Conversations from hell

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Repressed memories are super controversial. Memory itself is super-controversial. However, there's a big difference between a repressed memory and something so painful that you just don't think about it, ever, until you're ready to cope with it. And then you think about it or tell someone about it and you say, "Wow, holy fuck, I haven't thought about that in YEARS!"

But it was always there. It wasn't like a revelation, the remembering, but like holy fuck, how is it that I just never think about that and it was like it didn't exist for such a long time?

Going to school, age five, with two black eyes. I don't even remember the story I told to excuse it, but I remember telling the truth about it, and being scared shitless that I'd get it worse when I got home. Instead she cried and said she was sorry, and she never hit me in the face again.

There was one instance, when I was young.

My sister and I remember it differently.

What I remember is me falling down the stairs while dad was drunk on the couch watching sports.

What my sister remembers is dad being drunk and pushing me and me falling down the stairs as a result. Seems the only things we can agree on is that dad was drunk and mom was at work.

I hope that I am right, and my sister is wrong.

Ugh

Sometimes the brain reconstructs things just a bit differently, to protect you from things you aren't able to handle.

I knew at an all too early age that my father was an alcohol abuser. I knew what drunk meant way too soon.

When I was in elementary school and in high school, I thought of my father as an alcohol, or after a certain time, a recovered alcoholic.

But when he stopped drinking is when his insanity became obvious.

If I have alcoholism, it's from my mom, not my dad. My mom is clearly an alcoholic (but not without genetic or environmental reasons). At this point, I am certain that dad was never an alcoholic. Even though he comes from a heavy drinking culture, neither of his parents had that biological addiction. No. I think he was suppressing something else, and when that suppression threatened his marriage (which ended regardless), he stopped. No problems. Just. Stopped drinking. Then the crazy happened. Slowly at first. I know I'm in the clear, at least as far as severity of mental illness is concerned.

It does give me pause about the idea of reproducing however.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Repressed memories are super controversial. Memory itself is super-controversial. However, there's a big difference between a repressed memory and something so painful that you just don't think about it, ever, until you're ready to cope with it. And then you think about it or tell someone about it and you say, "Wow, holy fuck, I haven't thought about that in YEARS!"

But it was always there. It wasn't like a revelation, the remembering, but like holy fuck, how is it that I just never think about that and it was like it didn't exist for such a long time?

Going to school, age five, with two black eyes. I don't even remember the story I told to excuse it, but I remember telling the truth about it, and being scared shitless that I'd get it worse when I got home. Instead she cried and said she was sorry, and she never hit me in the face again.

There was one instance, when I was young.

My sister and I remember it differently.

What I remember is me falling down the stairs while dad was drunk on the couch watching sports.

What my sister remembers is dad being drunk and pushing me and me falling down the stairs as a result. Seems the only things we can agree on is that dad was drunk and mom was at work.

I hope that I am right, and my sister is wrong.

Ugh

Sometimes the brain reconstructs things just a bit differently, to protect you from things you aren't able to handle.

I knew at an all too early age that my father was an alcohol abuser. I knew what drunk meant way too soon.

When I was in elementary school and in high school, I thought of my father as an alcohol, or after a certain time, a recovered alcoholic.

But when he stopped drinking is when his insanity became obvious.

If I have alcoholism, it's from my mom, not my dad. My mom is clearly an alcoholic (but not without genetic or environmental reasons). At this point, I am certain that dad was never an alcoholic. Even though he comes from a heavy drinking culture, neither of his parents had that biological addiction. No. I think he was suppressing something else, and when that suppression threatened his marriage (which ended regardless), he stopped. No problems. Just. Stopped drinking. Then the crazy happened. Slowly at first. I know I'm in the clear, at least as far as severity of mental illness is concerned.

It does give me pause about the idea of reproducing however.

Dad's self medication was so... medicated... that I didn't even notice that mom was a full blown alcoholic until I was a teenager.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Repressed memories are super controversial. Memory itself is super-controversial. However, there's a big difference between a repressed memory and something so painful that you just don't think about it, ever, until you're ready to cope with it. And then you think about it or tell someone about it and you say, "Wow, holy fuck, I haven't thought about that in YEARS!"

But it was always there. It wasn't like a revelation, the remembering, but like holy fuck, how is it that I just never think about that and it was like it didn't exist for such a long time?

Going to school, age five, with two black eyes. I don't even remember the story I told to excuse it, but I remember telling the truth about it, and being scared shitless that I'd get it worse when I got home. Instead she cried and said she was sorry, and she never hit me in the face again.

There was one instance, when I was young.

My sister and I remember it differently.

What I remember is me falling down the stairs while dad was drunk on the couch watching sports.

What my sister remembers is dad being drunk and pushing me and me falling down the stairs as a result. Seems the only things we can agree on is that dad was drunk and mom was at work.

I hope that I am right, and my sister is wrong.

Ugh

Sometimes the brain reconstructs things just a bit differently, to protect you from things you aren't able to handle.

I knew at an all too early age that my father was an alcohol abuser. I knew what drunk meant way too soon.

When I was in elementary school and in high school, I thought of my father as an alcohol, or after a certain time, a recovered alcoholic.

But when he stopped drinking is when his insanity became obvious.

If I have alcoholism, it's from my mom, not my dad. My mom is clearly an alcoholic (but not without genetic or environmental reasons). At this point, I am certain that dad was never an alcoholic. Even though he comes from a heavy drinking culture, neither of his parents had that biological addiction. No. I think he was suppressing something else, and when that suppression threatened his marriage (which ended regardless), he stopped. No problems. Just. Stopped drinking. Then the crazy happened. Slowly at first. I know I'm in the clear, at least as far as severity of mental illness is concerned.

It does give me pause about the idea of reproducing however.

Aw man.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Repressed memories are super controversial. Memory itself is super-controversial. However, there's a big difference between a repressed memory and something so painful that you just don't think about it, ever, until you're ready to cope with it. And then you think about it or tell someone about it and you say, "Wow, holy fuck, I haven't thought about that in YEARS!"

But it was always there. It wasn't like a revelation, the remembering, but like holy fuck, how is it that I just never think about that and it was like it didn't exist for such a long time?

Going to school, age five, with two black eyes. I don't even remember the story I told to excuse it, but I remember telling the truth about it, and being scared shitless that I'd get it worse when I got home. Instead she cried and said she was sorry, and she never hit me in the face again.

There was one instance, when I was young.

My sister and I remember it differently.

What I remember is me falling down the stairs while dad was drunk on the couch watching sports.

What my sister remembers is dad being drunk and pushing me and me falling down the stairs as a result. Seems the only things we can agree on is that dad was drunk and mom was at work.

I hope that I am right, and my sister is wrong.

Ugh

Sometimes the brain reconstructs things just a bit differently, to protect you from things you aren't able to handle.

I knew at an all too early age that my father was an alcohol abuser. I knew what drunk meant way too soon.

When I was in elementary school and in high school, I thought of my father as an alcohol, or after a certain time, a recovered alcoholic.

But when he stopped drinking is when his insanity became obvious.

If I have alcoholism, it's from my mom, not my dad. My mom is clearly an alcoholic (but not without genetic or environmental reasons). At this point, I am certain that dad was never an alcoholic. Even though he comes from a heavy drinking culture, neither of his parents had that biological addiction. No. I think he was suppressing something else, and when that suppression threatened his marriage (which ended regardless), he stopped. No problems. Just. Stopped drinking. Then the crazy happened. Slowly at first. I know I'm in the clear, at least as far as severity of mental illness is concerned.

It does give me pause about the idea of reproducing however.

Aw man.

PM incoming.

(Also, heads up, I am actually inebriated right now)

But, dad's a good dude. I feel really, really awful for him. My mother feels even worse. She feels that she should have known, and helped. She still loves him, after a fashion. Wishes that she could have helped him more.

[Left]

...There were some things that I would consider just not thought about...I managed to forget I had ever loved my father, but I obviously had to love him, because I made myself not love him at 12.
But it was painful to think about ever having been that person who loved him, so I just did not.

I did not realize how weird my uncle's marriage was until I was 38, when suddenly I had my brain nudged. His wife had a live-in boyfriend, and this wasn't something my uncle was happy about...we kids were told he was "cousin Bill."
...I thought "Gawd, what kind of freakshow did I come from?"

This repressed stuff was really edited out of my mind.
It's likely not accurate, but events remembered by my mom seem to indicate they are more truth than fiction.

I'll tell you guys a secret.

I'm not capable of being happy.

My happiness got broken a long, long time ago, before I can even remember. I am pretty sure have been happy, but I don't remember it; it was too long ago. Definitely before the kidnapping. I don't tell people things like this, partly because it sounds improbable and partly because I don't want to have to explain. There are always more questions than I want to answer.

I feel joy, sure. Sometimes it's intense, beautiful, unrestrained joy. Sometimes it's just a sort of awkward contentedness. I felt the awkward contentedness, punctuated with crippling anxiety, for about two years of my last marriage. I've learned one thing about myself: if I'm not struggling for something, I can't be comfortable. I don't feel safe if things are too easy. I need to always be pushing. If there's one thing I hope I can learn by the time I'm old, it's how to let down my guard against life.

But it keeps getting better. I can say that much.

I'm a little tired of being sad. I always assumed it would go away somewhere along the line, and that I would get to feel something more generally benign for most of my life. It's pretty clear at  this point that "most of my life" isn't going to happen, so I'll settle for "some of my life". "The golden years", maybe. But it's getting better.

I used to dig it down deep and keep it  there, and what would happen is that it would push its way up like a cyst around an ingrown hair, until sallow and turgid and too near the surface all it took was being a little too drunk and a little too tender and it would rupture and gush out, thick viscous yellow ooze spurting from me in tears and a half-told story in some jerk's arms in the small hours of the morning. Now, I don't bother pushing it under. I don't try to restrain it to a cystic container under the surface. So now, I'm sad all the time. It's better.

People ask me sometimes why I'm so well-adjusted. By "people" I mean "therapists", of which I have had many. People other than therapists don't usually know the whole story. For that matter, therapists don't know the whole story. It takes too much time to tell, and so the last people who knew everything was the two-therapist team I had at Kaiser when I was 20. Thinking back on it, the fact that I had two therapists and a psychiatrist is amazing. Insurance just isn't what it used to be; you could never get that kind of coverage now.

The story is bigger now, of course. But still, it's so much better.

There are times when I glimpse happiness. I'm not talking about bliss; I'm talking about something so much more elusive and basic, something I don't even really understand. It's what I see on the face of my pre-adolescent child, who has never been badly hurt and who has not yet discovered angst, when she's not doing anything in particular. I see it in other people as well, and it amazes me. It seems so simple, and can be replaced in moments with the discontent of boredom. This feeling seems like the feeling of being out in public and not feeling like people are staring at you. It seems like the feeling of no being self-conscious, and not feeling certain that everyone can see that you're a freak. It seems like it feels like not being marked. I have recently started experiencing boredom. This brings me hope, because it seems to me, looking at other people, that boredom and happiness are closely linked. How can you experience boredom unless you are also able to experience a pleasurable state that is not-boredom, yet is also not-joy? Obviously, there's something in there that I am starting to tap into.

Standing on my skateboard on the street. A man walks by. He doesn't look at me. I know he's noticed me, a 40-year-old woman gawkily riding a skateboard, and that he's not thinking that I'm a freak or that I'm strange or any of the other uncharitable judgments my scarred brain attributes to total strangers. No, he's noticing that I am a 40-year-old woman who has not given up on life. Or something like that. 

That feels good.

That's wretched.
I feel happiness sometimes, but it's occasional.
I felt happy when I first married my wife...then I got sick from our old apartment, and somewhere along the way, she stopped treating me with respect...and eventually, I stopped treating me with respect too.

Now that she's going away, I feel happy moments again.

After I was 4, colors were often duller, as if looking through a gray lens.
For me, the thing that went away was my sense of safety.

There was one instance, when I was young.

My sister and I remember it differently.

What I remember is me falling down the stairs while dad was drunk on the couch watching sports.

What my sister remembers is dad being drunk and pushing me and me falling down the stairs as a result. Seems the only things we can agree on is that dad was drunk and mom was at work.

I hope that I am right, and my sister is wrong.

I hope you are right too.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I managed to forget I had ever loved my father, but I obviously had to love him, because I made myself not love him at 12.
But it was painful to think about ever having been that person who loved him, so I just did not.

This, is perhaps the worst feeling in the world. I started hating my father at a young age, and only feeling compassion for him when I realized that the poor bastard was just fucked up. Then you feel like a dick.

There was one instance, when I was young.

My sister and I remember it differently.

What I remember is me falling down the stairs while dad was drunk on the couch watching sports.

What my sister remembers is dad being drunk and pushing me and me falling down the stairs as a result. Seems the only things we can agree on is that dad was drunk and mom was at work.

I hope that I am right, and my sister is wrong.

I hope you are right too.
[/quote]

I try not to think of it often. Matter of fact, I ignore this conflict in perspective unless it is relevant somehow. Inherently, the conflict of narrative really bothers me. My narrative is that my father is a good man, even if severely flawed (and insane, and therefore no fault of his own). I choose not to accept a reality in which one of my parents would intentionally harm me, regardless of reason, or lack thereof.

[Left]

...So...
Flashing forward to age 19...
I remembered something else that happened at 4.
...I'm going to narrate this in 3rd person.  I'm at work.
That makes it easier.
To make it easier to read...I think I will leave out a lot, but be careful anyway, major trigger ahead.

########################################

Joel walked up to the little girl.  The little girl had been in Joel's apartment before, with the other kids.  Joel had rats and spiders, a whole shelf full.
Joel had noticed that the little girl liked rats and spiders.
...He walked up to the little girl and said "Hey! would you like to come see my rats?"

The little girl smiled and said yes.   Joel took her hand and led her up to the third floor.

Later, the apartment door opened and he pushed her out.
She was still gasping for breath.
"Don't you tell ANYBODY!" he said.
She wouldn't, of course.
Mommy had told her never to go into an apartment without asking.
...So this was punishment.
She was a bad little girl, that's why he went potty in her mouth.

##########################################

Two days after I remembered at least part of that (more pieces returned later)...it was whirling, over and over in my mind.
I accidentally drove off the road and found a culvert...Ditches are deep in East Texas to contain runoff.
I was going about 40 MPH.

When I came to, I thought I'd lost my eye...then lifted the flap and said "oh".
The plastic surgeon was able to put my eyebrow back, there's hardly a scar to see.
Nerve ends were severed, that side of my forehead is still numb. I must have struck it on the steering wheel.
My left arm was shattered between my wrist and elbow. 
The main pieces the doc plated back together, it's an inch shorter and crooked.

The next few years I couldn't touch anyone without feeling nauseous.
...So much for massage therapy training...you have 2 years to do the practicum and be tested after graduating school
I'm not sure my back would have held up to the work anyway, not full-time.

The recall would explain something though:
As a small child I would literally start crying and freaking out if I heard country music.
...He had turned a radio on to cover any noises...on to a country music station.
I still cringe when I hear country music, it makes me feel queasy and anxious.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Actually, there's only two possible explanations. Nothing else makes sense, even considering my age.

I intentionally fell down those stairs, because I was neglected. Because dad was drunk and watching sports an wasn't paying attention to me.
Dad was drunk and pushed me for some unknown reason that I still can't understand.

Please tell me that option 1 makes sense and there is no option 3.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Actually, there's only two possible explanations. Nothing else makes sense, even considering my age.

I intentionally fell down those stairs, because I was neglected. Because dad was drunk and watching sports an wasn't paying attention to me.
Dad was drunk and pushed me for some unknown reason that I still can't understand.

Please tell me that option 1 makes sense and there is no option 3.

Strike that.

That option 1 is feasible, that option 2 is inconcievable, and that you have an option 3.

[Left]

I choose not to accept a reality in which one of my parents would intentionally harm me, regardless of reason, or lack thereof.

It's almost universal to view one's parents as good.
Therefore the abused child almost always sees themselves as bad.
...Too, if you are the problem, then maybe you have the power to fix it?

Actually, there's only two possible explanations. Nothing else makes sense, even considering my age.

I intentionally fell down those stairs, because I was neglected. Because dad was drunk and watching sports an wasn't paying attention to me.
Dad was drunk and pushed me for some unknown reason that I still can't understand.

Please tell me that option 1 makes sense and there is no option 3.

Option 3-you tripped.
There is no age too old to trip and fall on the stairs.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'm glad that the first thing I did after leaving home at 18 was find a therapist, and then do intensive PTSD group therapy for a few  years. Everyone kept commenting on how unusual it was for someone that young to get into therapy on their own, but I credit it with making me as functional and relatively well-adjusted as I am. I was just like, fuck this, I am not going to have any kind of life unless I get in there and fix some shit.

I am also really glad that the resources for me to do so existed back then. Full coverage on a minimum-wage job. We don't have that kind of coverage anymore.

[Left]

I'm glad that the first thing I did after leaving home at 18 was find a therapist, and then do intensive PTSD group therapy for a few  years. Everyone kept commenting on how unusual it was for someone that young to get into therapy on their own, but I credit it with making me as functional and relatively well-adjusted as I am. I was just like, fuck this, I am not going to have any kind of life unless I get in there and fix some shit.

I am also really glad that the resources for me to do so existed back then. Full coverage on a minimum-wage job. We don't have that kind of coverage anymore.

I've been lucky enough to be able to go through a state agency for therapy, and now I'm going to a nonprofit, where I get therapy on a discount.
I get happy pills from residents-Shrink of the month club.

It's really hard to get decent mental healthcare for everybody these days.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I choose not to accept a reality in which one of my parents would intentionally harm me, regardless of reason, or lack thereof.

It's almost universal to view one's parents as good.
Therefore the abused child almost always sees themselves as bad.
...Too, if you are the problem, then maybe you have the power to fix it?

Actually, there's only two possible explanations. Nothing else makes sense, even considering my age.

I intentionally fell down those stairs, because I was neglected. Because dad was drunk and watching sports an wasn't paying attention to me.
Dad was drunk and pushed me for some unknown reason that I still can't understand.

Please tell me that option 1 makes sense and there is no option 3.

Option 3-you tripped.
There is no age too old to trip and fall on the stairs.

Tripping and falling can be interchangeable.

Either way, I still see no reason why my father would do that (conversely, I see no reason why my sister would remember it differently unless I was suppressing something). I must merely accept it as, "stairs hurt, no cause for that conclusion concluded upon"

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I'm glad that the first thing I did after leaving home at 18 was find a therapist, and then do intensive PTSD group therapy for a few  years. Everyone kept commenting on how unusual it was for someone that young to get into therapy on their own, but I credit it with making me as functional and relatively well-adjusted as I am. I was just like, fuck this, I am not going to have any kind of life unless I get in there and fix some shit.

I am also really glad that the resources for me to do so existed back then. Full coverage on a minimum-wage job. We don't have that kind of coverage anymore.

That's a good thing, and yes, the sooner the better.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

...So...
Flashing forward to age 19...
I remembered something else that happened at 4.
...I'm going to narrate this in 3rd person.  I'm at work.
That makes it easier.
To make it easier to read...I think I will leave out a lot, but be careful anyway, major trigger ahead.

########################################

Joel walked up to the little girl.  The little girl had been in Joel's apartment before, with the other kids.  Joel had rats and spiders, a whole shelf full.
Joel had noticed that the little girl liked rats and spiders.
...He walked up to the little girl and said "Hey! would you like to come see my rats?"

The little girl smiled and said yes.   Joel took her hand and led her up to the third floor.

Later, the apartment door opened and he pushed her out.
She was still gasping for breath.
"Don't you tell ANYBODY!" he said.
She wouldn't, of course.
Mommy had told her never to go into an apartment without asking.
...So this was punishment.
She was a bad little girl, that's why he went potty in her mouth.

##########################################

Two days after I remembered at least part of that (more pieces returned later)...it was whirling, over and over in my mind.
I accidentally drove off the road and found a culvert...Ditches are deep in East Texas to contain runoff.
I was going about 40 MPH.

When I came to, I thought I'd lost my eye...then lifted the flap and said "oh".
The plastic surgeon was able to put my eyebrow back, there's hardly a scar to see.
Nerve ends were severed, that side of my forehead is still numb. I must have struck it on the steering wheel.
My left arm was shattered between my wrist and elbow. 
The main pieces the doc plated back together, it's an inch shorter and crooked.

The next few years I couldn't touch anyone without feeling nauseous.
...So much for massage therapy training...you have 2 years to do the practicum and be tested after graduating school
I'm not sure my back would have held up to the work anyway, not full-time.

The recall would explain something though:
As a small child I would literally start crying and freaking out if I heard country music.
...He had turned a radio on to cover any noises...on to a country music station.
I still cringe when I hear country music, it makes me feel queasy and anxious.

Jesus fuck.

I'm just catching this post now.