Fretting is in my DNA with a gene variation that predicts a tendency to ruminate. In fact, parts of the brain associated with planning, reason, and impulse control show increased activity in worriers. Without getting into the science, our genetic makeup interacts with the environment, causing some of us to be more susceptible to fear and anxiety.
My childhood was bathed in the fear and anxiety of my mother and grandmother. Worse-case scenarios dripped through my growing mind and body with little rest. As a young child, I was unable to choose how to respond to their anxiety and would be swept away by the current of fear. Even as a tiny little girl, I was expected to calm them down.
Considering this fact, I was doing well navigating the Corona Virus panic. I was concerned but my body was calm, and my thoughts were logical. Even the hoarding and empty grocery store shelves did not send me into outer space. I laughed at the absurdity of the amounts of toilet paper, bottled water, canned goods, and charcoal leaving the stores. Often times in one person’s cart! In my eyes, people were definitely over-reacting. I used words such as selfish or ridiculous to name their hoarding actions. Then during one trip to the grocery something shifted in my body, and I felt very young and afraid.
They say trauma begets trauma.
When I was 14 years old, we had moved, and I was in a new school. This was not new for me. I had moved 26 times and had been to 11 different schools by the time I was a senior year in high school. A superpower of hypervigilance enabled me to assess quickly the cultural differences between Southern California and my new home in Missouri. Over the years, I had learned how to quickly adapt and survive to diminish the painful “new girl” label.
Missouri was not California. Some adjustments were easy, while others seemed out of my control. The lunch hour proved to be one of those challenges.
In California the outside courtyard provided an atmosphere of communal eating where students mingled freely. Lunches in white paper bags decorated with fruits sat dappled amongst the beige lunch trays. At this new school, I learned the hard way that bringing your lunch signified you were “white trash.” A table in the far corner was for brown bags. And as I stepped into the lunchroom, there was no way of hiding my brightly adorned lemon lunch bag.
The cruel taunts were relentless and lashed at my soul. I thought I might die right then and there. Added to the lunch pressure, I was a varsity volleyball player. All athletes ate at a group of tables. None of them brought their lunches.
I went home begging my mother and stepfather to allow me to buy my lunch at school. I explained the situation – more than once over several weeks. No matter how I appealed my case, the answer was a firm no. My mother’s pursuit to be a Proverbs 31 woman was to be respected. I did not understand. In spite of my mother keeping a running tally of available money in her wallet, I was pretty sure that we had the money to buy a school lunch. If not, we were a military family and I knew my school lunch could be provided for free. I felt trapped.
School was important to me. Since kindergarten it had been my only safe place. A refuge from abuse.
So, I weighed the cost. I was already not eating breakfast due to nausea in the mornings (a story for another time), but survival at this new school meant adhering to cultural norms. It was possible that I could stretch my coin purse stash until I could find the right words to persuade my mother and stepfather. Thus, the first of many lunches was thrown into the trash as I entered the school building.
Then I got caught.
Eventually, people on the bus started making fun of my sack lunch. So I began hiding my lunch in my dresser until I could get rid of it unnoticed. Unfortunately, I forgot about two of them and my mother found the lunches. I was punished because of the disrespect I had shown to my mother. Going forward, my mother would control the food I ate – from after school snacks to dinner portions. Also, if I did not want my mother’s lunch, there would be no lunch. While my already meager allowance was cut to fifty cents a week.
I never complained about the punishment because I thought that I had deserved it – after all, I did throw away the lunches made by my mother. And besides, by my own choice I had already not been eating lunch. I did continue to ask off and on for a school lunch. The answer was always the same.
For about 4 years of high school, with volleyball practices and after-school games, I made it through most days on a ten-cent ice cream sandwich. Once home, I was allowed 5 saltine crackers for an after-school snack. Then dinner portions were strictly monitored.
I cannot tell you how good those 5 saltine crackers tasted! My undernourished body soaked up their goodness and found a measure of rest. To this day, crackers still provide a sense of comfort. My body remembers and calms with each bite.
So, what triggered the shift in my mind and body at the grocery store? The signs limiting purchases. Scarcity! In an instant, I was no longer a 50-something woman, I was a ravenous 14-year-old girl who did not know how she would survive. All logic went out the door and the rumination began. How would I survive? We are going to die! I must gather resources before they are all gone! I remember thinking, “Good grief Robyn, what’s going on? Get a grip woman!”
When I returned home, it was evident that a 14-year-old’s very real fear of scarcity had influenced my shopping. You guessed it; the bags contained more than a few selections of crackers. My 50-something-self chose not to open any of the boxes. Instead I made the choice to honor that long-ago teenage girl and seek the generous care of a kind man she has known for most of her life. My husband listened to my fears and provided me with the much needed comfort of his words and arms. The world did not change, but my mind and body began to calm.
Perhaps during this collective time of trauma, it would benefit us all to recognize that trauma begets trauma. Let us bear our stories with much kindness – not only for ourselves but for the sake of others. Because you never know how old a person might be feeling who is standing 6 feet away from you in the grocery store.
As a friend stated after reading this blog, “I believe kindness begets kindness.”
“Choosing to respond to hope takes courage, vision, and patience.”
