Here in Part 4b we discover what the hell is up with my mind, what primary carers have to do with Meningitis, and the vision versus reality equation.

To read Part 4a click here.

Previous blogs are all here.

(Track 4b – “Errors Of My Way” – Carers)

Lessons Learned

What I learned about girls (and as with most men, this still amounts to almost nothing) was I had no idea how to determine whether a girl or woman had any interest in me whatsoever.  Not that I’m concerned with such things these days but previously I would’ve been.  To prove my point, not long after the Jane Alldridge phone call debâcle, I asked Ann (without an e) Chapman whether she wanted to ‘go out’.  She said no, so then I asked a girl I worked with at Boots the Chemist.  She also said no.  Then I asked a girl at guitar lessons.  She said yes.  Then said no.  So, I asked a girl who worked in the Post Office.  She said yes.  Then said no. 

The thing is, with all of them, the girls I asked on dates, I really had no idea whether they would say yes or no.  No idea whatsoever.

Then I asked another girl, she said yes, then no, then yes again.  We got married, had three children and twenty-five years later we got divorced.  I said no that time.  Then I met a girl who, by my slightly biased comparison, made the ‘perfect’ Jane Alldridge look like the back end of the 236 to Hackney Wick.  And I changed tack. 

I (yes me) decided she should come on a date with me.  I decided she had no choice.  And guess what?  She said yes.  She said yes once more too and we’ve been married seven years.

Fear

As I stated previously, when I phoned Jane, I stumbled straight into my silent riffing phase because I had no plan of what to say at any point during the conversation. Due to having no previous experience to call upon to help me plan. Equally, I had no idea what would have happened if she had actually said yes. 

I mean, what was I supposed to do then?  What were the rules?  How does someone date someone else?  What was acceptable and what was off the table?  How would I ensure I didn’t mess up on the first day?  As you can see, my fear of failure far outweighed any desire for success. Which is why, at sixteen I’d never had a girlfriend before. 

I concluded therefore, that the best way to resolve this existential crisis, was to start at the top of the food chain, with the most beautiful girl in the school, and work my way down.  And the question that’s been bugging me ever since (at least when I allowed myself to think of it) was, what on earth possessed me to act in such a cavalier fashion?  It wasn’t until after I’d spent some time at Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) that I discovered the answer.  Or at least an answer which made logical sense to me.

Who Are You?

As I touched upon earlier, when I was a little over a year old, I was hospitalised for several months with Meningitis.  In the early 60’s, Meningitis was a killer disease.¹ Meningitis is a bacterial disease which inflames the protective layer of the brain and spinal cord which causes, amongst other things, serious memory issues. And about the only thing Meningitis didn’t take from me was my life, because it stripped me of everything else.

60’s Hospitals

But two things did happen which would appear to prove pivotal in my development as a young child.  The first was, in the early 60’s, as parents you were expected to place your sick child in a hospital, and you visited occasionally to see how things were progressing.  You didn’t visit every day, or sleep at the hospital.  It didn’t work like that. Hospitals weren’t for families, hospitals were for sick patients. 

Nursing in the 1960’s: ‘The ward sisters were pretty fierce’

Secondly, Meningitis caused deep seated memory loss which meant after a while I couldn’t remember how to walk, talk, or eat, and soon I had forgotten who my parents and siblings were, where I really lived and effectively, my whole life up until that point. And when I say I’d forgotten who they were, I mean I was in fear of them, when they visited. Because now, as I perceived them, they were total strangers. And strangers were to be feared, especially ones who acted in an over familiar manner, as one might expect parents to do when visiting their child.

Surrogate

So, in a desperate act of self-preservation, I attached myself to my surrogate primary carers; the nurses.  They became my ‘parents’ whilst I spent months in hospital.  Everything a young child needs to survive; food, warmth, protection, love, came from them and of course I reciprocated.  So, once I’d beaten Meningitis, I discovered I had something far worse to contend with. And when two complete strangers appeared one day and took me ‘home’ to a place I had no recollection of, I was, to say the least, somewhat traumatised.  Or as my Dad recalled, I “screamed blue murder”.  No wonder! So, technically speaking, I had been ‘abandoned’ twice, in a matter of months. And on top of that, I was 18 months old and was beginning my life again, as a new born.

Here’s some heavyweight evidence on the subject, if you’re interested.

The Effects of Inconsistent Parenting on the Development of Uncertain Self-Esteem and Depression Vulnerability

The Symptom & Cause Construct

And there’s clear evidence that being subjected to inconsistent primary carers at such a young age can cause psychological trauma that can develop into co-dependency, attachment anxiety, abandonment issues and low self-esteem.  It can lead to an overwhelming need for a relationship but paradoxically not feeling worthy of one.  It may lead to the creation of a hole, a chasm, developing within ones personality, that becomes so big it engulfs everything around it, and the only thing that could ever possibly fill it is a relationship with the most beautiful girl in the school. But even then, it would only ever be a temporary fix because having a relationship is merely dealing with the symptom, not the cause. Akin to wallpapering over the cracks on a wall of a derelict building.

So, with all that in mind, how exactly would I have visualised success with Jane, in my own mind at least? Whilst writing this piece I allowed myself to consider, just for a moment, what really would have happened had Jane agreed to my clumsy advances and also conversely, what I like to imagine would have happened had she acquiesced.  The vision versus the reality equation.

The Vision

It would have started with word travelling around school like wildfire that I, yes Lee Parka Adams, was going out with Jane Alldridge and before anyone really knew whether the earth had just span off its axis or not, my Parka would’ve magically transformed itself into a dusty, sun-bleached Poncho resplendent with the odd bullet hole from a recent stand-off with a Mexican bandido.  With a cheroot tucked into the corner of my mouth, I’d’ve squinted into the noon-day sun through eyes of chipped quartz.

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

On top of that I’d have grown from 5’7″ to 6 feet 2 inches and instead of sitting sullenly at the back of the History class, I’d have purposely arrived ten minutes late, pushed the door open like a saloon bar in the old west, and when Mr “Dreary” Deer, the History teacher, admonished me for my poor timekeeping, I’d have cut him short and with an American accent said, “Quit yer ramblin’ ol’ timer.”

Then I’d have strode purposefully to the front of the class, tapped whoever was sitting next to Jane on the shoulder and said, “You’re in my chair, now git!” and they would have scuttled off to somewhere else in the room.  Then I‘d have sat down, struck a match on the heel of my boots, lit up the cheroot and said to Dreary, “Continue with the lesson pardner,” whilst smiling at Jane who would be swooning next to me. 

So, in case you hadn’t guessed it, that was the vision.  The reality?  That’s quite easy, I’d be a mumbling wreck, simpering around the school with doe eyes, following Jane about like a lost sheep until she finally would have lost it and shouted, “Stop following me!  Leave me alone! You’re suffocating me! I can’t bear it.  Every time I look around you’re there with that idiotic half grin on your stupid face.  Go away!” And of course, having such low self-esteem I’d have been heartbroken and devastated and I’d have slunk away, destroyed. 

The Parka-Cardie Combo

Of course, what I really wanted to happen was for Jane to say to me, “Excuse me, but did you have an inconsistent primary carer relationship before you reached the age of two? Because if you did, I might just have a solution for you and some of the psychological trauma that have dogged your teenage relationships.”  But she didn’t say that, because for some unquantifiable reason, at fifteen she wasn’t a qualified paediatric psychologist.

“Excuse me, but did you have an inconsistent primary carer relationship before you reached the age of two?”

Jane never said this – I cannot fathom why

So, Jane couldn’t win and neither could I.  She was damned if she did, damned if she didn’t.  I’d have been devastated by the eventual outcome of any response she could offer me, given my request.  Additionally, as my temporal lobe had pointed out, we weren’t compatible, on any level.  I had no experience of girls.  She had no experience of someone like me and my issues, and so even if she had been attracted to the Parka-Cardie Combo², the honeymoon period would have been brief.  Very brief indeed.

We’ll take a final look at what else the Wishbone boys got up to in the 70’s, plus look at where they are now. That’s all in part C.

Part C is here.

1. Meningitis still is but mortality rates are now much lower. There was a mini outbreak in Harlow that year and 2 or 3 children died from Meningitis. When my parents were allowed to visit they would ask after my welfare and the doctors would say, “We’ve tried everything Mrs Adams, but he just won’t go.”
2. This should be a band name