thrice

"That it will never come again is what makes life sweet." - Emily Dickinson

thats what i think about my childhood.
therapists like to blame adulthood problems on childhood trauma and parental issues and the like...
mommy issues, daddy issues, things of that nature.
sure, not every therapist in the world, but i've known more than my fair share.
made more than my fair share cry too, but, thats another story.
it always begins with 'tell me about your childhood'

most of it honestly is a blank spot.
and i've always been sort of content to leave it that way. what harm did it really do?
yet memories, as they always do, have this nasty little habit of creeping in when they're least welcome now don't they?

i used to read with such a voracious appetite. it couldn't be appeased.
Sybil, When Rabbit Howls (Truddi Chase), A Child Called 'It'.
oh yes. there was no such thing as enough of those sorts of books.
why? because. well honestly? it's sort of embarrassing, humiliating if i must tell the truth, but, if i read those peoples accounts, if i devoured them in a fervor, well, it was ok you see. my life wasn't as bad as that. so, i didn't have the right to be angry, sad, upset or anything of the sort because i didn't live thru those sorts of horrors. others had it much worse, i just had to find books about them and it would be ok. i would be ok as long as someone, anyone had it worse than i did. it gave me comfort. which is terrible isn't it.

my very first memory is clouded with fog.
it's not horrific nor even very memorable, but its the first.
so i hold onto it.
somewhere between the ages of 18 months and 2 yrs old.
sitting in a dark brown crib.
the sheets have some sort of animal design on them.
i can see the light hardwood floor thru the slats of the crib.
sitting in a diaper.
with a plastic blue cup wedged between my thighs.
theres water in the cup.
i stick my left hand in the cup and wiggle it around.
and then i place my hands together, almost like i'm praying,
and dive them into the cup.
water spills out over my thighs and onto the sheet.

i don't know why i would remember such a thing. but that's as far back as my memory goes.
my mom says it happened before i broke my leg. so prolly before i was even 18 months old. i can describe the entire room. its slightly disconcerting. i havent the foggiest why.

i don't like to remember.
i love pictures. they capture moments. the best moments if you will. but memories swirl.

my grandmother for instance, was an evil bitch of a woman. oh the stories i could tell.
i don't, i can't? remember her well. i can't draw a clear picture of her to save my life, but i can pull up the day my mother gave birth to my brother and i stayed with her. the days i stayed with my evil grandmother. and i cried for my mother. i was only 4. and the beating my grandmother gave me. "no crying allowed". picked me up by one arm off the bed to beat me, for crying for my mother. i hadn't seen her in a week. my mother had a horrifically hard labour with my brother.

the house of 'they' likes to pretend that mpd (multiple personality disorder) and did (dissociative identity disorder) are the same thing. but. they're not. it takes a highly trained, highly knowledgeable, highly educated doctor to differentiate the two. dun argue with me.

unless your mother has hallways filled with personalities behind closed doors?
i don't want to hear it.
years of therapy, joint therapy with my mom, enlightening.
my mothers been thru a hell i could never, ever imagine.
at the same time, some of her personalities have dished out an unimaginable hell.

Ms Rage, raised me,
Sally played with me.
Mommy cried & hugged me.
The Guardian kept everything in line.
Ms Rage was an evil bitch. she was everything Mommy always said she didn't want to be. she was everything she herself despised. she was all the words she swore she'd never say to her own children. she was all the beatings she swore she'd never dole out to her own children.
and i despised her. i hated her. before i ever knew she even existed.
she was fat lips and swollen faces. 'fat, stupid, ugly, good for nothing, idiot, worthless.' bruises and heads thru glass. wiffle bats across the back. she was hatred.
all the hatred my actual mother ever felt in her entire life thrown into a singular personality unable to feel anything else.
That. Was. Ms. Rage.
my brother and i called her Mommy-Satanica.

so why would i want to remember any of that?

but at the same time...
theres worse things in the world.
it was a long time ago.

i mean, if they're my secrets, and i'm spilling them, are they still my secrets?


"Our discreditable secret is that we don't know anything at all, and our horrid inner secret is that we don't care that we don't." - Dylan Thomas