Trauma and FOMO

Do I have childhood trauma?

Apparently — and not inexplicably — no. My childhood was ‘plain’ as plain can be.

I am the oldest of two, firstborn daughter, only girl in a set of 7 cousins from mother’s side. We’re a matriarchy family, so my presence within the lineage was special. I was born in Germany, came back to Indonesia when I was wee 6 months old. The one thing that was special about me is that I was not weird, out-of-the-box, anything of sort. I was just normal. Normal birth, normal size — a little on the small side for being 2 weeks early, normal growth, meeting baby milestones just fine, etc.

Then at 2 years old, I got a baby brother. He was a little more ‘special’ than I was: birthed by caesarean because he was breached, had a birthmark on his cheek (supposedly because Dad had punched somebody when Mom was pregnant with him), couldn’t speak until he was three (I started singing when I reached one year old), and larger than I was. He was 2 weeks late, anyway.

We grew up together with nary a drama worth mentioning, except maybe when I threw a paper hole-puncher to his head and gave him a bleeding forehead. We were a unit. We liked the same things, the same music, the same movies, the same life. We shared a school throughout kindergarten and elementary, then I followed the path through the school system, whereas my brother went to a private catholic school because he believed it would be better for him. Likewise for the high school years, I went through the system to a public high school; my brother opted for a public ‘ivy league’ high school.

Then he graduated high school and went to a University in Bandung. He came back a junkie, dropped out of uni, enrolled in another university in Jakarta, died in 2002.

I graduated senior high school just plainly, nothing stellar, top 15 in my class, didn’t make the SAT tests to enroll in State Universities, so I decided not to enroll elsewhere. A month after graduation, I got a job. A year after the job, I decided to attend college in Singapore. Dropped out because my brother needed the money that our family didn’t have to attend college (because one couldn’t expect a guy to find a cushy office work right out of high school like I did). It was my choice and I did not regret it.

Childhood? Basic. Home, school, home, play, dinner, homework, bed; rinse-repeat. I have a gigantic family from both sides of the parentals, so I had many cousins’ birthdays as well as mine and my brother’s to celebrate. I honestly cannot recall any negative/traumatizing event that was had during my childhood.

I knew then like I know now that I never 100% fit in. I never had anyone to talk to in order to ‘complain’ about life. I know now that I honestly and seriously had nothing to complain about in my life. But also that as the firstborn daughter, I am the template of the stereotype. If I ask for someone to do something and it doesn’t get done in five minutes, I’ll do it myself.

Is that something that should be traumatizing? I have no clue. I was and am capable of many things — my Dad taught me a lot and the first thing he said that stick in my brain was: “there is no such thing as a boy/girl job. Because you’re a girl, I will teach you things that are stereotyped as ‘a man’s job’.”

Changing lightbulbs? Why even this a question. Changing car oil/tires? That came later when I was 20 since that was when we were able to buy a car. Sawing something using manual saws? Done. Lifting things? Sure, we’ll trick it so it won’t pull a muscle. Painting? — literally the only reason I went to art college was because Dad was the only one of my parent who could draw and paint 😅.

But, traumas?

Maybe when my brother died in 2002, followed 3 months later by Dad, and then 3 months later by my only (maternal-side) uncle? — I sure didn’t have a Grief-Lite over them, although I did not expressively grieve hard. They were ailing, they were dying — all three of them. The fact that they went posthaste without extended hospitalization was — at least in my POV — a blessing.

Or maybe when I realized that I only had IDR 20k (less than a dollar in all and every universe) in my account? People think that not having a single dollar to one’s name is not traumatizing, but it is.

But I digress. The point is that I FOMO-ed hard a few years ago and did a bunch of therapies to ‘release my trauma’. And… well… they didn’t work. I felt nothing. I want to know if that means that they just… don’t work? Or if I don’t have traumas. I swear I do remember a lot of things that happened in my younger days, and none of them I (personally) would qualify as a trauma-inducing.

But traumas aren’t supposed to be remember-able. Supposedly. Your brain will hide it, but your body will remember it. Hence the numerous people having great success with ‘trauma-release’ therapies. Me, I just felt stretched, not even the best ones at it, too. 🤷