Memory - Not Nearly as Reliable as a Scrapbook or Video

My thoughts are all over the place today. I can’t decide what I should write about. I could tell you about my two favorite growing things at the old house – or about the never ending hole in the back yard of the old house. I could tell you about my thoughts on memory and share a couple of stories regarding memory. I could tell the chocolate frosting story, but I’m not sure if I can tell that one yet. I could tell you about the first time I ever saw haunts at the old house. I think I should give the old house a name – any ideas for one? Suggestions are appreciated because I’m drawing a blank. You can check here to see a picture of the house:
My Old House


The following may be triggering for some. Physical abuse is described. Proceed with caution.

Maybe while it is fresh in my mind, I will share my thoughts on memory. I just got off the phone with my older sister, Ann; we discussed what we remembered about the abuse we endured as children. I find it interesting that until I was thirty five years old, I had no recollection of my father ever hitting me. I could remember him hitting my other siblings, but not me. My aunt even asked me one time, “Did your Dad ever hit you?”

“No;” I answered, “He hit the other kids, but he never hit me.”

I felt guilty about this. Dad used to tell me that I was his favorite, so I thought that is why he hit the other kids and not me. It didn’t seem fair that I didn’t get hit, but I was glad to not be hit. Yes, I was afraid of him. Yes, I hid when he came home, but I didn’t remember him being abusive to me (in that way). I knew about one time when I thought he might have hurt me, but I had lost time, so I couldn’t recall what happened.

My dad is/was an avid gardener. If he planted one seed, two seedling would pop up (yes, I jest), but he did grow an amazing garden.

He wouldn’t let me help in the garden because he said I wasn’t big enough to not mess up. He let Ann help because she was four years older than I was. I stood at the edge of the rose garden and enviously watched Ann help with the beautiful roses. I could hardly wait to get big enough to help.

The rule of our yard was that we could play anywhere he hadn’t planted. We had a strip of ground that ran next to the driveway. He hadn’t planted this area, and I played there often. I pretended to plant. One day as I happily walked on the bare dirt, poking my stick in the ground, singing a made-up song, Dad came barreling toward me. “You G** D*** stupid little kid.” (only he used the words) “Get the %&^$ out of my garden. I just planted there. You $%^#@!& little whore. You’ve ruined everything.” I cringed as he grabbed me by the arm and marched me into the house, swearing and yelling all the way. He took me into a room – I can not recall which one. I think it was my bedroom, but in my memory it was backwards, so I am unsure. Then something happened, but to this day, I have not been shown what. This was the first time I was aware that I lost time. Whoever was forward that day has not shared the memory of what happened.

I was six years old and clearly remember being distressed that I couldn’t remember what had happened in the moments before he walked out of the room shouting, “You will stay here until I tell you you can leave.”

I thought, “Is my brain broken.” I thought of all the things I could remember. I ran through the list of holidays and memories that went back to me being a toddler, but I couldn’t grasp what had just happened. If I could remember everything else, why oh why could I not remember the last thirty minutes? It could have been less or more time – my six year old mind gave it the value of thirty minutes. I worried about this for years – until I was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder – then I knew what had happened.

Memories are mysterious things. When I told my siblings that I didn’t remember Dad ever hitting me, one looked at me like I had two heads. She said, “You don’t remember when we were fighting over a chair in the rumpus room, and Dad got mad, grabbed us, threw us on my bed, and beat the hell out of us?” She had a vivid and clear memory of this, but I still don’t remember. Another sister clearly remembers him grabbing Mary and me and smacking our heads together - often. Mary and I did fight frequently. Mom said we would love each other when we grew up. I always swore that I would NEVER even like her, but Mom was right and we became good friends.

One of my clearest memories is the day Dad hit Ann right smack in the nose just because she was the unlucky person who crossed his path as he walked through the front door. I can still see the tears well up in her eyes as she struggled not to cry in order to save herself from a further beating because he said, “I didn’t hit you that hard. If you cry, I’ll really give you something to cry about.”

I remember praying, “Please don’t cry; please don’t cry.” I couldn’t bear to see my Ann get hit again. She still has no memory of that day.

When we were adults she told me about a beating I took that she always felt guilty about. When I was three or four, Ann, Mary, and I hid under a bed with Dad’s slide projector. We were not supposed to play with this "expensive" piece of equipment. Ann had the projector shining on the wall as we happily watched the slide show. Dad came in and realized immediately what we were doing. He ripped a board off of a crate of grapes. Ann remembers seeing the small nails in the end of the board. She knew what he was going to do with the board. As he came for us, self-preservation took over, and she ran as fast as she could. Because I was the youngest and slowest, he was able to grab me. He beat my legs with the board. She says she can still see the red scratches that covered my tender skin where the nails hit me. She felt guilty for running, but her response was completely normal for a child of seven or eight. The only one who did anything wrong was Dad. He completely over-reacted to us using the projector.

I still have no memory of the beating, but it is one of Ann’s most vivid memories.

One night, at age thirty five, I had a flashback as I was dropping off to sleep. In the flashback, I was being pulled out from underneath a bed. The bed sat higher than a normal bed. My hair snagged and tore in the bedsprings. The floor under the bed was linoleum, so as I was pulled, my little hands slid desperately along the floor seeking something to grab on to. The sense of dread and terror I felt was completely overwhelming. I came out of the flashback with a start. I called Ann the next day and described what I saw and felt. She said that was what happened when Dad grabbed me out from underneath the bed to beat me with the board. My little mind knew what was coming and went somewhere else. I saw and remembered the beginning, but to this day, although I still have a scar on the back of my leg from one of the nails, I do not remember the beating. I hope that I never have to remember it. Memory is mysterious. It tells us what it decides we need to know – for what ever reasons. Although memory is fallible, it is what ties us to the past and it makes us act how we do in the present.

On a side note, one day when I was at Dad’s house (as an adult) during a time when we were still on speaking terms, I borrowed the slide projector and all the slides. He and Grandma were out of town, and I was the person designated to water the plants and pick up the mail. I told him I took the projector. After I learned what he had done, I never returned the projector or slides. I felt I had paid for them with my pound of flesh. He wanted them back after I stopped communicating with him, but I didn't respond or send them back. If he could beat a child for watching a projector, he didn't deserve to have it. Now it was my turn to punish him - of course me being me, I found a punishment that was logical. When things become more important than the people we are supposed love and protect, it is time to re-evaluate our priorities. Give your kids an extra hug today – they deserve it. If you feel they don’t deserve one, it probably means they need two.

Doubting Memory

I needed to process my thoughts about this post which is why I haven’t posted for a few days and why I posted safe posts (recipes) in the days before now.

I knew when I started this blog that I was putting myself out there and that people would cast their judgments upon me. I have a few family members who read this blog. Only my most trusted family members have the link to this blog and know that I am the author. I know that what I am about to post may cause hurt feelings; however, I want my trusted and loved family members to know that I am in no way angry at them. Their comments to me about this blog are part of my healing process, so I thank them for their love and tender concern for my well being.

Last week I got a call from a concerned family member about one of my posts. Because she and another family member could not remember me wearing leg braces, they assumed that I had lost it. At first this really bothered me because I did wear them. I called my mother and told her that I was talking to said family member about wearing braces and that she didn’t remember me ever wearing them. My mom of course remembered that I did wear them. She even shared with me a story that I didn’t remember. She said that I hated my shoes so much that I sailed them down the gutter and that she had been very upset with me because the shoes had been so expensive. We talked about me fighting her when she would try to put the braces on me at night. It was nice to have someone confirm this memory that was so vivid to me.

My family member did remember the story about the shoes riding down the gutter which made her feel that she could then validate the fact that I wasn’t completely mentally nuts.

I struggled until yesterday with this conversation. I thought, “Why is it that just because I have D.I.D., my memories are somehow less reliable than hers?” I thought, “What if Mom had been dead and unable to confirm my story – then would my family members think my story about wearing braces was just the imagination of a crazy person?” I was hurt and considered not writing anything else – except for recipes on my blog. I wondered if everything I wrote would now be questioned. Would I have to defend everything I wrote if someone else’s memory was considered more reliable than mine because I have D.I.D. and they do not?

As I pondered all of this, I could feel the scream settling inside my chest. My daughters know who and what this scream is. I am not able to talk further about it at this time. But anyway, I could feel myself being silenced again. The fears that were instilled, “No one will believe (hear) you if you tell,” resurfaced. I became voiceless once again. I felt unable to share my story with anyone. I even considered going in and deleting every post and then killing the blog, but with every thought, the strangled scream ached to get out – to be heard – to never be silenced again.

Two days ago, I shared how I felt with a trusted friend. He said, “You knew you were putting yourself out there, but you are strong; you can handle this.” Later that day, the epiphany came, but I was too tired to write it all down. Today, I am ready. Today I thank my concerned family members because without them being concerned for my mental health and sense of reality, I wouldn’t have come to this understanding.

I thought about my younger sister who is schizophrenic. She was an odd little girl because of abuse and perhaps the onset of her mental illness. Because of this, she became an easy target for all of us. I thought about how we, as young girls, often told people she was lying when she was telling the truth. She said what she wanted to say – everything else be damned – we felt her unabashed truth would sink us all. Her unwillingness to keep our family secrets caused us to strike out at her. She had no qualms about telling people that our mother was living polygamy. We didn’t want to go into foster care, so we would say, “Oh you know how she is; you can’t believe anything she says;” then direct at her, “You are such a liar.” Although we were children, it sickens me to think about how we treated her. We used society’s inability to accept "different” to try to make people think she was lying when in fact she was telling the truth. Society is quick to judge anyone who doesn’t think the way they do. Even people who trust me are quick to doubt me and throw me into that other world of “she is just not quite right in the head land” because I have D.I.D. They, like me, doubt the memories that come from someone who carries the mentally ill label.

I thought about how easy it is for me to doubt those who don’t think the way I do. My sister with schizophrenia has valid memories, yet because I don’t understand how her mind works, I discount everything she tells me as possibly being a figment of her imagination. I thought about the role we, as little girls, played in her continual downfall, and I mourn for her and for us – the pawns caught in a tangled web of lies and abuse.

I don’t have the answers to most of this, but I love situations that make me think – and think hard. This situation did just that. It didn’t detract from the love I have for the family members who questioned my stability when I wrote about something that had slipped their minds. I know we can’t remember everything, nor do I expect anyone to remember things from so long ago. I do know that we all have memories that are very strong for us, and yet that same memory may not have been a blip on the radar to anyone but us. This was a wake-up call for me to be less willing to call everything into question that someone with mental illness tells me. Because of this experience, in a small way, I realize how my sister must feel when people doubt all that she says.

Perhaps if we had allowed a little girl to speak instead of calling her a liar, our abuse would have ended sooner. I am so sorry for the role I played in helping to silence her cry. I can not in good conscience silence myself either, so this blog will go on.

A prayer goes out tonight that in my lifetime, our society will discover enough about how the brain works to eliminate the doubts that all of us – including me – have about those who carry the label “mentally ill”.