One of the many sad elements of abuse is that people can lose a part of themselves when good memories are corrupted by abuse. I grew up in a mostly happy family, and I was to young and clueless to see the groundwork for future abuse being laid. And I was so used to what mistreatment I experienced it didn’t really get me down. So I have many happy memories, especially of typical experiences with my siblings. We had a big house, a big yard, no money, and lots of free time.
But then the same people I had a good childhood with turned on me when I became an adult. They often used our connection against me, emotionally imploring me to be nice to them and enable their violence, or in a hurt voice asking why I would threaten to call the cops on family members. Or talk about how in a loving family we make all decisions together, so if I wanted safety for myself and my younger siblings we should “have a family vote”, as if the right to control access to your own body and spirituality is a family voice. Read between the lines on that.
After my family kicked me out for refusing to be an enabler and for refusing to join their collective abuse I went for about six years without seeing some of my siblings. Then, over a period of about three years, I sort of integrated back into the family. Sort of. I’d go to family events and discretely stay across the room from some people, or make sure I was never alone with others. I suspect my family has no idea what is going on. They probably think that because I’m around again the violence and abuse have ceased to matter.
I can be around them again because they’ve chilled out. Medication can, in the right context, be an amazing thing. When my family members finally admitted they had serious issues and saw a psychiatrist they improved rapidly. When someone isn’t hallucinating or flying into a violent rage at the slightest insult (like someone getting to the washing machine first) they become more capable of living a normalish life and rebuilding relationships. But some things can be medicated away because they aren’t medical symptoms. Messed up ideas about teenage sexuality and semi-arranged marriage don’t disappear as psych meds tinker with neurotransmitters. People can learn restraint and get to the point where they can keep their mouths shut, but that doesn’t necessarily eliminate harmful behaviour. Problematic actions can keep happening. Like trying to negotiate memory, where someone asks me a question and after I say three sentences about what I experienced they try to argue me into remembering their memory instead. Or the usual “are you sure you remember that correctly? You are bipolar, maybe you’re making this up.” Sound familiar?
Anyhow, back to losing good memories. For years after I was kicked out the family I couldn’t think about my childhood. I could have mental images of good times, but the sight of my siblings’ faces in the memories brought up painful memories, and it was easier to just cut out a part of who I was. And that sucks. We’re formed by who we are. I’m still the same person now that I was when I was a kid, and I do the same things. Sort of. I have expensive woodworking tools and buy tropical hardwood instead of using old tools from my grandfather and garbage-picked wood, but it’s the same interest. My current bike actually has brakes, but I still love biking in all weather, just like in childhood. Seriously, biking in the rain is beautiful. You get the point. But I lost a part of who I was when I cut out those memories.
Rediscovering them has been painful. Part of the process has been realizing that the people who screwed me up also helped form me, they are a part of who I am. I was a little kid playing with my older siblings’ stuff. They took me places. I wanted to be just like them. I loved them. That’s part of why the abuse hurt so much. If a random drunk on the street had attacked me and yelled at me about rape I could have brushed it off. But bit by bit I have realized that my siblings were different people then. They hadn’t yet discovered r/incel, they hadn’t gotten into far-right politics, they hadn’t gotten involved with other people of a similar mentality. We were all innocent then.
Realizing this has helped me reclaim something that nobody has a right to take away. Those are my memories, I made them and I own them. Oddly enough, it has helped me partially reconnect to my siblings. Things will never be the same. People toss around the world forgiveness or healing or reconciliation in this naïve belief that if you yell forgiveness enough you can eradicate trauma and restore the pre-trauma relationship. That doesn’t happen. Violence and abuse end relationships, you can’t restore the relationship. In some instances new relationships between those people can be formed, other times they are gone forever. This can’t be forced, it must be done on the initiative of the abused as they heal. If they heal in that direction, not all do.
I’m at a point where childhood memories no longer cause me pain. I can remember happy times without what came after corrupting it. but it took me about a decade to get there, and a lot of bike rides and canoe trips to process stuff where nobody could see me. Mentally processing trauma can be a very physical event.
Anyhoo, do what you want with this. I say don’t let abusive people take away your memories, reclaim them if you can. But if you don’t feel ready to go there, then don’t. Look after yourself.
Damn it, I cried writing this. My eyes hurt.
I might at some point come back and edit this to add a picture that somehow represents my childhood memories, but I’m trying to avoid too much identifiable material. So maybe just imagine a little boy on an old 1980s bicycle flying down a muddy farm path and then coming home and walking through the house dropping mud everywhere.
The Bipolar Christian 