I wrote this piece a few months ago while I was in therapy. I was trying to pin-point the source of my constant anxiety. With so many gaps in my memory from my childhood, these are the most vivid memories that often present in the form of recurring dreams. There is a lot alluded to, but I don’t know how much of these memories to trust as actual fact.
Sometimes they wash over you like a cloud rolls across the sky on a cool spring day. They give you just the faintest outline of an image, that if stared at too long becomes distorted, but if half ignored takes shape in the most marvelous of ways.
Sometimes they are so jarring that you wake up in the middle of the night. Heart pounding. Palms sweaty. Nervous. Anxious. Not able to remember what caused the reaction, but absolutely certain it was terrible.
Sometimes they bring a smile to your lips. A sparkle to your eyes. You are lost in a moment of nostalgia. You can recall every word, every detail, every sound, every smell. And you never want to forget.
Sometimes, you push them away. You don’t want to remember. You try to distract yourself. You force your mind to focus on other things. You remember, but you desperately want to forget.
A seemingly unrelated event brings everything rushing back.
The strange, metal, army green chest and the single bed. The bedroom that had nothing else in it. But where was it? Why were you alone? Why were you afraid? Was it even real?
The whispers. The looks. The sadness. The anger.
The fat lady singing about a fire. Being woken up because you had to evacuate because a gas station down the road actually did catch fire.
The questions that suggest something terrible and unspeakable might have happened to you. But you don’t know. There’s a gap, a blank, a void. You want to remember, to put the questions at ease, but you don’t trust what’s real and what’s imagined.
The punishments for being a kid. Being forced to double over backwards as a time out. Until the pain became so unbearable you give in to the spanking for moving because that’s better than the numbness you feel.
The fear of doing anything wrong.
Ever.
You might think people are nice, but if you make them angry, they might become someone you don’t recognize. You just don’t want to take that chance.
The recurring dream of there being a secret passageway in your school’s cafeteria. If you find it, you can finally escape. But, you can also get lost and never be found.
The realization that you are just a shell of who you want to be, because you are scared of what your genes might have made you.
Am I strong enough to change history for my own family?
They aren’t all bad. You know there are some hidden good ones scattered here and there. The problem is braving the process. Not knowing what will trigger a fleeting image. The eternal impact.
The yellow big bird slippers that only had one eye. The doll house, that you loved, but don’t remember, other than it being given to you.
Your babysitter’s son telling you that you have to do what he says or you will be in trouble, then being led into his bedroom. You can only imagine what happened next, because like so much else, everything after that point is blank in your mind.
You want them to stop. But you also want to understand.
When do they end?
The Ashley Smith Blog 