Messages

This part may be highly upsetting, so trigger warning...
At the end, my brother made several attempts to reach out to me to forge a new bond. I rejected all of them. He had been estranged by his own family (DV) and I was the last person left he could possibly have connected with... But no thanks.
 He died alone in a dark apartment feeling unloved and unwanted, and he was probably correct.
 I feel a little guilty about that but not so guilty that I wouldn't do it again. I'm mainly disappointed that he went to his grave with the answers to many questions I have now.
 And he's not the only one I've treated so callously over the years.
 Some will say "wow, that's really cold" and I won't dispute it. I say all that to illustrate how deep my sense of self protection runs.
 So I'm not negating or minimizing anyone's quest for forgiveness or reconciliation. It's just that I cannot even remotely relate to such concepts. Most people don't get a first chance from me, let alone a second.
 And I don't feel the slightest temptation to change that. It's what's kept me safe and un-victimized all these decades. Perhaps I "should" feel less complete because of this, but I don't. 

 Anyway... I saw others talking about this struggle and wanted to chime in without derailing their threads.
 Best,
-Slashy

 The frustrating part is that so many of my memories are as she describes; "perfect happy days".
 But at some point there was DV, child abuse, and upheaval/ isolation in '74 (age 2/3) followed by a mostly clear stretch in the '70s with sporadic abuse, followed by chronic DV and child abuse throughout the '80s.
 Most of it was good.
 All of it has been obscured and marred by the trauma, including everything that happened after during adulthood. My son regularly recounts stories I do not recall although I have plenty of memories of that time.
 It sucks that dissociative amnesia isn't more selective. It messed up everything.
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzMGDdUyHkQ
 This scene hits hard for me. "I remember".

 I remember so many things they say I shouldn't be able to, and have no recollection of so many events I should recall.
 She was just a baby in those photos, but she remembers that day just as I do. 

 My earliest autobiographical memory dates back to age 1, possibly 2. I was sitting on the front porch of a townhouse "project". My mom was hot- combing my dad's hair and I vividly recall that there was no landscaping or road. There was construction equipment parked and all of that was still under construction. I remember marveling at the sea of churned brown clay where grass, cement, and asphalt should be.
 There were no siblings present in the moment, no reason why anyone would ever recount such a mundane experience. There was no immediate danger aside from the fear that I might fall off the stoop and into the mud.
 This memory was not coached or fabricated. It's too detailed, mundane, and personal. How old was I? What was the context? I have no idea. But I remember it anyway. 
 I used this memory as a clue like all the rest. At some point, I lived at this place. It had one standout attribute; a single large concrete patio that connected all of the units instead of one stoop per.
 I don't know where this is, but I expect to find out shortly. My foster care records likely will include the address next door where they picked me and my siblings up.
 We moved from that project to a proper house when I was 2 and I have many memories of that house at age 2, but when they picked me up I was in the apartment next door in that project.
 Point is: I remember all of this. I shouldn't, but I do.

[HATE]

Addendum:
 My baby sister and I were commiserating about being afflicted with "the good hair". Being of mixed race, there's a genetic lottery that determines whether your hair will be jet black with large floppy curls (I and my sister had that) or tighter "nappy" brown hair, which my brother had.
 If you have "the good hair", grown women will invariably play with it and fawn over you, which is an upsetting experience.
 Anyway, my sister sent me a selfie of her hair and I took one to send back and that's when I noticed it: I HATE taking selfies. I hate the sight of my own face. Or rather, I hate the act of intentionally looking at myself. I haven't looked in a mirror in years.
 When I look at myself, it's like I'm looking into the eyes of a stranger.
 I have an alarming self- identity problem. Not sure how I need to approach it.
 Best,
-Slashy

 Thanks guys. 
 What I find fascinating is that all of this recall of distinct memories "should" be impossible according to modern neurology, yet I remember it anyway.
 Even earlier than age 3, I have clear autobiographical memories throughout age 2, perhaps as far back as 1, when nothing traumatic was going on. Science would suggest that this is impossible, but they're wrong. 
 It's not that these early memories were recorded in some temporary storage that faded later, it's that they're devoid of any context or narrative. They're thus impossible to retrieve directly.
 They're not organized by time, subject, or context. They simply exist in a giant disorganized pile.
 As I have been examining my fractured memories, I have discovered how to retrieve and catalogue these memories one by one, using them as clues to reconstruct my early timeline. I know that these aren't imaginary, as they have been confirmed (at least the ones related to my time in foster care).
 I have earlier memories that are completely unverifiable (none of them traumatic), but they are just as real and vivid as the others, so I take them as real.
 Anybody can do this. It's not a superpower. It's just that very few ever have a reason to.

 Happy Sunday,
-Slashy

And now I'm realizing that there was no point where I haven't been dissociating. Spring 1974 at 3 years old clear through to today. It never stopped.
 There was never any single traumatic event or even cluster of them that caused me to be this way. I was *always* like this.
 My only distinction between dissociation and "normal" is whether I form narrative memories or not. That's past- tense and I can't tell the difference in real time.
 I lived a full life "in the moment", but also one where I wasn't. How would I even begin to approach that? 

Last area is the "interview room". That's where they brought me to meet my new foster parents. It was like the yard, but darker and tiny. Same chairs, different table.
 They pulled me out of the yard and changed my clothes, brought me to this room.
 The interaction itself is a whole story, but the upshot is when you go to a shelter and visit the dogs, I know exactly how the dogs feel.

 I think that's it. I'll recount more details if I remember any.

 There were only two other scenes I can recount from my time there. They may have been separate buildings or subdivisions of the others.

 The "induction area". I think I've already recounted this area. I'll check and come back.

 *Oops*, I guess not.

 My baby sister (age 2) went first in the back of a white sedan driven by some lady in a black dress with a briefcase. I assume she was a caseworker. My brother (age 4) instructed me to do as the adults said and everything would be okay. I (age almost exactly 3) went next in the back of a police paddywagon , screaming and crying all the way.
 When I arrived, they put me in a bassinet in a large dark room full of bassinets, but I was the only kid there. Same layout as the "yard", but with the same security area I described with the dorms. The bassinet was too small for me and I was in full freakout mode. The only light was from the security area and the security lady cocked back her fist and threatened to punch me in the face if I didn't shut up.
 I think this event is linked to the song "Jet".
 

McEntyre Shelter main building, ca 1974.
 I don't know what word to use to describe this facility. It was like a gymnasium, but much larger. The shelter was functionally a "kid prison", so the best word to describe it would be "yard". Except it was indoors. We were never allowed to be outdoors.
 We spent most of our time in this area. It was subdivided by tan tweed accordion fold dividers. Large institutional "prison" space. laquered salmon colored cinderblock walls, large inset windows reinforced and barred, too high to see out of.
 Each sub- room held kids of the same age, carefully segregated from siblings. They served as nurseries/ preschools/ schools appropriate to age.

 The rooms contained long white tables. Almost like party tables but bigger. And instead of typical school benches, they had separate pastel fiberglass chairs.
 Everything was done at those tables, including meals.
 There were toys, coloring books, a mobile blackboard, Little Golden Books, etc.

 Contact between siblings was strictly forbidden, but just as I could defeat the latch on my crib, my brother found a way to work around the restriction. He checked on me and showed me where my sister was kept. Sometimes when the partitions were half open I could spot her.
 Eventually both were gone and it was just me.

 

The dormitory bays at McEntyre Shelter ca. 1974:
 Narrow rooms containing 8 cribs each. Cribs abutted the walls. Stainless steel crib bars and sky- blue walls. Nylon waterproof mattresses. Reinforced window with bars at one end of the room, steel door with small reinforced glass window at the other.
 I did not know how to unlock the bars when I arrived, but another toddler showed me how. A small rotating lever at the bottom near my feet. I could just barely reach it and lower the bars without making noise.
 The door opened into a dorm "common area".
 After bedtime, we would hide behind the door and observe the adults in the common area. The motif was very 1960s. Faux cut stone hallway, shag carpet, sixties style couches and TV.
 The hallway ran left and right by our door. To the left were more bays on the left hand side and the bathroom on the right. To the right was at least one more bay on the right and a security station on the left.
 The security station was sort of an alcove. Brightly lit with a counter that faced the common area.

 The grownups knew we weren't in our cribs and watching them, but they'd mostly let us do that so long as we didn't annoy them. But occasionally we *did* annoy them and that's when they shut the doors.
 I didn't mind the crib because I knew how to get out of it. I very much *did* mind the closed door because I couldn't open it.
 It was very dark in the bays with the door closed. Lonely, isolated, trapped. There were other toddlers there, but none of them were my family and my parents were gone.
 Sometimes I would cry myself to sleep or hear another little boy doing that and I could hear the toot of a switching locomotive in the nearby railyard in the night. It was such an incredibly lonely feeling!

 I've only recently pieced together the memories of the dorm area/ experiences. I've realized that the "toot" in the middle of the night is a trigger for me. I instantly bolt awake, flooded with adrenaline.
 I remember that there was a bathroom and its location, but no memory of the interior. I don't remember how we bathed, dressed, or did any of that stuff. I don't remember what clothes we wore.
 
   

McEntyre Childrens' Shelter. Pittsburgh, 1974.

 My sister and I simultaneously requested our records from our time in the foster care system. She asked me about my memories from that period and urged me to write it all down. Like me, she's trying to rebuild a coherent timeline.
 I won't attempt all that in one sitting, but I'm just going to put everything I can recall here.

[ANY]

The frustration of amnesia:
 An individual identifies "self" by the collection of his or her experiences and experiences are recorded as memories. It's the Star Trek transporter paradox; if I step into the transporter and another identical copy of me is generated with my memory, is that person still me? Or did I die and now some clone is wandering around?
 My memories are jumbled, chaotic, and at least some are absent. That means I am not fully defined. Who am "I"? Am I even myself? 
 
 This started with my recounting of a severe weather event I had personally lived through: The "Cleveland Superbomb" blizzard of 1978. I then looked up other extreme weather events I had personally experienced. "The Storm of the Century", 1993. "Iowa's Katrina" flood, 2008. "Midwest Derecho", 2020. These served as useful timestamps for me, so I googled more severe weather events I experienced.

 I found the May 31, 1985 Pennsylvania tornado outbreak. One of the deadliest in US history. 
  It occurred where I lived and I have absolutely no recollection of it ever having happened.
 I dug deeper and discovered that I have no recollection of ANY major news events whatsoever roughly April through September 1985. And they were big events.
 I sat there like a coma patient, reading news stories that happened but I was totally unaware of.
 I remember most stuff prior and post, but that stretch is an inky void where I seemingly wasn't even on the planet or not conscious.
 Is this proximal to a traumatic event? What happened to me in summer 1985? Now that I've seen the discrepancy, I cannot unsee it.
 
 
 

A few updates and personal notes.

The experience of cPTSD vs the popular misconceptions...
 -You cannot describe the symptoms of dissociation to someone who's dissociated most or all of the time. What does "not in the moment" even mean to someone who's never in the moment in the first place?   The big tell of dissociation is amnesia. That is relatable. "Proximal dissociative amnesia" means a gap in time that was very messily removed. For me that's the summer of '85 (more on that later). "Generalized dissociative amnesia" is spans of years or even decades where memories are like a collage that was ripped apart and then taped together at random. No coherent timeline or context.
 -"Hypervigilance" isn't Uncle Ted hiding in the corner with a 12 gauge freaking out because "Gomer's in the wire". It's adopting the persona of the "Slavic girl" trope. I love you and want to trust you, but I can't. I can do a fair impression of trust for a while, but I can never be someone who even wants you in my house. "I'm sorry you have feelings. Must be exhausting".
-"Triggers" aren't people saying things that piss you off. They are much more subtle and random. The smell of pennies, the sound of a snippet of a specific song from 1974, a certain pattern of linoleum or shade of mauve, the toot of a switching locomotive in the night. The response is somatic, but not "you made me mad so now I'm going to act childish".
-"Flashback" isn't a terror sequence where Uncle Ted suddenly goes spastic. A flashback is where a previous memory suddenly resurfaces and you don't merely "remember" it, but fully experience it for the first time. It may be a happy memory, innocuous, or traumatic. It may be total-recall or emotional. But there is only ever one "flashback" per repressed memory. After that, it's just a memory like all the rest. The somatic response isn't violence, but rather stunned silence.   
-"Hyperarousal" isn't sitting in the corner weeping, shaking and twitching. I mean... It kinda is, but it's not that over- the- top caricature of it. It's more like a slow adrenaline leak that continues for weeks. You're vibrating like a string, suffering from insomnia and non- restful sleep, jumpy. In my case, it comes with fibromyalgia. It's exhausting and impairs your ability to function. Unlike hypervigilance, it's not always there.

So I did some research on this and answered my own question.
 This is called "dissociative semantic disintegration". It's distinctly different from a repressed memory.
 In a repressed memory, the pathway to access it is disrupted, but may be restored some other way. A song, a smell, etc. It suddenly springs back into being, and when you remember it, it's like you're experiencing it with all of the emotions of the moment.
 In the case of "dissociative semantic disintegration", the episodic memory itself is intact and freely accessible, it's just the *context* of the experience that is gone. This specific example of abuse wasn't filed under "abuse", just as my sister wasn't filed under "sister".
 
 So I've just learned that there's more than one way for my subconscious to hide memories from me.

 Best,
-Slashy

 All,
 I've been digging around the events surrounding my early childhood and I stumbled across an odd memory; A vivid memory of our babysitter abusing us.
 Every other unlocked repressed memory I've experienced came with a flood of emotion, this one came with nothing. 
 I'm not sure I can trust it because of that.
 I've always sworn that while we *were* abused, I had no recollection of it. But focusing on events surrounding that time, listening to period songs/ TV show themes, etc... I realized that I actually *did* recall it perfectly well. I knew it the whole time.
 Given the fact that I remember it with perfect clarity but I don't "feel" it... What are the odds that this is a false memory? How common is this phenomenon?

Thanks,
Slashy