Hidden Memories

Sometimes they can be clues to unlocking life’s mysteries.

What is your very first memory? Is it from when you were a toddler? Grammer school? Has it been a memory that you’ve remembered your whole life, helping shape your story? Or is it something you’ve recently dredged up from the dungeons of your consciousness, compartmentalized so well that you forgot its existence?

As I faced my own inflection point in my life nearly four years ago, where I face-planted again and again and again (let’s just say it was a lot), one of the many things I grappled with is remembering events that drastically shaped who I am.

But through all of my face-planting I met a good man to help me navigate this journey that I’m on. During a session where EMDR therapy was used I unpacked an old memory that had remained hidden for 50 years.

Here is that memory.

When I was a toddler, before the age of three, I lived with my parents in Fullerton, California. It was a small home, common to Southern California, packed close to other small houses. I would describe it as a nice working class home.

One day, while my mom was working in the kitchen, I wandered outside the front door to see what adventures could be had. Our neighbor was outside, a man, cleaning something on his front porch. There was one of those green cardboard can of Comet cleaner just sitting there. Right next to a big glass bowl, filled halfway with water, with a small turtle inside.

Baby turtle inside a large glass bowl half filled with water

I didn’t know what Comet was used for. How could I as a toddler? To me it looked like something the turtle would enjoy. So with my fat fingers I picked the can of Comet up and shook some into the water, thinking it was food for the turtle and not poisonous.

I don’t think too much time elapsed before our neighbor started yelling and screaming at me one minute, and to my mother the next minute, carrying on about his turtle and me killing it. My mother burst out of the house, ran over to where I was, snatched me up by the arm, adding to the cacophony in my head.

My mother is a stern person, raised by midwestern farmers in Illinois, where spankings and abandonment were common forms of punishment and rarely used in isolation. As soon as we get inside the house, the front door slammed shut, I’m drug into the kitchen, and she pulls out this wooden spoon that seemed to go with a witches cauldron. Huge, imposing, and clearly meant for my two year old butt.

Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash

After she throws the instrument of punishment in the trash, apparently my fiery buns of steel broke it while receiving the spanking, I was taken to my room, and left there to cry and “think about what I had done.” It seemed like hours that I was shut in solidarity confinement.

That’s my very first memory.

I wish I could say that it was the last time I was punished like this. Both spankings, bordering on beatings, and abandonment were commonly used. Both of my parents used these tactics, while the largest amount of the abuse came from my mother. Shame was a particular vicious weapon used frequently. Perfection was the only standard. I wasn’t the only victim of the apex predator in my life. My two siblings, father, and everyone that crossed our paths found themselves in her field of fire.

Everyone in the family developed coping mechanisms to survive. Over time I became hyper-independent and left home as soon as possible. I made choices as a result of my coping skills as a child that did not translate well into adulthood.

What I’ve learned in my EMDR sessions is I’ve gone through life without connections I felt were safe. Everyone around me who you’d think would be a strong bond or connection, I kept at a distance and eventually destroyed. I didn’t know what a healthy attachment to someone in my core family looked like.

The resulting loneliness has been the latest version of solidarity confinement.

There is a silver lining at the end of this piece I promise.

Through regular sessions with my guy, I’ve come a long way. There are still bad days, but the scales are tilting toward good days more than bad. I’ve worked really hard to repair some relationships and accepted that others will always have scar tissue that can’t be repaired. Each day is met with the gratitude for the chance given to unpack all my memories, feelings, traumas, and dreams that I’d shoved into the darkest recesses of my mind. I refer to who I was as 1.0. That operating system crashed and was nearly unrecoverable. The latest version is 2.0, with I expect will be many more updates to come.

There are many unteachable lessons learn over the past four years. One that I’ll share with you dear reader today is as follows: have grace for yourself, give yourself some compassion, forgive yourself instead of beating yourself up, but most of all, love who you are in this moment. If you can do these things for yourself, eventually they will be traits you’ll show those around you.

God bless!!