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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

TELL ME MORE

Time travel, insecure attachment and PTSD

24/1/2016

12 Comments

 
A friend tells me about an exercise he remembers fondly from a management course. You’ve probably come across it; it’s the one where you create a timeline of the ups and downs of your life. I’m feeling uneasy even before he asserts confidently that of course we’d all start life in the peaks, the troughs not arriving until we take on adult responsibilities. That’s not the shape of my timeline, however, and perhaps not yours either.
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I could point out that a difficult childhood is not uncommon but, in my head, I’m already somewhere else. It won’t make me feel any better to correct his misapprehension. I concentrate on making the right non-verbals and wait for my discomfort to pass.
Whatever your own triggers, you probably have moments like this too, where a casual remark takes you back to some past trauma or experience of grief that, while usually far in the background, never completely goes away. Momentarily, you lose your connection with the here and now and flounder in the pain of the past.

On her blog this week,
Charli Mills writes about of a different order of disconnection which makes her both mentally and physically shut down. Charli uses the term PTSD to make sense of her bewildering experience; when something similar takes hold of me, attachment theory is my preferred framework. It’s highly disorientating to experience myself, as totally abandoned, including (most disturbingly) by my adult self. Metaphorically, my fiction is an attempt to process and recover from the loss of my self.

My three-year bloggiversary has just slipped past
while I was reminiscing about my first restaurant meal. The late reminder also got me thinking back to starting out as a blogger, and some of the things I thought initially I might explore. Long before I dared call myself a reviewer, I’d envisaged running a series on “the anxiously attached reader”, looking at how we might read differently if, in our heads, we’re never safe.

Reviewing Shalom Auslander’s marvellous tragicomic novel, Hope: a Tragedy, about a man discovering an elderly Anne Frank living in his attic,
Naomi Alderman had this to say about being Jewish:

Jews watch Holocaust films differently: we're looking for advice. When should those schmucks have left the country? What do you do if you have to hide? How do you survive in a concentration camp? It constantly surprises my non-Jewish friends that I don't feel, as they do, that this event is in the past. That I wonder if they'd hide me if the economy went really bad and people started voting for Nick Griffin. My non-Jewish friends are shocked when they suggest that I could move to (cheap, artsy) Berlin and I say "No, can't. Too many ghosts of dead Jews." The thing might be over for you, but it's still alive for us.
 
For me, that’s strikingly similar to what it’s like when you’re prone to flashbacks or when you’re insecurely attached. Especially that last line.

The anxiously attached reader blog series never happened. I lost interest, confidence or didn’t have enough suitable books. But
Charli’s post reminded me of a couple. You’ve probably read, or at least heard of, Audrey Niffenegger’s novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife, about a marriage disjointed by the husband’s uncontrollable tendency to move back and forth in time. I’m not generally enamoured of the supernatural, but this really worked for me because I identified so strongly with those time jumps, obviously not physically, but certainly psychologically. Another successful novel with a preposterous premise is Kazuo Ishiguru’s Never Let Me Go, about a school for children who have been cloned for the purpose of harvesting their body parts. I identified with the characters’ sense of their bodies not being their own.

I’d be interested to know if these novels affect you this way, and if you know of any others in a similar vein. But, before that, let’s return to Charli Mills, and her
challenge to come up with a 99-word story about a boy and his dog. Having just posted a couple of dog-novel reviews, and confessed my indifference to the species, I expected to sit this one out. But, as often happens, a walk brought inspiration. The narrator isn’t me, but she does come pretty close.
Collecting them from the waiting room, it’s clear his biggest problem is his mother. Anxious, overindulgent; but here, I make the rules.

Once he sees the needle, he screams. Red-faced, the mother does her best. I try the talking puppet, the Donald Duck voice. His wailing ricochets off the walls. The whole department’s quaking now.


Okay, I say. Bring her in! The mutt trails muddy pawprints across the floor. I hate to think where those feet have been.

The kid goes quiet, even smiles. Not a murmur as I draw the blood. Maybe I’ll get an assistance dog myself.
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Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
12 Comments
Jeanne Lombardo link
24/1/2016 10:47:08 pm

Congratulations on your three years blogging Anne! You are another inspiration for me. Love your reviews, but think your original theme is fascinating! "The Anxiously Attached Reader." Now there's an intriguing challenge. Must ponder your questions here. Have not read Time Traveler's Wife but have been meaning to. Will now move it higher on my list. Books that affected me in a similar way--anxiety coming from a sense of the narrator's loss of control over an Other whose actions have a profound effect on his own life--are the following: Wally Lamb's I Know This Much is True, in which the brother's unpredictability and descent into irretrievable psychosis condemn the narrator to a dreadful uncertainty and insecurity about who he even is. The other book that comes to mind is Janet Fitch's remarkable White Oleanders for the same reason, though this time the unstable character is the narrator's mother. And that is my bugaboo, being in a relationship with someone whose self-destructive choices I cannot control. Very damaging to the core of a person and her sense of self. That's it for now. Kudos on stealing me away from my paid work!

Reply
Annecdotist
25/1/2016 02:02:03 pm

Thank you, Jeanne. Those recommendations sound interesting – I’ve been lucky in my adult relationships, but even in the best there’s a degree to which you’re implicated in someone else’s choices, and very scary if they’re not healthy ones. My next novel is about a man who keeps a woman captive in his cellar, so of course very scary for her – as he’s obviously mad or he wouldn’t have done it.
If I did run this series at want to concentrate on novels which don’t seem to be about insecure attachment but evoke that if you’re sensitised to the issue. I think that’s why I run out of books!

Reply
Norah Colvin link
25/1/2016 06:21:32 am

There's a lot in this post, Anne, both in its own content and the links. I went back to your compassion post and found other links there. These topics are very interesting. I agree with you about the timeline. To say that the troughs don't start until the responsibilities of adulthood arrive more or less negates the trauma experienced by children in one fell swoop. It would be wonderful if the actual traumas experienced could be eradicated so easily. I don't think anyone would deny a child the "right" to a happy childhood, but many children are denied so in reality.
The line about "It might be over for you, but it's still alive for us" strikes me as very real. I do not wish to diminish the horror or the magnitude of the Jewish situation and the pain that will never be erased for them, but the same situation occurs daily by thoughtless remarks by people lacking compassion e.g. when they don't give full attention to the feelings behind the words of someone hurting, when they tell someone to just "get over it", to (my pet hate) smile when they have no way of knowing what another is going through. I think what hurting people need is an attentive ear and an open heart, no glib words of hollow advice that leaves the other without a dent.
I do not like the sound of a story about children being cloned for body parts. I have heard similar things in reality. Sisters or brothers conceived to enable a life saving operation for an older child, for example. Ethics - a very complex area, with no easy solutions, particularly bioethics, I think.
Anyway, I love your flash. A lovely story. A canine assistant could be useful at times, but I'm certain I wouldn't go that far. :)

Reply
Annecdotist
25/1/2016 02:16:22 pm

Thanks, Norah, for reading so closely and sharing these reflections. I don’t think my friend would deny that some people have had terrible childhoods, more that he makes an assumption that people he knows (who seem “normal”) have come through unscathed. But of course I didn’t ask him so can’t know for sure (and, although I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t read this, I feel a little uncomfortable analysing the conversation we had).
“Cheer up it might never happen!” is as intrusive as a wolf whistle – I think sometimes these people are trying to connect, but are very lacking in social skills. “There there, it’s over now” is probably the next level up, from people who do mean well (okay perhaps not always) but are overwhelmed by another person’s distress and are trying to withdraw without seeming unkind. Very painful to be on the receiving end of this.
I won’t try to persuade you to read Never Let Me Go, but what I think it is so good about it is that it isn’t gruesome at all and the children, apart from some blips, accept their position (although it’s only gradually revealed to them) as children do the world over – they just think that’s how it is.
But like you, I feel uneasy about families in which they decide to have another child in order to be able to donate to an older sibling. Although understandable when parents do this to save a child, the donating child doesn’t have an informed choice. Interestingly, a subject I’ve wanted to write about but I’d need to do some more research and I’m quite lazy in that regard.

Reply
Charli Mills
27/1/2016 07:46:56 am

Ah, you did find some inspiration for the flash prompt! And a fascinating, thoughtful post to plant it in. Naomi Alderman's quote brings up the idea of how we look at events from different perspectives. The "cheer up" responses have no idea, nor do they want to. They'd rather change their friend's perspective than consider that past events can be alive or at least resurrect from time to time for those who experienced it. Yet I also believe we can overcome the past by not focusing on it. Still, it leaves an impression. Your flash has the right amount of wry humor both in the narrator's view of the child, mother and the dog!

Reply
Annecdotist
1/2/2016 01:55:15 pm

Thanks for Charli. I think we all need to come to our own way of accommodating to a past we can't change, but might prefer not to have happened.
And I'm glad you caught the humour in the flash – especially when you and I are coming at dogs from very different perspectives.

Reply
Sacha Black
28/1/2016 06:57:08 pm

Lovely post this one. Lots to think about. I really want to read Never Let Me Go. It's actually on my kindle too. I think I need to reprioritise. Thank you for the reminder

Gorgeous flash. I LOVED the impact of the dog and there's such truth to it too! That really is what animals do! 💖😍

Reply
Annecdotist
1/2/2016 01:56:54 pm

Thanks, Sacha, would definitely recommend you moving NLMG further up the pile – there's a film of it too which is pretty good.

Reply
geoff link
30/1/2016 12:17:24 am

Yes to both the Time Travellers Wife and Never Let Me Go. Now I fund that one really disturbing, especially at the end as they realise completely what's coming - partly because I can see it, not in such a overt way but in the way of some being able to afford growing replications and others not as we extend our genetic knowledge. I was similarly left disturbed by some John Wyndham and the Children of Men - maybe because they felt sufficiently close to how it might be. JG Ballard too to an extent, though he did come across as more far fetched. One - Iain M Banks the Bridge - while true sci fi is disorientating at times too when if settles to a contemporary with a twist feel to it. There. you have my mind whirling rather...

Reply
Annecdotist
1/2/2016 02:00:37 pm

Thanks, Geoff. I read somewhere recently about a revival of HG Wells's writing, and a comment that much of what he predicted came to pass. In a way, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised as both fact and fiction start with the human imagination. Hope there was some pleasantness in your whirling mind.

Reply
skiing-in-the-sierra-nevada-resort-spain-2016 link
15/3/2016 05:32:53 am

I concentrate on making the right non-verbals and wait for my discomfort to pass.

Reply
Annecdotist
15/3/2016 10:27:45 am

Thanks for reading and sharing – and I'm not a skier but do envy your place in the Sierra Nevada!

Reply



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