Memory/Unmemory

Memory is a strange thing. I had a whole set of memories come in on Wednesday night. Things that, when I consider it, I'd suspected and discarded before. It was sharp, intense, incredibly painful.

They lingered on Thursday, but my internal censors stopped me from talking about them in therapy, mostly because too much time had passed, the denial had gotten a firmer hold, and... I just couldn't talk.

Now, four days later, it's like the memories are completely unreal. I can kind of remember them, but I no longer believe them. They couldn't possibly be true.

I can kind of remember the argument in my head, Wednesday night and Thursday day. The different parts arguing about whether or not it was real. One side stacking up all of the reasons to believe, the other side saying, "It's not true, it's not real, you'd have remembered all along if it had really happened, the people you know wouldn't do that."

And it's the second side that seems to have won.

Maybe my inability to do the things I need to do would be easier to bear if I could at least hold on to the reality of there being a reason I'm like this. If I could just consistently believe that things happened, and that they were bad; that they were bad enough that the only way for me to survive was to completely split off the parts that were coping with the bad stuff from the parts that coped with getting through the day.

Rationally, I can see what's happening. I can't cope with the memories, even though they are in the past. I can't cope with the reality of what it's done to me, because it's something I've spent my whole life pretending didn't happen; pretending everything was normal; accepting that when people I trusted said I shouldn't be upset that I shouldn't be upset.

In a distant, separated from myself way, it's kind of fascinating to watch the denial slowly block out what I remembered. And my approach to the memories is distant, and separated. I can line up all the reasons to believe, and they are good ones. I can hear the voices of different parts of me, lining up with their stories...

But none of it can conquer the spreading unmemory. It is like a fog, slowly re-obscuring things that were briefly visible.

If I were able to cope with my life, if I were able to do the simple, day-to-day things, then I would be able to truly convince myself that nothing ever happened. And yet, I can't cope with life. My body rebels against eating, I panic when I start to clean the house.

I'm furious, but I'm not sure of the target of my anger. Is it myself, for not just doing the things that should seem possible, except that once I start, I just can't do them? Is it my family, for the things they did that made me who I am today (and not in a good way)? Is it the person who cuts in line at the grocery store?

I don't let the anger out, so it roils in my gut, along with the panic, along with the sadness, along with the regrets and the fears. I have so little understanding of safe ways to express anger; I am unwilling to worry people or upset them or make a mess, so I don't scream. And who would I scream at?

I am caught between my inability to allow myself to remember and the fact that the unmemory keeps me from being able to heal.