Lost Memories

[Jacmac, as guest]

Having been in therapy for a number of years, after trying so very hard to make my way through the murky waters of my splintered memories, and then throwing up my hands mentally in defeat, accepting, perhaps prematurely that I will never really remember at all, I am finally beginning to understand and truly accept how horrendous and abusive, at least to my mind's eye, my upbringing was.  So horrible my mind has chosen to completely block it out of my conscience.  
I mean, I remember the quickening at my heart as the clock hit 3:00, at the thought of going home.  I remember, the fear, absolutely terror that hit me when I saw my father on the street, after Social Services had ordered him from my home for sexually abusing me.

I remember knives used to beat us, axes hurled across the room.  The screams and accusations of my mother, who just knew I was sleeping around - to whom I was the biggest slut, the worst daughter, a spawn from hell.

I live with the fact that I can only respond in a very limited, but certainly closed off and robotic way sexually.  And I am of course reminded constantly of this insane need, this repetitive compulsion to find the unlovable and make them, through my own sheer will and effort love me, understand me, accept me, hear me.

But how do I reclaim a past that is lost?
How do I regain a voice that I do not recognize, cannot hear, and have no stories with which to supply it.

How do I move on into the future when I have lost my past?

[pp]

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[Anonymous]

I think the important thing for healing is the awareness of how bad the abuse was. Knowing exact specifics isn't required for healing. However, if you're going to testify against your perpetrator in court, then you will be required to recall specific incidents. Otherwise, you don't have to prove it to anyone. Even if you want to tell the perp about it, you aren't required to prove anything (unless you are in court). The perp is highly unlikely to admit to anything but that is the reason they are a perp.

bunny

[muji]

Hi Jacmac.  

Those are questions i ask myself periodically.  Just today, as a matter of fact.  I'm in the process of moving and going through old things.  Some of which, i don't know why i've hung on to for as long as I have.  Some things too, I've thought about that I've gotten rid of along the way and some things, i've even tried to replace.  I just keep going back and forth with wanting to reconstruct my past and hold on to that which I do remember and then wanting to let it all go and start over again from scratch.  Can you really do that though?  I mean, what do you start with? I feel like I have nothing to start with and that I'll just have to make it up as I go along.  And now, there's this stranger that wants to tag along with me.  Someone that's been living my life but who I don't even know.  She has no substance, no history, atleast not one that I want to be associated with.  So you're question is a very valid one.  I was watching a movie the other night and someone that had done something really bad made the comment that he wanted to start all over again.  The comment back to him was that it doesn't work that way.  We only have one life and we have to live with what we've done and with what's been done to us.  

I do feel like i'm starting from scratch though.  Everyday feels like that.  It's like I keep waiting for my "real" life to begin so that I can have something to reminisce about.  Something to make a scrapbook for.  Something that's going to last and give me substance.  

I don't know how to do it Jacmac.  The spiritual readings i've done say that most people don't really know their true selves anyway and most people aren't looking.  that we're all sleepwalking through life.  maybe that puts us ahead of the game.  maybe because we're looking, we'll find something much more precious than if we'd never had the cause to look.

muji

[Portia]

Hello Jacmac. I read your post last night with a bit of shock. It was you talking, but so open and so ego-less: eyes open but mind far away awash with memories. I too don’t really know what to say. Reclaiming the past?

My other half would say don’t do it! You’ll only make yourself more unhappy! I disagree whole-heartedly, at least for me. I have to know The Truth, or failing that, the FACTS, as they might be seen by an outside party. But of course they’re hidden beneath the years. Do you really want to remember more? What you do remember sounds terrible, frightening.

I want to know more - I think it would explain my actions. I remember a situation where I thought I could handle something and seconds later I could hear screaming – me – but it took me those very strange other-worldly few moments to recognise that it was me doing the yelling. I can’t explain that today – it wasn’t what was happening to me then; it was something from the past telling me to cut off. I don’t know. Something niggles away, and my dreams tell me very strange things. Does the brain regulate itself? PP your comments were interesting, a moral in the story: find out for yourself but don’t expect anyone to agree.

I thought vaguely (a year or so ago) about hypnotism-regression, does that really work? Do people practice it now? If only I could find that little girl and hear her voice, what would she say? I have no idea. My memories start around age 5 but there aren’t many until around age 10/11. Is that usual? Anyone got any info/reading on this?

But your future Jacmac, children, your children, from you and with you. I have none and will have none and I just know that therapy is going to make me howl about that. But so be it. I’ve kept myself self-contained. I honestly believed in “don’t have children – they make you vulnerable; other people can hurt you through your children, so don’t have any and you can just protect yourself”. Oh dear. I still think that.

Can children lead you in to the future? I’m asking you and everyone else. Is that why people have children, if they make that choice? To perpetuate, to give, to receive?

Sexuality: I found some helpful (to me) reading here under ‘Sexual Behaviour’: http://www.traumasurvival.org/
It’s a site set up by one man in the UK (so I believe) and the scary logo is African art called ‘The Mute’ . I’ve joined their board but have not posted yet. The ‘look and feel’ of the board really puts me off. The information however seems good, if direct and shocking. Please take a look.

Take care of yourself, best wishes P

PS Muji, do you have that TV programme, ‘The Life Laundry’? Where a professional coach comes and gets you to throw out all your old memories, bad habits? It’s brutal. I look at objects now and see an emotional reason why I bought them: because they reminded me of a good time and I tried to recreate it with objects. Stupid huh? I feel like a puppet being pulled by the strings from my past without knowing it!

[lynn as guest]

Hello friends,

Jacmac, I am so sorry for the vast hardship you have endured.  Children shouldn't ever have to live through that kind of experience.  I am happy that you are moving forward.

My thoughts about memories... I also have a really difficult time remembering my childhood.  As far as I know, I did not have any horrible things happen.... yet, my childhood memories are disjunct and small --like a photograph in a scrapbook.  It's almost as if the memory comes from outside of me, not from within.  Yet I have no reason to believe that this is a result of a bad experience.

Sartre says that one makes choices in their life and creates their current reality through those choices.  In many ways I agree with this.  I believe that regardless of what my past was, this is what I am now.  It helps me to think this way.  It gives me a sense of self empowerment and courage.  

my best, lynn

[muji]

Portia, No, I don't get that TV programme.  It does sound brutal though.  I wonder if we don't inherit habits and fears from our ancestors.  My grandmother used to keep everything.  So did my dad.  Everything my grandmother owned though had a story to go with it.  She had way too much stuff for one person though.  My uncle used to say that she loved her stuff more than she loved her family.  When she died, he held an auction and sold off all of her treasures.  We were given a few of her trinkets but for the most part, if we wanted something of hers, we had to bid on it like everybody else.  Guess he got her in the end.  

After a while though, all that stuff, just like our emotional baggage gets to be too burdensome and too bulky to keep around anymore.  What's the point.  It's like that statement from Sarte that lynn mentioned.  I think we can change our reality.  I had an awareness the other day while reading this board and after having had another uncomfortable exchange with my ex.  This pain and this false role of Mother Theresa has been my reality up to this point, this has been my karma.  But I'm done with it!  It's not mine anymore.  It doesn't belong to me.  I suppose it has served some purpose up to this point but I don't want or need it anymore.  It can't get me to where I want to be.  lynn, do you believe it's as simple as that?  Of course, getting to this point and bringing this to my consciousness so that I could see it for what it was, wasn't easy. That's what was required though for me to be able to say, it's no longer mine and truly believe it.  Is that what you think Sarte meant?  

muji

[phoenix]

bye

[Anonymous]

Hello friends,

Jacmac, I am so sorry for the vast hardship you have endured.  Children shouldn't ever have to live through that kind of experience.  I am happy that you are moving forward.

My thoughts about memories... I also have a really difficult time remembering my childhood.  As far as I know, I did not have any horrible things happen.... yet, my childhood memories are disjunct and small --like a photograph in a scrapbook.  It's almost as if the memory comes from outside of me, not from within.  Yet I have no reason to believe that this is a result of a bad experience.

Sartre says that one makes choices in their life and creates their current reality through those choices.  In many ways I agree with this.  I believe that regardless of what my past was, this is what I am now.  It helps me to think this way.  It gives me a sense of self empowerment and courage.  

my best, lynn

Excuse me Jacmac, but I couldn't help but notice in this thread that you never thanked Lynn or even acknowledged her post, but went on to respond to only one other, no thanks to anyone at all. I rest my case re your new post ' Voiceless in a Voiceless ness Forum." and why don't you come down from your high horse.
Not to mention that here above you not only did not not thank anyone at all, but you only responded to Pheonix. Not Muji or bunny or pp portia. Not one thankyou. You seemed to have lost interest in your own post topic. Talk about superficial triple standards. Where's the bucket.
Just wanted to point out to you how 5 people walked into the room and said hi to you and you only replied to one, the very thing you had a go at Lynn about. What horses**t


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