Thank you for this post, Janisse. I'm interested in discerning the difference between actual memories and imagined ones. What's really mine? What's a story my Mama told me?
Memories are like dreams - if I can be alert and grab onto them as they flit by, I can dive in. But if I am too distracted, they fly away. Smells are powerful memory aids, too. They can take me right back, like magic.
I had one or two positive memories from childhood, and several traumatic ones. I just figured that's all there was. Until I wrote an angry letter to my mom, giving voice to an incident that I'd been having a two-year-long cPTSD flare up about. Afterwards, all the bad memories faded to the background and all I could remember were lots of good memories, ones I didn't know I still had. That lasted about four months. It was like a reverse flare up.
I'm fortunate in that my mother kept big photo albums of our family's history. She wrote captions for each photo. Looking through those albums helps me piece together my past ... but as you said, I'm not sure if my memories are actually things I remember, or if I know them from looking at the photos.
I've learned the most about memory as a parent. I decided when my son was young that I would try very hard not to tell him his memories were wrong or that he shouldn't feel as he felt about something from his past. I've been pretty good at this, and as a result I've strengthened my capacity to share reality with other humans. This brings to mind my son's kindergarten teacher who described his classroom as a place where the students bumped against each other and got polished up like stones in a tumbler.
For me, the lack of memory is part of my story. When I was diagnosed with endometriosis recently, I wondered if I'd had it ever since my first period as a kid - I have a couple of traumatic memories that I'm now seeing in a different light. I'll never know for sure though, because no one educated me on what was "normal." I'm thinking about writing a piece where I time travel to talk with my younger self about her body.
I have two memories from before I was two years old. No family story or photographs attached. In adulthood, my mother verified these events (just little snippets of life). I have an essay about it . . . somewhere. It's all fascinating! I remember soooooo much about my childhood. Good and bad.
Thank you for this post, Janisse. I'm interested in discerning the difference between actual memories and imagined ones. What's really mine? What's a story my Mama told me?
Memories are like dreams - if I can be alert and grab onto them as they flit by, I can dive in. But if I am too distracted, they fly away. Smells are powerful memory aids, too. They can take me right back, like magic.
I had one or two positive memories from childhood, and several traumatic ones. I just figured that's all there was. Until I wrote an angry letter to my mom, giving voice to an incident that I'd been having a two-year-long cPTSD flare up about. Afterwards, all the bad memories faded to the background and all I could remember were lots of good memories, ones I didn't know I still had. That lasted about four months. It was like a reverse flare up.
I'm fortunate in that my mother kept big photo albums of our family's history. She wrote captions for each photo. Looking through those albums helps me piece together my past ... but as you said, I'm not sure if my memories are actually things I remember, or if I know them from looking at the photos.
This is so useful- thank you Janisse xx
I've learned the most about memory as a parent. I decided when my son was young that I would try very hard not to tell him his memories were wrong or that he shouldn't feel as he felt about something from his past. I've been pretty good at this, and as a result I've strengthened my capacity to share reality with other humans. This brings to mind my son's kindergarten teacher who described his classroom as a place where the students bumped against each other and got polished up like stones in a tumbler.
For me, the lack of memory is part of my story. When I was diagnosed with endometriosis recently, I wondered if I'd had it ever since my first period as a kid - I have a couple of traumatic memories that I'm now seeing in a different light. I'll never know for sure though, because no one educated me on what was "normal." I'm thinking about writing a piece where I time travel to talk with my younger self about her body.
I have two memories from before I was two years old. No family story or photographs attached. In adulthood, my mother verified these events (just little snippets of life). I have an essay about it . . . somewhere. It's all fascinating! I remember soooooo much about my childhood. Good and bad.