20 - The child grown up: ‘on being and becoming mindless’: a personal account

Summary

It has been a struggle to know how to write this chapter so that it might convey some meaning towards my experience of growing up within a disturbed family. The chapter title describes it in a nutshell. What does it mean, this word ‘mindless’? As a way of finding a place to begin, I looked up the definition in my copy of Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary: ‘mindless, without mind: stupid: unmindful’, ‘unmindful, not keeping in mind, regardless (of)’.

The most powerful and pervasive feeling I have about my mother's illness is the sense of ‘not knowing’. In telling my story I have felt attacked by guilt, as if I am telling tales and seeking attention and will not be believed. I can't remember exactly when it started, although I can remember an incident that places all three of us at primary-school age. All three of us being my older sister, my brother and myself. If there is such a strong sense of not knowing, then perhaps it is fair to ask what is there that I think I know?

I know that my mother repeatedly took overdoses. I remember violent fights in my parents' bedroom. My father trying to console or calm my mother. The violence came from my mother. She would scream that she could not go on any more, that she was fed up, that she'd had enough.