JOURNEY OF UNLEARNING

JOURNEY OF UNLEARNING

It was a warm, clear early summers day when the phone began to ring in my pocket. I took it out and looked at the caller and answered with the customary greeting – 

“Alright old man” I said. 

“I’m so sorry mate, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…” The voice on the other end kept repeating. 

I walked from my shop out into the sunshine, across the road and looked back. The sun felt warm, even now I can feel it on my skin along with the soft, cooling breeze.

A week earlier my dad had been diagnosed with a brain tumour and that day he had been to learn the results of his biopsy. When I answered the call all he could do was apologise, over and over again, his voice cracking a little more with each apology. I remember saying something like “It’s ok mate, it doesn’t matter, I promise it’ll be ok.” I could feel the emotion building in my chest as I tried to reassure him. Then he told me “I’m gonna die mate, I’m so sorry.”

I leant up against the wall to support myself as the weight of his news moved over me. We had known this was coming, though only weeks earlier he had been his normal self and then all of a sudden, he had begun to change

There’s a stillness to these moments in life that stay with you forever. In the moment of sheer tragedy that we can remember the noise, the sound of the street, the feel of the sun, the breeze, the people walking by. We have all listened as someone delivers us bad news, end a relationship or, like in my moment, have your best friend tell you they are going to die. 

Though this isn’t about him being sick, this isn’t about him dying 13 months later, peacefully with his family by his side. This is about that moment and what it has meant to me and how that one phone call changed my life, my journey and my world forever. 

Trauma, I now realise, is the very fibre that bonds ourselves together and that phone call sent me spiralling in to a place where the very trauma of my life was the thing I wanted to understand the most. 

I don’t think I ever really understood the poignance of that moment until years later. There is something about being able to remember all the minute details of a moment, especially when I barely remember what I did 10 minutes ago. Though when I reflect on my life and when I think of the most traumatic moments I find it interesting that they are the moments my memory has held on to the most. 

These very moments are the ones that of course make us who we are and have made me the man I had become. More than that, I was shaped by my parents trauma and by all of the years that came before them. And so I began my journey of unlearning. 

The process of this journey isn’t straight forward and nor is it easy. I realised that my trauma wasn’t just wrapped up in the things that had happened to me but it lived in my actions and my behaviour and in the trauma I had inflicted on others. My behaviour was a direct manifestation of all of the things that I had experienced and more. This meant to really understand who I had become I must also understand all that I have done and sit with that in self reflection.  

I was brought up in a deprived part of the country in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Where I come from it felt there were little opportunities and little chance to express who you really were. I was raised in a world where casual racism, homophobia, xenophobia, anti feminism and many other discriminative ideas were common. 

You see nobody ever intended for me to be all of these things but that was societal trauma I was raised around. Nobody who knew me or raised me was aware, they had lived in the same world that I had. Though being unaware isn’t an excuse to feign ignorance when you start to see the world around you for what it is, why it is and the part that you ultimately play in it. 

Unlearning for me is about letting go of all that you were and finding the purest form of yourself. The most empathetic and willing self. The one that wants to help, to listen and to heal. 

Since the day my day my dad called me to tell me he was going to die, I have been on a journey. A journey of unlearning. 

Since the day my dad called me to tell me he was going to die I have sat time and time again on my own and remembered the horrible parts of me that existed. The person I had been, the things I have said and the hurt I have caused others. 

Since the day my dad called me to tell me he was going to die I have learned more about myself and who I am than the 30 years that came before. 

There was a time I thought that all I wanted was my dad to come back and for everything to go back to how it once was but now I’m not so sure.

I know that I am still learning how to forget all the trauma, all the prejudice and all the other parts of myself that made me someone else. I know now that I am working my way back to who I really am, who I am really meant to be and that is exciting. This doesn’t mean that I get everything right. I still get frustrated, anxious and sometimes I am overwhelmed by all that is happening around me. I am sure there are plenty of people who think I can be rude or obnoxious and who don’t like me, but that is ok, I am still working on me. 

You see the day my dad called me and told me he was going to die was the moment my entire life changed. Out of the worst trauma I have ever encountered started a journey to know who I really am, to know who I am actually meant to be. I embraced that journey and I would encourage everyone to embrace their own. Understand your trauma, learn about how it manifests and let it fall away. Start your own journey to know the real you. 

Benjamin May - Co Founder The New Normal Charity