I think between the age of 5 and 10 someone very close to me died each year

great grandfather great grandmother (I lived with both) my God mother my grandmother my other grandmother and a close friend of mine who was only a year older than I was and died at the age of 11.

By the age of 11 I was having very bad panic attacks.

Death was a very scary concept for me to have to understand. First it was people go to the hospital and just never come back. But my great grandparents were old so it made sense. But then My God mother and grandmothers were young. God mother developed schizophrenia suddenly and killed her self. And then when my grandmother died when I was 9, it hit me the hardest because she raised me alongside my mom who had me young, and was like a second mother to me. Then my friend died who was only a year older and it made no sense because she was just a kid like me and had so much potential. She was more popular, more pretty and more intelligent than I was and she was taken by cancer.

Literally at 10 I realized that death was permanent and could happen to anyone at any moment.

Thankfully although I've had to go to more funerals, no one as close to me has died since then.

I still get panic attacks from time to time though.