Whenever I find myself in really upsetting interpersonal situations (breaking up with boyfriends, fights with friends or family), it's usually attributable to a serious lack of long term or short term memory. Memories of connection, or connections, or loved ones. And in turn, after I have made it through that hard period, sometimes I feel no better off in terms of reclaiming the past or remembering what is important, what would help me make it through and keep going.
I would say that if I have a personal war, it's depression, and the worst part of the experience of depression for me is the toll it has taken on my memory, my past. I can't stand the way it either wipes out memory altogether, or, during a depressive episode, will revise and rewrite a memory to preclude a glimpse at the big picture, the rock solid foundation, will make me question even the presence of such a foundation.
A lot of it-which isn't everything was money. A ton of money was lot from bankruptcy stemming from my parents divorcing. More money was lost at least thousands of dollars when we had to move out in an emergency because of that ex-neighbor we had. Being rejected from my mothers family because they hate my mother. I also feel like I lost time because until I got internet connection for a few years, I believed everything I was told, and that dictated everything I believed, tried, and said. I lost my ability to gain trust easily, while I was born a bit more cautious than average, so much stuff happened that I went from a bit cautious to feeling crippled with fear.
It also permanently messed up my emotional development being separated from my mother for around a year at such a young age. It still effects me at 21 and a half. I had to get a subpar home schooling education because the bullying I was getting in the fifth grade was that extreme. I also never got to really know my grandmother that well before she died, because of a family feud going on that resulted in me hardly ever seeing her until her final years. Which was a big shame because she seemed to be a very nice person, and had knowledge that seemed to be at least 3 decades ahead of her time.
I don't have a war. But I've seen the fall-out from a lot of other people's wars. I suppose the worst thing I ever saw was the result of W's Mom shooting herself and her son. I don't think I will ever be able to comprehend that.
Hm. I guess I lost everything and gained everything, in a way. Lost: a family, a childhood, lots of memories, ordinary friendships, a landscape and culture, a religion, straight privilege, my mental health.
Gained: self-knowledge, courage, commitment to change and liberation, independence, a spiritual practice, love, friends, a nephew, a radical way of seeing the world.
A lot of things, like my family, I didn't *have* to loose; it's just the price of keeping them was too high.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
map_of_the_world) wrote2010-09-22 08:00 pm
no subject
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
no subject
Whenever I find myself in really upsetting interpersonal situations (breaking up with boyfriends, fights with friends or family), it's usually attributable to a serious lack of long term or short term memory. Memories of connection, or connections, or loved ones. And in turn, after I have made it through that hard period, sometimes I feel no better off in terms of reclaiming the past or remembering what is important, what would help me make it through and keep going.
I would say that if I have a personal war, it's depression, and the worst part of the experience of depression for me is the toll it has taken on my memory, my past. I can't stand the way it either wipes out memory altogether, or, during a depressive episode, will revise and rewrite a memory to preclude a glimpse at the big picture, the rock solid foundation, will make me question even the presence of such a foundation.
no subject
no subject
It also permanently messed up my emotional development being separated from my mother for around a year at such a young age. It still effects me at 21 and a half. I had to get a subpar home schooling education because the bullying I was getting in the fifth grade was that extreme. I also never got to really know my grandmother that well before she died, because of a family feud going on that resulted in me hardly ever seeing her until her final years. Which was a big shame because she seemed to be a very nice person, and had knowledge that seemed to be at least 3 decades ahead of her time.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Gained: self-knowledge, courage, commitment to change and liberation, independence, a spiritual practice, love, friends, a nephew, a radical way of seeing the world.
A lot of things, like my family, I didn't *have* to loose; it's just the price of keeping them was too high.
no subject