Blackness
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- A chapter from Under the Influence, Reclaiming my Childhood -
The writing of this book has brought up quite a few new and horrible memories, most of which I will never be able to reliably substantiate. That in itself is quite traumatic. I don't foresee a way to ever truly know the reality of the darkest parts of my childhood, all I have is the fragments and glimpses presented below.
What I do know is that logically, given everything else that happened, the lifestyle, the people and the situation, it would not be a stretch to assume that anything could have happened.
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Throughout my childhood I would always see things through other people’s eyes. Not in the empathic sense, but in the seemingly literal sense. I would never be truly in my own mind, rather I would 'see myself' from a third person perspective. This was true for most of my memories, dreams, and imaginations. It would even somehow occur in real time. For example, when walking down the street to the local shop, I would not see the goings on from my own perspective. Logically, I would be using my own eyes to navigate and avoid obstacles and the like, but internally, my perception of reality would somehow be simultaneously presented to me from an outside perspective.
It was as if I was constantly observing my life through a television set, watching the characters interact, seeing them move and hearing them talk. Just like when you are watching television, there is little emotional investment in the outcome. You know that it is all just an act and that everyone involved is just pretending. So what if the main character dies, this show is not real. So what if his brother is being bullied, this show is not real. It does not matter that somebody is doing drugs in front of their five-year-old child, this show is not real.
It is quite revealing just how emotionally disconnected I am from my past. It is quite hard for me to connect emotionally to specific events or even realise that something significant has occurred. Often I only realise the gravity of the situation through observing the reactions of those I am talking to. In a sense I am using them as a gauge to better understand myself.
I am regularly met with strange looks when I share what I previously believed to be a typical occurrence from my childhood. This look is one of confusion, empathy and sadness. It suggests in no uncertain terms that my experience is completely alien to the listener. It is a look of shock and surprise that I have made it this far. When I see this look, I never quite know how to react.
Now when I get that look, I intentionally bring myself back and re-evaluate what actually happened. But because I still struggle to apply reality to my own story, I actually need to detach from it enough to make it real. To do this I will try to imagine it happening to someone else, like a friend was telling me about a news report that they heard with those details substituted in. For me it is easier to personalise my past when it is applied to someone else.
I am not even sure if looking back and reinterpreting is the right thing to do for my mental state. Doing so has resulted in quite a number of realisations that prior to revaluation were benign occurrences, holding no conscious emotional weight. However, when I see that look on people’s faces, I can’t help but investigate further.
My personal disposition is one of disjointed reality. I have a constant sensation of living between worlds, thus there is a significant and ever present sensation of unreality. My existence seems dull, with the colours and sound muted. I struggle to connect to anybody, anything or even myself. I feel like a radio that is out of tune, always lacking that crisp clarity that others seem to have. Life rarely feels real, it's all a part of the show of life. Logically I know I'm wrong, but my God is it hard to actually feel.
My psychologist suggests that it is a symptom of the mental disorder 'dissociation'. This is basically a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experience. Detachment from reality. Really it is a defence mechanism that we all have. There is a reason that you don't remember all the details of the car crash, or what happened when you were in a fight. Our brains have a way of repressing the traumatic memories so they can't hurt us. We effectively 'forget' because to remember would be too painful.
For me however, this function is on overdrive. Thinking over my past I struggle to come up with very many memories, either good or bad. It's like the camera was on but nobody was recording. The memories that I do have access to seem to pertain to some other person, from another time. Yes, it’s 'me', but that 'me' is not someone that I feel innately connected to.
Sometimes I have moments of clarity in which I feel like my life has just started today, as in right now in this instant, and all of my memories have somehow been inserted into my brain. But the procedure went wrong, so I'm stuck feeling skewwhiff.
Sometimes I 'check-in' to reality and it becomes overwhelmingly apparent that everything is actually real. Imagine that in one instant all your delusions are shattered in front of your eyes. I go from merely knowing things intellectually to feeling them, connecting to them and somehow even reliving them. Writing this down sounds exceptionally crazy, because part of me knows and connects and interacts with the world, but a larger part does not. It is like a small outer shell is protecting the innocent, sensitive and empathetic inner layers from the truth. Blocking off, altering, filtering or outright denying anything in order to get through. However, the shell is cracking, and that is truly terrifying.
The last time this happened it was particularly bad. Out of nowhere all of my past came back to me, I felt connected to it. It felt like it was happening again, like I was there. I felt anger and rage like never before. I wanted to scream and punch a hole through a window just to feel the destruction. I remembered all the pain and suffering that I had witnessed, as well as what I had caused. I revealed every moment of wrong doing, every instance that I have caused pain to others. I felt such immense guilt that I probably would have killed myself then and there had I had the utensils.
From there I started to think of everyone, humanity as a whole. I came to the realisation that all of history had happened, it was all real. That all the violence, genocide, murder, rape, pillage, greed, pollution, destruction and famine are real. In that instance all the blocks that were put up preventing me from feeling suffering were shattered. It was like I had been watching a movie my whole life, believing it just to be a fiction that is separate from my own reality. Then all of a sudden it's real, every implication of every truth is real. That night I cried for hours in my wife's arms and got so inebriated that I completely forgot myself.
My mind is analogous with a water dam reaching capacity. Only allowing trickles of association through, until one day the pressure is too much and the dam breaks. I become flooded with reality and countless emotions that I still don't have the capacity to deal with. There is safety in dissociating.
It is not always bad however, sometimes I 'check in' to the good things. My wife's smile or the sparkle in her eyes, the panting of my dogs or the taste of watermelon, the kiss of a cool breeze or the warmth of the sun. These moments are all real, and on good days the world is an amazing place filled with love and joy that I once thought was impossible. Two sides of the same coin I guess.
Since starting this book, new memories have begun to surface. Maybe the process of writing and reliving my past has started to unlock the deeper and more repressed aspects of my childhood. Writing is almost like a catalyst that began the process of connecting the fragmented puzzle that is my memory.
Recently I have started to have recollections that I just can't shake. I have no way of verifying the truth of them because there is no one who I can ask. My father is gone, and the details of all of the people that he was associated with at the time are long outdated or forgotten. All that I have are fragments of memory combined with the reality of what life was like at Dad’s house.
One memory fragment begins with me lying on a bed in a white room. I don't know where I am or even how old I am. But I look young, perhaps primary school age. The blankets are cast aside to the floor and the room is a mess. Clothes and random junk are piled everywhere, but the bed is surprisingly clean. White sheets cover the thin springy mattress.
I am nude, face down and hugging a pillow. Behind me is a large man with his arms outstretched. His is holding me down. One hand at the base of my neck, and the other is on the small of my back. They are covered in long black hair and feel rough, like worker’s hands, calloused and unclean.
He is telling me to be quite and to stay still. I burry my head in the pillow and hold it tighter. It smells as if it had been left in a linen cupboard for way too long. I grit my teeth and begin to cry. I squeeze harder. The pressure on my neck increases as he releases his other hand. Slowly and deliberately he moves it lower and it begins to hurt. Then there is just blackness. All I remember of it is a glimpse, seen from an external perspective. It's like I am the aggressor assaulting my younger self. I see it through his eyes.
I don’t know for certain what happened to me that day and I never will. Trying to recall such trauma is fraught with issues as memory recall at the best of times is faulty. However, the fact that I have significant holes in my memory at least tells me about the severity of the situation that I faced growing up. Regrettably, in that house and with those people, anything could have happened.
People often wonder if it is wise for me to introspect and investigate my past. They will suggest that there is a risk of discovering something that I don’t really want to discover. Like a dam breaking under the increasing pressure of a flood of water.
From my experience, it’s a double edged sword. Sometimes I am provided with deeper insights and opportunities for healing. However, it can also be highly traumatic, revealing events and thought patterns that I was honestly not ready for. It is like a Pandora’s box of sorts, should I open it and risk the outcome? Regardless of what I find, when I discover something new it needs to integrate with my memory and world view. I am changed in the process.
The act of searching has become an integral part of my core self. By searching for my past I will hopefully better understand the present and thus create a positive future. Whether or not I am conscious of it, my past has shaped me and is still impacting me to this day and I would prefer to fight my demons face to face then be manipulated by them from behind the scenes.
Ultimately I am still not sure if associating is a good thing. If I had the choice between nonexistence or the extreme ups and downs of reality I am not sure what I would choose. Regardless, it’s not like my preferences even matter, reality comes in waves. All I can do is keep walking the path of recovery and dealing with whatever life, and my mind, decide to throw at me. Embracing reality does have one distinct advantage to dissociation. It allows for meaning. If everything is real, then there is a point to all this madness, even if that point is just to help others through it. To reduce their suffering and to connect.
Read another chapter from Under the Influence, Reclaiming my Childhood. Download a free copy here, or purchase as a Paperback, eBook, or Audiobook.
