Traumatic memories never grow up, neither does the person

by wanderlustguy 22 Replies latest jw friends

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  wanderlustguy

  My mother has been through a lot in her life, some bad before the truth, then following through during and after. Almost all of which she never shared with me until the past few months when I had to have my questions answered to get past the events I was stuck on. I feel I am aging in years every month now, and was curious as to why. It's strange because I have a large responsibility for a large group of people, and seem to be good at it. However, in my "natural state" I think I was about 10-12, from here looking back I can see so many juvenile actions on y part. I've heard this before about women in particular, their voice sticks at a certain age if there was a traumatic experience (little girl voice), with men it's something different that is a big indicator, immature behavior (how many times have you seen a guy acting like a teenager?).

  Anyway, to the point, my mother has spent a lot on therapy, and had some brilliant doctors. One thing they said to her that really hit me was that our memories never grow up. We can't mentally revisit the time when we were taken advantage of by an older stronger person, revisiting with our current knowledge and strength and fortitude. We are eternally at that stage in our lives in that memory. So I the thought passed to me was that a person has to "embrace" the even, for lack of a better word, and recognise it for what it really was. Doing that, a person can dissect the event and know the real truth, because most of us (or at least I was) were taught to not see the entire truth of the event. We were taught that "maybe you misunderstood" or even outright "that person would not do that" and then we began to doubt ourselves, whether we even had a grasp on reality or not in the first place.

  Fortunately I have someone in my life that was there for all of it, and now I can ask the questions I never could ask before. The best part for me is, I'll ask about a memory that is faint or shut out for some reason, and I'll ask "did this happen?" and invariably it did. The question has been asked on this board so many times, "why are you angry?" I am not angry any longer, I have a hate, not of people, but of what was taken from me. The group, collective, organization, whatever you want to call it is part of a system that strips the purest of things from a person. They make us unbeleivers and apostates to ourselves because we reject the truth of our own perceptions. We are taught to ignore our own eyes, ears, hearts, and even the worst of all, our memories. How can someone believe or have confidence in themselves after that? Doubtless that is one of the tools of the organization, criplle a person emotionally to the point the depend on the "support" of the group...the same group that cripples them.

  Praise the one who left you
  Broken down and paralyzed - A Perfect Circle - Judith
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  under74

  Nicely put.
  
  I think most of us here identify in some way with what you've posted here...or at least I do. I didn't realize until sometime last year how stunted I was. I was angry but because I thought I'd left the Witnesses a while ago that I was over it....but when I really took time out to find out why I was so angry and why I was doing things I was doing it all led back around to being brought up the way I was. I don't blame anyone now. I'm an adult and can take responsibility for moving on but sometimes I find it unbelievable that it had so much of a hindering on my growth as a person.
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  Dustin

  That song "Judith" really describes in a nutshell how I feel about the JW religion and what it did to me.

  Dustin
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  jeanniebeanz

  There is a lot of truth in what you have written here. Since we look back on our own memories of abuse in the third person for the most part, the effect on me personally is to be angry that I was powerless to stop it. I can see those things happening to the little girl but cannot punish the abuser as I would surely do now. Why didn't I hit back or defend myself? This question screams at me.

  This has manifested itself in my life as an absolute loathing for anyone who harms a child. I go off like a bomb and have been known to actually attack abusers physically before I was able to understand where the reaction was coming from and get it under control.

  Every time I see someone abusing a child, I feel the same fear that I did as a child even though I am in no danger, and that turns into pure rage. It's almost like having an out of body experience.

  It has also manifested in my adult life as a fiercly overprotective stance toward my own kidletts, and the only time that I ever took on my ex-hubby was when I saw him yank my sons arm during an argument. He got thrown into a redwood tree by a woman he regularly smacked around. What a candid camera moment.

  I don't think any of us who have been hurt by either our parents or the organization sit around all day and plot their demise; that's pretty self-destructive. Way too much negative energy. But we definitely have our hot buttons. Some people see this as wining and they are entitled to their opinions, but with thousands of people using this site, almost every thread is going to hit someones hot button and they'll reply. Memories of abuse as a child is one of mine...

  Jeannie
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  Country Girl

  Very nice essay, thanks... You really hit home with a lot of topics you addressed.

  I myself wondered about some persons I had known (including Michael Jackson.. well, I didn't know him, but heard his baby voice) that had a "little girl" voice and what might cause them to adopt that affectation. I thought about it for a long time and realized that all the persons that had this characteristic had been sexually, physically, or emotionally abused as children. I wondered why they would adopt that certain trait, and then realized it was because they felt a vulnerability and perhaps thought that taking a child-like voice would deflect the anger of someone at them.

  Then it hit me funny: I too, as a child, was always getting spanked for "talking like a baby." It was hard for me, as a child, to identify what that exactly meant. Now, I can figure it out.. but then, I was much too young (5-8) to identify what that term defined. I do remember being extremely terrified of doing it again, whatever it was, and getting spanked. I finally was able to pinpoint the behavior at around 8, and quit the habit of talking in a baby voice.

  I mentioned this to my cousin and she said "Well, Michael Jackson does that, too." HAHAHAH.. I never really even thought about it til she pointed it out!

  CG
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  Effervescent

  Wow... what a great post, all I can say is "Thank You".
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  link

  I have also had similar thoughts and experiences but I managed to find some tecniques that really helped. These include certain N.L.P. (Neuro Linguistic Programming) excercises and T.F.T (Thought Field Therapy).

  Sometimes you do need a therapist to take you through these excercises but very often you can do them just as effectively by youself. I would think that much info on these techniques must be available on the net.

  link
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  zen nudist

  The question has been asked on this board so many times, "why are you angry?" I am not angry any longer, I have a hate, not of people, but of what was taken from me. The group, collective, organization, whatever you want to call it is part of a system that strips the purest of things from a person. They make us unbelievers and apostates to ourselves because we reject the truth of our own perceptions. We are taught to ignore our own eyes, ears, hearts, and even the worst of all, our memories. How can someone believe or have confidence in themselves after that? Doubtless that is one of the tools of the organization, cripple a person emotionally to the point the depend on the "support" of the group...the same group that cripples them.

  Here is my alternative view of reality for your consideration.

  Freewill is an oxymoron myth invented by human ignorance and has nothing to do with how reality actually works?. Namely by some set of reactions among entities such as super strings or quarks, etc. the evolution of all things including mankind is either by cause effect interactions or pure randomness, what we call will and desire are just our labels for manifestations of these within us.

  You can pick a point in reality and call it the start of your problems, but in reality it would be a falsehood as no starting point exists and the chain of events has no known origin or beginning and everything is simply proceeding as it must from the interactions as they happen.

  Hatred cannot exist unless you actively compare your real memories with ideals which your mind has adopted as superior to reality in blind ignorance of reality? [Reality is always perfect until you compare it to what it ain?t]

  If a past memory pains you, it is not the past event at fault, nor those involved in it, because whatever contribution they made was in the past and can have nothing to do with your current pain.... as all is left is data and it must be recognized that it is your current manipulation of that data which is the only source of pain? in other words, something you are doing to yourself in ignorance now is responsible. I trace this to an emotional energy difference which arises whenever there is a comparison made between any two perceptions, be they memory vs memory or memory vs current reality or either vs some ideal [fantasy memories]?. This emotional energy difference is a sort of static constant until on links them by a belief? a belief as to why these two events or memories or perceptions are being compared?. It is the nature of this belief which regulated the strength and type of emotion experienced now. It also means that changing the belief will change the emotional energy. But more fundamental, recognizing all ideals as falsehoods fabricated in ignorance will often be enough to take away the emotional energy potential all by itself.

  It is the ideal fantasy which our own minds accept without much question which cause most of our unnecessary sufferings. Everyone and everything that actually happened in your real life and in your real experiences are exactly what reality manifested from its true nature and from no where else? to blame reality for being what it must be is insane -- though widespread and normal relatively speaking.
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  wanderlustguy

  I think I left out my real point...after realizing I'm not crazy, and those things did happen, it seems possible to mourn for the little boy that had his mind turned inside out, like accepting a death in a way. Every time now I face an event, accept it happened, and speak to the ones I feel need to know I am now aware of the past, it goes away. Not really away, but where it belongs...in the past.

  The big event on my horizon, though is the confrontation with my father. He has to be accountable for what he did to us, and his payment will be to hear his son tell him what a small person his father is and why. I don't mean literally say "you are a small person", but to tell him what I know about the past and what he did to us, creating a horrible perception of what makes a good man. He's small because he doesn't even have the strength to face the reality he created or his own mistakes, I've made the same mistakes as him in some areas, and I intend for my children to know them all. They deserve to know my real experiences, maybe saving them some of my mistakes.

  He has to be made aware I know the truth, I know all of it, and no one including him can take it away from me again.

  Thanks for reading...

  W
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  wanderlustguy

  Zen, I follow along with your point, perception is reality. Like how do you know red is red? Because someone told you. How do you know your car is junk? Because you saw a bettter one?

  I don't wholeheartedly disagree with your thoughts, however I feel it is overstated in this case and akin to telling someone with a broken leg "it wouldn't hurt if you didn't know what it felt like before or saw all the other people without a broken leg". It's still broken.

  However, in this instance, to imply that a situation is bad simply because we know there is a better one is ignoring the fact that someone willingly and knowingly inflicted injury that was neither invited or neccessary. We all know the rules to life, you don't molest kids and you don't lie to other people looking to you for answers about life.

  If a past memory pains you, it is not the past event at fault, nor those involved in it, because whatever contribution they made was in the past and can have nothing to do with your current pain.... as all is left is data and it must be recognized that it is your current manipulation of that data which is the only source of pain? in other words, something you are doing to yourself in ignorance now is responsible.

  The purpose is not to identify fault and point fingers, but to bring the issue to resolution, however, the fear of the event remains. Perception, which I think is your point here, is sometimes forever altered by an event. What was innocent is now not, what was harmless now could kill you. Perhaps the way to correct the perception is to reconfront the event, now as a more informed person, essentially turning the light on for the monster under the bed to see there is none.

  My humble opinions...

  W