The Dark Side of Knowledge — My Guilty Secret.
‘The main reason people keep secrets is that their revelation often has (negative) consequences, depending on other people’s reactions and the significance of these people to the secret keeper.’ (Kelly 2006)
I have a secret, one I have never shared with anyone. The burden of it is so heavy, the grief attached to it so terrible that I have locked it away, deposited it in a ‘box’ somewhere and stationed an armed guard outside to prevent entry.
I live with the knowledge of this secret, have tormented myself repeatedly about it over the years, reminded myself that it wasn’t my fault. Or so they say.
But I really don’t believe that.
Though I didn’t realise the consequences of my actions at the time.
‘Heart and circulatory diseases cause more than a quarter of all deaths in the UK, that’s nearly 170,000 deaths each year — an average of 460 deaths each day or one every three minutes in the UK.’ (British Heart Foundation 2020)
On Friday 17th October 1997 my father had a heart attack and died. In fact he had more than one heart attack that day but I still thought he was going to be fine. Obviously I knew he’d need a period of recuperation — he’d have to come and stay with me for a while — but he would be fine.
Of course he would.
I took him to the hospital. He wouldn’t call an ambulance even though he was struggling to breathe, even though the pain in his chest and arm was unbearable. So I took him.
At first they sat him in Accident and Emergency — a man clearly having a heart attack and they sat him down to wait his turn. After some heated words (from me) they moved him, quickly, into a cubicle and a doctor came straight away.
‘He’s had a heart attack’ he said.
I wanted to scream.
TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T ALREADY KNOW.
‘Today at least 7 out of 10 people survive. It is estimated that around 1.4 million people alive in the UK today have survived a heart attack — around 1 million men and 380,000 women.’ (British Heart Foundation 2020)
‘They next 48 hours will be crucial.’
Pumped full of drugs, they moved him to the Intensive Care Unit — they still had one of those at Buckland Hospital in 1997. He was critical but he would be fine.
Of course he would.
They attached him to all sorts of machines; a drip; a heart rate monitor; more drugs. He laid there, my dad, smaller somehow than I’d ever realised he was. Not older though, he was only sixty-two. Definitely not older.
After a while he stirred, he’d been out of it for a while. Now he was waking, dazed, unsure, scared. I tried to reassure him — everything’s going to be fine. You’ll be OK.
Of course he would.
Except he wasn’t.
‘Although the chest pain is often severe, some people may only experience minor pain, similar to indigestion.’ (NHS 2020)
It happened quickly. He was complaining — he had indigestion. Could I rub his back? I didn’t even think about it. He needed my help. He asked for my help. So I rubbed his back and he said he felt much better. He seemed better, then he slept once more.
And then it happened. The machines started flashing, doctors and nurses came running. Frenzied activity broke out around his bed.
I remember his eyes, the way they rolled back and they weren’t his eyes anymore. ‘You have to leave’, I don’t remember the words but I know they said them, ‘You have to leave — now’.
And the rest is history, a history of my own making. The knowledge that I rubbed his back. The knowledge I had killed him.
He died and I knew it was my fault.
‘In 2018, the mortality rate of coronary heart disease in the United Kingdom was 102 deaths per 100,000 population, which is the lowest rate in the provided time interval. The mortality rate in 2000 was 259 per 100,000, meaning the mortality rate has decreased by over 60 percent since then.’ (Statista.com 2020)
Knowledge is a dangerous thing. Once you have it, it is inescapable — you can’t give it back. You can push it aside, hide it (as I did and still do), pretend it doesn’t exist. You can lie to yourself, deny it, try and forget what you did.
But you can’t. You never forget.
‘Every 8 minutes someone in the UK dies from coronary heart disease.’ (British Heart Foundation 2020)
Instead knowledge subsides to guilt, guilt to depression, depression to anxiety. Within weeks I was on the edge of a breakdown, couldn’t go in my house, had to sit outside in the dark until my husband came home.
Because inside I had his ashes, judging me, blaming me, reminding me that I killed him.
No-one else judged me, no-one else blamed me. But they weren’t with me at the time, at the moment I rubbed his back. They didn’t see. And I didn’t tell them.
Because I was shocked, ashamed, tormented and I couldn’t say, I couldn’t admit it.
Admitting it would make it true.
‘Guilty emotions are typically irrational. You create these perceptions of your own failures that ferment in your mind. Your actions then reflect these emotions, which cause these perceptions to continue.’ (WebMD 2019)
I was pregnant when my father died. By killing him I had taken one life and denied an opportunity to another. Four and a half months later my first child was born, my son, and now he would never know his grandfather. He would never play with him, never laugh with him. Never kiss him or hug him. And it was all my fault.
Guilt is a strange thing. It remains constant, yet comes and goes with the breeze. In reality it exists only when you allow it to, and is hidden thereafter. But what can you do with it? How can you get rid of guilt? It doesn’t just disappear because you want it to. You can’t stop feeling guilty for something you know is your fault. The knowledge still remains: If it hadn’t been for you, he’d still be alive.
Guilt is bad for you, bad for your family, bad for your mental health. Guilt has infinite longevity, and I still feel guilty now, twenty three years on.
‘The prospect of unremitting pain in combination with the senselessness of a death can motivate a bereaved person to search for meaning.’ (Baugher 2013)
It is guilt, and fear, that lead me to seek answers, make me seek help to quieten the grotesque images in my head, the bad dreams that are too horrific to describe. And where counselling fails, psychics step in, filling the gap between reality and longing. I have had both, explored both, looking for peace, seeking answers. They remain elusive. I want to believe — would love to believe — that I am forgiven, that it wasn’t me that caused his death. But I am not ready for those answers, worthy of that peace — if it even exists. Though I know for a fact my dad believed in the afterlife, the finality of death allows me no answers, and so the possibility of peace is questionable.
And unlikely.
‘Self-blame is the attribution that the consequences one experiences are a direct result of one’s actions or character.’ (Hooker 2013)
And all the while I still have this horror, this knowledge, this certainty that it was me, the reality of my actions, that caused his death.
I live with that knowledge every day.
And that’s a very dangerous thing.
Reference List
· Baugher, Bob. (2013). Psychics: Do they help or hinder bereaved people? Studies of Grief and Bereavement. 177–192.
· “Facts and Figures.” British Heart Foundation, 2020, https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/news-from-the-bhf/contact-the-press-office/facts-and-figures#:~:text=In%20the%20UK%20there%20are,are%20living%20with%20heart%20failure. Accessed 07/12/20.
· Hooker S.A. (2013) Self-Blame. In: Gellman M.D., Turner J.R. (eds) Encyclopaedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY.
· Kelly, Anita & Yip, Jonathan. (2006). Is Keeping a Secret or Being a Secretive Person Linked to Psychological Symptoms?. Journal of personality. 74. 1349–70. 10.1111/j.1467–6494.2006.00413.x.
· “Mortality Rate from Coronary Heart Disease in the United Kingdom from 2000 to 2018.” Statista, 2020 https://www.statista.com/statistics/940717/mortality-rate-from-coronary-heart-disease-in-the-united-kingdom/. Accessed 07/12/20.
· “Symptoms: Heart Attack.” NHS, 2020 https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/heart-attack/symptoms/. Accessed 07/12/20.
· “Signs of Guilt.” WebMD, 2019 https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/signs-guilt#2. Accessed 07/12/20.
· “UK Factsheet.” British Heart Foundation, 2020 file:///C:/Users/Tracey/Downloads/bhf-cvd-statistics-uk-factsheet%20(2).pdf . Accessed 07/12/20.
