Murder in the family

By The MotherMind Doctor

My whole life I’ve been told I’m too sensitive and too angry . I preferred to think that I’m overly curious and have difficulty, being able to relax. This is what led me to explore our family history.

In The lead up to Father’s Day I recalled my mother‘s suggestion of asking my father to fill the gaps in our family history. This lead me to look up the information that had been collected by my uncle and documented meticulously. What jumped out of the page at me was my great grandfather‘s murder.

This was not a mystery that needed to be solved, but rather the tale of unfortunate circumstance.

My great grandfathers name was Baden, as he was named after the British commander of forces and the man responsible for establishing the scouting movement. It seemed my ancestor was not as blessed as his namesake, as he spent much of his time moving from job to job. In the documentation, he is described as an engineer, which may explain why he ended up in a tin mine in Malaysia as a Dredge Master. But it was after WW2, in which he had a been prisoner of war that left him emaciated, that he had to return to this work in order to be able to provide for his young family in Australia.

While he was there, he was shot by communist terrorists.

The story is shocking and sad yet it’s been bandied around in our family as a conversation piece.

Many families have stories of violence and loss that are experienced in a multitude of ways. What is clear is that it leaves an impression that can have far reaching effects. 

My great grandfather’s youngest son was my other uncle. He wasn’t like his older brothers: he wasn’t academic, nor business minded. He was considered sensitive. In a blended Chinese family culture, this was not an attribute that would necessarily make him successful.

I discovered from the family history documentation that he went on to study psychology. My memory of him was that he used to like Mickey Mouse and when he married my aunt, they had a Mickey and Minnie collection. He never really found his way, moving from job to job, till finally, he felt so alone that he took his own life, and that of his beloved dog for company at the age of 47.

For me, this traumatic event was buffered by the fact that I was living overseas when it happened. It was shocking, with haunting effect, and was managed with awkward dark humour in the family for years.

Currently, society is in the middle of a mental health epidemic. We have many current sources of stress: financial, economic and social, as well as geo political, even existential. Reports of domestic violence are more visible in the media with horrific accounts of violence. Online movements act as echo chambers influencing vulnerable minds.

We also have better resources to support people if they seek it.

The problem is that people don’t know how to get help. Either the system is too complicated or people don’t have the health literacy to know how to access it.

Then there’s also the aspect of timing. If you feel stuck and find yourself miserable, complaining about all the stresses in your life, it can be overwhelming to find a way through.

It reminds me of the children’s song and book of the same name We’re going on a bear hunt: "we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it….we have to go through it".

Trauma can show up in our lives in multiple ways. Sometimes we’re not even clear the source of our distress. We can become hyper-vigilant and anxious all the time. We can become so overwhelmed that we shut down and isolate, becoming depressed.

There is also much debate around neurodiversity and its overlap with trauma. Some proponents source ADHD from mis-attuned attachment, which is a form of trauma from childhood.

While nothing can change our past, what we do now affects how we move forward. Sometimes that means knowing there are many things we can’t control other than our own actions.

Our actions for ourselves and our loved ones, can help to write a different story for future generations.

Father’s Day seems a good time to remind ourselves of this as we all learn to manage our experiences and our temperaments.

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