until next time!
Hi Doga! I commend you for having the courage to share these traumatic memories with such vulnerability. I can tell how traumatized you were as a 10-year-old! Yes, you're right that many of the behavior and decisions made by your adult caregivers weren't well thought out or downright ridiculous. It is a good thing that you are now processing these memories from your adult perspective and leaning in to your feelings. I think the young part in you that had been angry is now thankful for your recognition of this anger. Through writing, you now have access to this very important emotion. I understand how the past events triggered you emotionally after writing it. But triggers are trailheads to what's deeply hidden in our psyche. Painful and uncomfortable emotions often point us to where truth lies--your personal truth. Unless you face it, it will come back again and again to bite you. But if you continue on with your exploration and go through with your healing process, your future self will thank you!
So real and deep and raw. Kudos for writing this. I love that you are writing it all out. We all have traumas in childhood to different degrees, and the traumatic events can go so deep and be so painful. Writing them out with great thought and emotion pouring out onto the page is the best therapy, I’ve found. I commend you so much too.