I am really shaken up by something that happened yesterday and I can't get it out of my head.
Was at a small station yesterday with my two DCs. It was pretty quiet. I noticed a man swaying over the edge of the platform - I thought he looked drunk. I just kind of... I don't know, observed. I froze. Even when I noticed people on the train on the other platform looking at him, obviously worried.
A teenage girl walked up to him and gently grabbed his t-shirt and pulled him back, about 10 seconds before a fast train went by. There is no doubt at all it would've hit him. She and her friend sat him down and talked to him, I heard him saying how everyone hated him etc. I went out of earshot and phoned the police (unstaffed station so there was nobody else). They arrived really fast and helped him through it. I told the girl she was amazing - because she really had been. She had put a brave face on while he was there, but was really shaken up. I hope she can be proud of herself though, she saved a life.
I keep thinking about what would've happened if those girls weren't there. I feel horrifically guilty. I can't even say it was because I didn't want to get involved due to risk to my DCs - that wasn't it. I just didn't move.
It brought back so many memories of how I just freeze in bad situations. I have never felt like the 'fight or flight' adrenaline response really fitted me. I don't do either. I just give up. I have never screamed (I don't know how) or tried to run away in any situation. Even when I got swept out to sea and nearly drowned.
Is it because I was abused? Pretty much all I remember from it is being stuck under my uncle. It's not like I could fight or run away then. All I could do was accept it. Think about something else.
I was ridiculously passive as a child too though (eg I didn't have a single strop or tantrum even as a toddler) and I feel like this, along with many other traits (faults), predates the abuse anyway. I hate feeling so different. I watch other people and think, why can't I be normal. I mean I know nobody is normal really, and I know lots of people would've frozen too, but it is becoming such a common theme that it is very hard not to feel like a failure.
Sorry, I'm rambling now. It's just that every time I start feeling like I'm not affected by what happened in my childhood, something reminds me that it is a huge part of who I am.