Memory: The Cemetary of Life’s Moments

I remember the first time I considered that I hadn’t had a normal childhood.

Sometime in 2014, I was in the car driving Junior, his mom (Virgie), and Alani to some place to do something. Our destination, for the purposes of this story, aren’t important. As I’m driving, I can’t seem to remember how to get to the place we were going, which apparently we had been to numerous times. And Junior from the back seat of the car was just going on and on about how he just didn’t understand why I couldn’t remember directions. I kept telling him that I just didn’t have an internal compass, which is what I had told myself for years. And then he raised his voice and said “Well didn’t you pay attention when you were growing up? Didn’t you look at the street signs or the highways? How could you live somewhere your whole life and get lost so fast?” I was crying uncontrollably by the time we got where we were going and I was sure that Virgie thought I was bat shit crazy at that point.

 He sounded genuinely angry that I couldn’t figure it out. I remember bursting into tears because as he is asking me these questions, what came to mind was me asking my mom where we were going as a child and her telling me it was none of my business. Me waiting in the car a lot for her when she went to her friends’ houses. I remember her anger, her disdain for my constant questions. I remember asking my dad sometimes, on the few occasions I was with him, and he would yell at me and tell me to stop asking. It was a flood of memories that just came rushing into my mind and it was overwhelming. The feeling of never knowing where I was going or where we ended up. The feeling of always being lost and never knowing exactly where I was headed and being petrified to ask.

Junior and I had a conversation that day that caused me to reexamine some of the parts of my childhood that I hadn’t thought were all that important. He explained to me that his dad would always point out street signs, directions and landmarks. He always explained to him where they were going and how to get there or back home if needed. Also, Juniors parents were definitely “free range” parents. He ran around the courts freely and I wasn’t allowed to even step foot outside by myself until I was at least 11 years old. Unless my Uncle Joe was watching me. He believed very much that he should be able to trust that us kids wouldn’t do something stupid and he could leave us unattended for a few minutes without the world catching fire. I explained to Junior what it was like for me and how I didn’t really need to remember directions as a kid. If I asked my mom or dad where we were going, it was as if I was questioning them, it was disrespectful. There wasn’t a lot of room for error because I was the only child. So, if I pissed them off it was going to be a very long day because they would have no other kids to occupy them. It would just be them and me, the nosy little shit asking all the annoying questions.

So I guess at some point during my childhood, I stopped asking questions when we were driving. I subconsciously became very good at ignoring everything when we were in the car. I’d bring a toy or a book with me and I wouldn’t even look out the window. My parents never got lost, that I can remember, so I never had to help guide them back to a road or remember anything about the drive. I never learned how to get from Point A to Point B as a kid and when I learned to drive, it was too late. I had already programmed myself to disregard directions, they were none of my business. I went to a driving school and received a permit but to tell you the truth, during the driving practices I sideswiped a car and when they took me on the highway I veered across 3 lanes on 281. They still passed me, no questions asked.

When I realized that these memories affected me to the point of tears, I decided to get some professional opinions about why. Because this wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last time that I got lost and ended up in hysterics. This was the first time I had any type of memories attack me like that but the crying and being overwhelmed and the feeling of shame/guilt of asking for help, that was not new. I just always thought it was a quirk of mine, an anxiety issue. It wasn’t.

There had been other times that I would be reminiscing with family or telling stories about my childhood with friends and bits and pieces of fragmented memories would pop into my mind but it was never so vivid, so terrifying. People would talk about their happy childhoods and I would remember my mom grabbing me off the bed and laying me on the floor because there were gunshots. My friends would talk about their parents’ marriage being magical and I would remember my parents fighting and screaming at each other. And even when they split up, the boyfriends to come were never picture perfect. My mom always did her best but there is no question; my childhood was definitely not normal in the traditional sense.

It took me a lot of sessions and a lot of self-work to really understand the concept of repressed memories. That day, in the car, something was different. The memories flooded my mind in rapid succession like fast forwarding a vhs. I couldn’t grab onto any one single memory, they just flashed in my mind. It wasn’t about what was happening, it was the feeling I had when seeing them. It was guilt and shame and a general feeling of being unworthy. It was a feeling of terror and panic. It was this deep feeling of needing to run but not knowing what I was running away from.

 One day during a session I was asked to go back to that day and to recall some specific memories that came to mind when Junior yelled, I started to panic. I felt the scared, the urge to escape. It was very strange, like an out of body experience. She asked me to think about the questions that Junior had asked me and his commands that day. He had gotten so frustrated that he was just pretty much yelling the directions, “ Just go straight, Just turn here, no here, TURN!” and when I asked him where to go next he said “JUST GO” and pointed straight. And that was it. That was what triggered a memory so deep that I physically couldn’t drive anymore.

There had been an incident when I was a kid, a domestic violence incident. I think it’s my oldest memory, I don’t know if I remember anything before that. I probably do but because that memory was stashed away for so long, my timeline is all messed up. So I couldn’t tell you what happened in chronological order but I can recall events. I won’t tell the specifics of this incident to you because I believe that this story is only halfway mine to tell. What I can tell you is that after watching in horror and shock as these events unfolded throughout the night, I ended up at the edge of the sidewalk in front of our house. I was afraid to cross the street to my grandmas because no one was holding my hand. It’s amazing really, the priorities you have as a child. I knew I wasn’t supposed to cross without someone holding my hand but the only people that could have been there to hold it were not able to do so. So, I stood at the edge of the sidewalk calling out for help, hoping someone would hear me. I was paralyzed with fear.

I remember my mom running out of the house and coming up behind me and grabbing my hand. I asked her where we were going and she yelled at me in a tone I had never heard before. She yelled at me to be quiet and run. “JUST RUN” she was screaming at me. I remember once we crossed the street we went into a house. I don’t remember if it was my grandmas or our cousins who lived next door to my grandma. But I remember my mother turning to me for the first time after the incident. That image is engraved in my brain and any time I think that I cannot get through something, I think about the strength and courage it took for my mother to survive that night, and I am instantly reminded that my problems aren’t as big as they seem.

So, I’ve learned that it was his commands that triggered me. His tone, his irritation; it reminded me of my mom’s voice. It yanked a memory and then flooded me with other times my parents had said similar things to me. I think my brain was pushing out all of these other seemingly non-important memories to cover up the initial one. To try to re-suppress that traumatic memory. It was never about the directions, it was never about the car rides or anything remotely close. It was about that first memory.

Now, I’ve spent a lot of time working on how my childhood has affected me and my adult relationships and it’s been quite a journey. It’s a journey that I have gone through on my own for the most part, because the trauma is mine. The only way that you can move forward is to understand how things have affected you, so that you can understand how your reactions to trauma affect the people around you. I tell you this story because I think it is important for people to know that there is a reason that you react to certain situations a certain way. There is no shame in facing the fact that you have experienced trauma, in your own time of course. I knew my whole life that there had been an incident because other people told there had been but I did not physically remember it until I was an adult. If you feel that there is something in your past that is holding you back or affecting you negatively, don’t be afraid to talk to someone about it. Talk to a professional or talk to a friend, either way just find a way to work through it and get to the other side. I understand now that I had associated directions with a traumatic experience, so anytime I had to deal with directions, I would start to panic and as we all know once you start feeling a panic attack there really is no way to hold onto any information that anyone is giving you. So my way of avoiding the panic, was to avoid having people give me directions. Which of course means I would constantly get lost and then I would panic because I would be lost and I would have to call someone to give me directions and I would panic more. Never ending cycle.

With lots of practice I have gotten so much better at handling the situation. It might seem so trivial to you, ridiculous even, that I would get so worked up over someone trying to help me by giving directions. I promise you, it’s not the trigger I would have personally chose. I didn’t choose this, my brain did when I was very young. I understand that you may not be able to see why this has affected me the way it does and I don't need you to sympathize with with me or even to be empathetic to how it feels. What I do need is for you to know that every action has a reaction, cause and effect. There may be things in your past that your subconscious has associated with something seemingly normal. So if you find yourself crying at the thought of trying shoes, unable to touch a doorknob, crying at the sight of a certain flower, afraid to leave the house or some strange fear of buble wrap, just know that there is no shame in that. You may have to put in work and figure out what caused it, but don't be ashamed of it. Acknowledge it, face it and then get through it. See you on the other side!

With love,

Krystalyn