What My Trauma Taught Me
And the way forward
These past two weeks, I have been writing about how my parents put me on a plane and sent me to London all by myself when I was a 10-year-old kid, and how traumatic that experience has been for me. Here are the first two episodes, if you haven’t read them already:
My Deep-Seated Fear of Abandonment
I ended my last post on the topic by promising to share with you what I have learned from reflecting back on my experience. And that is what I did this week.
Please, enjoy.
The most obvious discovery I made while thinking through and coming to grips with my experience as a 10-year-old was realizing how strong the ties were that existed between what I had been put through and what I used to label as my “travel anxiety.” Even though I knew for a fact that there was a connection, it turned out to be much more powerful than I had ever imagined.
For years, I used to dread the period leading up to the time I had to travel. It would be particularly bad when I was leaving Istanbul to go abroad. I would, for instance, come back home for a holiday while living abroad, and when the time to return would inevitably appear on the horizon, I’d start to feel intensely anxious.
The whole thing would usually begin about a week before I would be leaving and continue to mount up with each passing day, eventually reaching a point that would come close to crippling me mentally and emotionally. My mood would darken, and I would go into a depressive state, questioning whether it was worth leaving my family and friends behind (the answer, as you could guess, would always be negative). My mind would also produce these crazy scenarios about something or other going wrong at the border. I would be fully convinced, for instance, that I would be detained at the customs, although I have done absolutely nothing wrong.
The irony is that I had chosen, consciously or unconsciously, to lead a life where I was far away from “home” for large chunks of my adult life. I studied abroad for my undergrad, my master’s, and my PhD. I currently live abroad, too. What this means is that I have been going back and forth to and from Istanbul pretty much regularly for more than 20 years now. And although I gradually learned how to deal with it better, what I (mistakenly) used to label as my “travel anxiety” continues to rear its head whenever I get ready to travel, even today.
While speaking to my therapist about this massive irony, he pointed out that it may have been fortunate for me to have chosen to lead the life I have led so far, with all the moving back and forth, instead of shying away from the negative feelings I associate with traveling, which would have inevitably resulted in me having a much more limited existence, both literally and figuratively. He also made the point that I may have been trying to recreate the “original trauma” I experienced as a child and achieve a kind of mastery over it by traveling frequently as an adult, with the implicit goal of finally attaining a sort of mental peace. We all know, however, that it does not work that way, and no matter how many times I traveled over the years, my traumatic experience as a 10-year-old continued to come back and haunt me.
In fact, the moment of revelation, when I finally saw how deep the connection was between my experience as a ten-year-old and my periods of travel anxiety, came about three weeks ago, right before I was recently getting ready for another trip to go back to London after an unexpectedly long stay in Istanbul. It was then, while I was desperately trying to figure out why I was feeling miserable, that I finally recognized that it was not a simple travel anxiety that I experienced whenever I had to leave Istanbul, but a more profound fear of abandonment that I felt deep in my bones, resulting from being put on a plane and sent to London by myself when I was just a 10-year-old kid. The realization came both as a shock and as a relief since I could finally begin to understand what I was truly feeling and why.
And this leads me to the second major lesson I learned from this process of self-reflection, namely: A more effective way to go about dealing with the issue would be to attend to my “kid self” and take his fears, anxieties, and pains more seriously than I have done until now.
As I wrote last week, although I knew my experience as a 10-year-old was traumatic (I have, for instance, told my therapist about it years ago), I had the tendency to dismiss it as not that important. I mean, yes, I was sent to London by myself as a 10-year-old kid, and yes, it affected me badly, but that was almost 30 years ago. How could it still have that strong of an effect on me, a 40-year-old man? I should stop blaming my past or my parents for how I felt and just deal with it (I just realized the irony of this coming from me, a goddamn historian by training).
Well, it turns out, I can’t just “deal with it” since, as I came to realize, my 10-year-old version was never fully gone. In fact, it was that hurt and scared 10-year-old Doga who would take control of me whenever the time to leave Istanbul approached, and no amount of rationalizing on the part of my adult self would be enough to deal with what I was experiencing at the moment.
Instead, the way to go about it was to try to mentally go back and attend to the needs of the 10-year-old Doga, soothing his fears, reminding him that he was not alone and that he would never be alone anymore from that point on because I was going to be there for him no matter what. And, as my therapist also pointed out, only I could be there for him now. Not my mom, not my dad, or not even a loved one. Only I could reach that 10-year-old kid and give him the love, attention, and care that he desperately needed. And it wasn’t going to be a “did-it-once-you-are-good-to-go” thing, either. I would have to constantly attend to my younger self, see what he was trying to say, and reassure and calm him down whenever he needed me to be there for him, probably to the end of my life.
Some of you may read what I have just written and roll your eyes. I don’t blame you. Part of me still thinks this is all a little bit “woo-woo.” “Talk to your inner child” and all that kind of new-age stuff. The first time my therapist asked me what I would say to that child, however, I broke down crying. It was an intensely emotional experience. Ever since, whenever I give it a go and try to connect with that 10-year-old kid, I feel better. You may call it a placebo effect, but I feel like I have nothing to lose, so I might as well keep at it and see if it benefits me in the long run.
Finally, this process of reflection on my traumatic experience also led me to look at some of my ongoing life quandaries through a different lens.
Here is a current example: In the past 20 years, I have left Istanbul to live abroad multiple times, only to end up coming back for one reason or another before leaving again. Having graduated from the University of Virginia in 2008, I couldn’t find a job in the United States and had to go back to Istanbul, before leaving for my Master’s in London about three years later, which was immediately followed by my return to the United States for my PhD. Once I passed my candidacy exam, however, I went back to Istanbul, this time for archival research, and once again ended up staying there while I wrote my dissertation, which I defended in 2020. Since I figured that my prospects in academia were not very bright, I left yet again for London in 2021, this time for work. And although I hate to say it, I don’t feel settled here yet either, always keeping the option of going back to Istanbul open in my mind.
All this moving back and forth frustrates me to a great degree. One part of me hates having already settled down, not being able to plan for the future, and not being able to make a mental break and leave Istanbul for good, especially since I keep telling myself that that is what I want to do.
The question is: why, though? Why can’t I act on the things that I claim frustrate me? Why can’t I take more decisive steps? And this is where attending to my 10-year-old self comes into play. And here, I start to wonder to what degree my past continues to shape my present. I wonder whether it is the 10-year-old Doga who is holding me back from making important life choices because he is scared of being abandoned yet again and does not want to “rock the boat.”
Of course, it would not be 100% accurate to take one single event from my past as the root cause of all my current emotional problems. But it also doesn’t mean that I could dismiss my experience as something trivial without at least questioning its possible impacts on my current life and the choices I make (or don’t make) in it. Being mindful of the possible impact of my past on my present and recognizing whether it is my adult self in the driving seat or whether it is the 10-year-old Doga, who is scared shitless, behind the wheel may, hopefully, lead me to pause and reflect before making more informed and deliberate decisions.
This is obviously neither a silver bullet nor a panacea. But I guess it is a good place to start.
Until next time!
I’m so sorry to read this Doga ❤️My son is 9 -I can’t imagine this. My dad was 16 when he went to boarding school in Wales from Salonica. But I think the difference between 10 and 16 is huge.
I’m fascinated by the transition you made away from academia. I’ve found writing about some of the sorts of subjects I did in my first degree (Classics ) and Alevel (English) so therapeutic and interesting, but I hang on to Law too in my head for now. I’d prefer teaching a literary subject tho.
How did you get into the consulting work ?