The call that broke my reality

When we think of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder we typically think of people who are in repeated moments of high stress, like combat veterans, nurses, paramedics, etc. But truth be told, it's not just that, it can be everything from a moment of violence when you were younger, being assaulted or even in my case a mourning period that was completely derailed by a man who had no idea what he had done, and probably didn't even realise he had done anything.

When I was 18, I was about to start working one of my first "proper" jobs in a call centre, but after nearly 30 years of fighting a brain tumour my dad had passed on from complications from an operation to once again save his life. Losing a parent is difficult, but I had grown up knowing that my dad was unlikely to live very long. There was certainly a notion that he wasn't going to be around to see my kids or anything like that, and that he was living on borrowed time.

So as difficult as it is to say, I wasn't necessarily bothered that he had died, since I had been primed since I was a kid knowing that he was going to, and it was going to be soon. But what I had never needed to account for was that the grieving of him, was going to be the thing that was more traumatic than his death.

I feel like I should probably explain me and my dad's relationship, so that you can get an idea of what I was working through when I was 17-18 years old. Me and my dad had a very turbulent relationship, partially caused by the brain tumour that was causing pressure on his brain, and mood swings, the other thing that complicated things was that he was old fashioned. Dad grew up in a isolated coal mining town on the outskirts of Edinburgh, Scotland. He was not mentally or philosophically prepared for raising two Neurodivergent kids, Me with Autism/ADHD and my sister who is Dyslexic.

My father was the one who raised my sister from a young age, while it was my mother who raised me, took time off work to care for me when I was a baby, etc. So I was, and still am a momma's boy and I make no qualm's about that fact. But dad and I's relationship was turbulent from the jump, I was a quiet kid, and in some respects my dad liked that, but also on the other hand, he never knew how to read me. I didn't say very much, and he wouldn't know why for years, years until it was too late to repair what would be done.

Dad lost his temper with me on the regular, I remember coming home from school and immediately making a bee-line for me and my sister's room, and hiding under the top bunk, cowering in fear, expecting and sometimes receiving a beating from him. As an adult, I recognise that he was trying to discipline me in the way his parents did with him, and I also recognise that the rage he showed on the regular was also due to him not being himself, 100% of the time.

But I also recognise that it was abusive, and my mother recognised at the time that it was and would if she could, step in the way and stop it from happening, but it wasn't always possible, and I recognise that. When I turned 16, I was faced with a realisation that something was wrong, and that I needed to go see a shrink, because I had suspected that the reason for my academic and behavioural problems was because I was autistic. I could have gotten diagnosed via the state school I went to, but there had been budget cuts, and I would have been waiting so long that they would have pushed me out of school by the time I got diagnosed. So I made the decision to drop out, get diagnosed and go to college and get the qualifications that I would have missed from school.

I got referred to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAHMS) to speak to a psychologist, and fortunately, the waiting list wasn't bad, and got an appointment within 3-4 months of being referred. My mom came to the appointment with me, and I remember the assessment very clearly, It was a dimly lit room, a bit dusty with long drapes either side of the window, and I was sat criss-cross apple sauce in a large felt chair talking to the psychiatrist. Then after around 30-45 minutes, my mom came in and spoke with the Dr with me, he looked over school records and confirmed what I had suspected, I was and still am Autistic.

My mom recalls that day as clearly as I do, because after Dr Wheeldon explaining everything, she started to notice everything that was already there, but she hadn't identified as being anything "wrong" like the fact that I never looked anyone directly in the eye. Or that I flinched from the sound of the sliding doors on the bus opening, or got irritated by the sound of a lightbulb buzzing, etc. In hindsight, these are obvious signs of sensory overload on an autistic brain, but she never noticed it. Largely because she saw parts of it in my sister, and just assumed that it was just the way we both were.

My dad took a long time to accept it, he never denied the Dr's diagnosis, but the diagnosis didn't settle down with him for months, even years afterwards. Once my dad had started to read up on Autism and started to recognise the same things my mom had, he started to feel an immense guilt over how he had treated me. Don't get it twisted, he absolutely felt bad over it, but post-diagnosis he felt worse about it than he did. And he started to make more attempts of getting to know me, he took me to McDonalds, something he rarely ever did when I was a kid.

He'd take me to GAME and buy games for my 3ds or PC, and try to bond with me on the things I liked doing. Sometimes he'd just sit with me in the garden while I ran off to catch bugs and climb trees, and just watch. I noticed him watching, and noticed him get very close to being emotional. Dad was very stern and didn't show much emotion at all, but I knew when he was thinking about something and was starting to lose control over his emotions. I knew he was trying and I was, and still am very appreciative that he tried his best with what he could, I know it wasn't easy for him because confronting what he had done, must have meant confronting what was done to him as a kid.

When he passed, I was left holding a bag of very confused emotions. Residual anger from what he had done to me, but also the contentment that he died trying to repair what he had done, the apologies he said and what he had done to make peace with me. And I do want to say that, as an adult, 11 years on from when he died, I'd say that I've made peace with what I went through, what he put me through, because I know what he did to try and make it right. Yes, he shouldn't have done in the first place, but it's my view that he was working off of a flawed notion that the way he was raised was the right way, therefore, he would raise us the same way.

I think my dad also recognised the uncomfortable fact that Autism is often inherited, and I noticed that he would pay more attention to my mom's behaviour after I was diagnosed, and when he noticed that I didn't act like her, I think he started to realise that the reason why we were at odd's with each other wasn't because I was being "difficult" we were both on the spectrum marching to two completely different orchestra's. Therefore, we were never going to see eye to eye, because we just couldn't with the information we knew, and more importantly, didn't know.

When I had started working at the call centre, I was in training, so I hadn't even started to do live calls, and sure I was anxious, any sane person would be. But I liked the people I was working under, and I liked the people either side of me, so I felt comfortable, so when I sat down to do my first live call I was excited, in a weird way. It was a new chapter, a step on the ladder of independence and little did I know that in 5 minutes all of that would come crashing down.

I sat down, put the headset on, logged in and heard the beeping that showed I was now connected to the switchboard. At the time, it would only put you on a out-bound call, if you selected so, but turns out the person who was logged on before me, hadn't put themselves on orange or red, they logged out on green, and thus as soon as I heard the beeping, the script popped up and then I was connected to an elderly man on the other end;

"Hello? ... I can't hear you"

I froze, my eyes fogged over, I started welling up and panicked. The man on the other end sounded identical to my dad, same speaking mannerisms, same accent, same age, same everything. The unstoppable feeling that my dad wasn't dead cos he was on the phone, was clashing with the immovable object that was the reality that my dad was gone, I had watched him pass. And yet, my brain didn't know what to do, I dropped the headset and ran out of the call room. I ran into what was essentially the training room, ran to the corner and fell to my knees.

The training manager, a tall Sikh man ran in and immediately started asking me what was wrong, or what had happened. I couldn't get my words out, all I said was "dad" over and over again. He realised he wasn't going to get anything out of me until I had calmed down, so he did what he could and got me some water, and tapped me on the shoulder and told me to sit down. After around 10-20 minutes, I explained what happened the weeks before, and what had just happened. I think he was a bit stunlocked, he didn't really know what to say, but to apologise, and explained that obviously owing to the outbound nature of the calls, there was nothing he could do to ensure it wouldn't happen again.

I couldn't do that job, because simply putting me back in a chair in that room caused me to panic and get flashbacks. To this very day, I have phone anxiety and I get flashbacks where I hear the last moments of my dad talking and that man talking side by side, I cannot work phone lines for that reason, I don't call anyone I don't know especially if I know they're a man if i can avoid it. I never call my pharmacy, or my doctor unless I know the person picking up is a woman. I don't answer phone calls either, unless I know its about a job, school, etc. But most people at this point know to call from a phone with caller ID so that I know who it is.

We think that PTSD is just from violence or events that question your ability to live. But PTSD also comes from events that question your ability to love as well. Or events that question your lived reality in a way that stops you from moving forward. That's why when someone says they have PTSD, I believe them, regardless of the source of their PTSD, because I know that you don't know what is traumatising until you are in it. What may seem like a world wrecking experience to them, may not to me, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't to them. They carry scars from it because it forced them to confront some very disturbing questions about their reality or themselves, or other people they thought they could trust. You really don't know what will shatter your existence until you are in it.