A reply to the same comment made by many people:

Aug 09, 2006 18:09

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*NOTE*
This entry, after writing it, might sound like I'm lashing out at the people who have made the following quoted statement. I am not. I appreciate all support I have recieved on this subject and I am not trying to spite anyone. This is just something that has been stewing and I needed to get off my chest.
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"Be glad you can't remember, you don't feel the pain as much"

Thats something I've heard a lot since my last post here. After making that last post public a few minutes ago, I noticed the comments that I didn't have the stomach to reply to at the time because I simply coudn't handle the thoughts in my head. I didn't want to think about it.

Now I'm here to say that is complete bullshit. Try telling someone with a severed limb that they are better off, completely disregarding the fact that that limb still hurts, whether the limb is there or not. Same thing with memories. Repressed memories don't "hurt" like my memories of getting beat up and insulted all throughout middle school, they fucking HAUNT you. I've been chased by a boogyman my entire life that I *can* remember, an "unnamed feeling" to quote metallica. People who remember shit don't realize the effects of repressed memories. Yeah, YOU might feel that pain of your memories, but that pain is real to you, you own it, its like fighting someone standing in front of you. I've been fighting shadows, ghosts, with my bare hands.

Fact is, people who remember thier childhood traumas either remain victims, crippled in some way by those memories, or they become survivors by rising above those things. There are thousands of books, movies, songs, etc abotu these people, made BY these people. It's like they have an obstacle right in front of them and some cry at the bottom of it, while other start climbing. I'm not saying this is easy, I'm not trying to trivialize that journey at all, nor look down on those who couldn't make that first step.

But saying that my repressed memories hurt me less than your full memory trivializes what I have been through and the problems in my life. I didn't see that obstacle, I just kept running into it, sometimes slow, sometimes at break-neck speed, like an invisible wall. I thought I was retarded, literally. For a long time now I had accepted myself as simply brain damaged, defective. When nothing in my life was holding me back, I couldn't move forward. It always felt like I was holding myself back, to scared to move forward. I now know I was scared of hitting that wall. I was scared of my dad.

I know this isn't organzied, but bear with me.

Now, imagine that if you will. Going over every bit of your life that you can remember and coming to the conclusion that you are less than a man. Unfit, even in my eyes, to procreate as you would be spreading bad genetic material. Because I seriously thought my brain was fucked up and thats why I had manic depression, and my self esteem still hasn't recovered.

Do you understand? If I had known, I think I would have handled life differently. Hell, the therapy I got during sophmore year would have done a lot more and maybe I would have been ready for college. Its like my whole life was just a waste, aimlessly wandering in the shadow of this event, this repressed memory, trying like hell to run from it because how am I going to fight or resolve something I don't even know about. And now that the answer is here, I don't know what to do with it. Even writing this, tears are trying to come because there is over 10 years of my life that just doesn't seem real anymore. At this point, I feel like I am completely without a childhood, which is probably why I am a 23 year old wondering when I'm going to grow up.

If you can sort through that disorganized garbage, I'm sure you will see my point. I have lost part of myself with those memories. I don't care how bad or painful it was, I am lost without it. It's these types of things, these events and their memory, that make a person whoever they are. You can draw strength from even the most horrific of memories, as well as insight into life, and lessons that can help you throughout your life. All I feel is a hole, a phantom pain that haunts me. Emotionally, I feel like a blind man in a mine field... And these people are telling me I'm better off without that knowledge...
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