Companions of the Mind:

“Invisible Bonds”

I can tell you everything about him. The man was tall and healthy, husky. He wore overalls and on the bib was an insignificant green patch. He wore brown work boots. On his head, a cap army green bill and top, but the back was lighter and was a mesh material. His shirt matched his hat with long sleeves.
He was an older man, like a grandfather, and above his right shoulder was a beautiful blue butterfly. His name was Oscar, and even though he never spoke words aloud we communicated with our minds. He lived in my closet, and he only came to visit at midnight. Now I don’t recall what age he appeared. I was younger, around four or five years old.
He would regularly come out of the closet and cover me up at night. Consistently sit on my bed, and watch me. He would put his finger over his lips as if to suggest shh! As to say, don’t scream, but I never was scared of him. I was never frightened and regularly felt safe. My parents were young, and they drank, and sporadically that turned into chaos, like screaming and yelling and punching and beating each other until they passed out. Occasionally one of them would leave. I constantly had a Walkman with headphones and that helped sometimes. I had to make sure my baby brother was okay. He would crawl around on the floor. I was small, but somehow I constantly had the strength to pick him up and hold him or carry him, and he was large for his age. It didn’t matter. I was going to make sure he was okay. I would take him to my room and calm him down, and occasionally, I would hide us both in my closet. After it got quiet, for a while I’d make sure he was comfortable, usually a pallet on my floor so he couldn’t fall. I would sneak out and assess the damage. If they passed out on the floor or couch I covered them up and I would clean up. Broken ashtrays sometimes or glass from throwing drinks at each other. I was unable to leave it or my brother could get hurt, he was crawling and learning to walk. He had a walker so he could go everywhere in it. Then the next day, life would resume as if nothing happened and as if this was normal. Until the next time. I remember the night my brother got kicked through the hallway by my father I saw that. He was the cutest fattest baby and I loved him so much. I hated my father for that, I couldn’t understand how he could do that and the next day act like a kind loving father. At a young age, I was consumed with fear, anxiety, and hate because my father’s wrath was unbearable if you got in his way, talked too much, or made a noise that could get you a beating, and his yelling was intense. I remember wanting him to die. I would love to say that my mother protected us all the time, but she didn’t. She did protect my brother more. Often when she tried, she would get beat and hurt and I couldn’t deal with that either. It was our lives at the time, and I was already a caregiver at a young age and trying to protect people. The brain is powerful and amazing. Every night after the chaos Oscar came out of the closet with that blue butterfly and checked on me and gave me a sense of peace and security. When I was eight maybe nine years old, we moved, and I had a bigger closet, so I was excited. Oscar would have more room, but unfortunately, I never saw him again. I waited every night and would sleep in the closet, but he never came back. After several weeks, I gave up. I talked about him, it freaked my parents and family out. It wasn’t clear to me why because to me, he was real in every aspect and was a big part of my childhood. I can never forget him. Years later, discussing that with my Psychiatrist was hard. Made me feel crazy, and she explained that to survive, my brain invented him because he was what I needed, and she didn’t laugh, the first person in my life who made me feel normal about it, she didn’t shame me.
I’m not the only one. I asked her why though after all the years I couldn’t forget him most kids forget their imaginary friends. She said because he wasn’t my friend, he was my watcher or caretaker. I needed that so much that my brain created a whole person. That’s how it coped. That’s why we didn’t have to speak to communicate and I lost it. I cried over that session for a while, writing this was hard also and I still cry. So when kids say they see things but you can’t doesn’t mean they are lying. This is my journey to healing and acknowledging my childhood trauma is a part of that. The mind is so intriguing.