Childhood Memories

Written on January 27, 2005 at 1:00 a.m.

When I was born, I wasn't supposed to have survived being born. I was told this by a Seer in India. My Mom had built up so much grace in her past lives and she really badly wanted a child, her request was granted and so I was born.

Like most children, at some time in their lives, I used to wonder if I was adopted. I didn't fit in my family. I was nothing like my brother or my sister. I always felt smarter and older than my Dad. I was my Mom's protector. Mom taught me that to feel hurt too much. I don't think I was ever allowed to be the child with either of my parents. So, little girl, I don't know how to play.

Memories:

One is alone, crying, dying, surviving.

Two is alone, trying to be quiet, afraid of and wanting someone's attention.

Three is calling myself an adultress.

Four is a little girl in an Easter dress.

Five is starting school too young, a week-long ear ache, learning to whistle really, really, loud just for the wonderful sound of it.

Six is my first boyfriend and girlfriend and love of a teacher, being Mother Mary in the school Christmas play.

Seven is when my Grandma's house burned down and everything changed. I don't know how or why.

Eleven is loss of innocense and childhood. I become Woman---Wife---Mother---for my parents.




Do I have any happy childhood memories? Probably, but if I do, they are well hidden. With 2 angry parents, can the children be happy? If you have happy memories of your childhood cherish those memories and hold them close. You are blessed.

When you suppress bad memories, good ones also get lost in the process. The mind doesn't destinguish between good and bad. It erases memories that you want it to plus some that you don't want it to. The subsconscious does not distinguish between the two. That is probably why so many abuse survivors don't remember much of their childhood. The few good memories that I do have were always time spent at my maternal grandmother's house, not the house of my parents.

This was not written to depress anyone. It is written to let other survivors know they are not alone in what they feel and what they remember or don't remember about their childhoods. As an adult, I have built many good memories with my husband and my children to make up for those that I don't have of my childhood.

Sometimes, we forget just so that we can survive the abuse. I have conscious memories of the incest happening for six years from the age of 11-17. I have art work that I did in counseling that suggests that the incest started when I was much younger. I have a memory of when I was three years old and called myself an adultress that suggests the incest may have been happening as early as 2-3 years. For two years, it bothered me that I could not remember why I called myself an adultress. The implications are there but that is all that I have. Then I realized that the mind of a three year old does not having the coping skills of an eleven year old. The way that the mind of the three year old dealt with the (possible) abuse was to totally block it out except for this one memory of labeling herself as an adultress. The mind does protect us in this way. Another way that some incest survivors take is to become a multiple personality. It is just as valid of a survival tool as forgetting or blocking memories.