The Butterfly Blog

image via tabihenson

Memories are a funny thing. In the moment you take for granted the memory. Because a memory is not a thing in its own right, it is a manifestation of the present and the past. We remember what we want to remember. We forget what we want to forget and then sometimes we can’t forget at all. Sometimes memories are etched into the mind so hard that we cringe or smile when we think about them. Sometimes memories are only remembered through another’s story. Sometimes memories are not remembered until years later…when it’s too late.

Growing up I learned to block a lot of things out from an early age. I found that the best way to cope with something was to simply push all feelings to the inside, internalize it privately, and pretend not to care. Childhood nihilism if you will. My logic was this: “If I did not care about something, then that something couldn’t hurt me.” As a result of this habitual numbing and avoidance, I quickly figured out how to remove myself from any situation I felt threatened in, and for a while, it helped. I was able to escape any situation by simply checking myself out completely from immediate reality; only focused on an internal world of day dreaming where situations were always under my control, and where I could conquer any challenge set forth. Unfortunately, the down side to this defense mechanism is that when it came to executing the fantasies I created for myself in my head, I was very sorely disappointed when things did not go the way I’d imagined. My determined visions would completely fail to satisfy my reality; no matter how hard I tried to make my dreams real.

It’s funny…the things we learn and pick up when we’re young. I can’t remember anything before 7-years-old. I wonder if that is normal? I have refined the craft of selective memory so well that I have a really hard time remembering parts of my life that I should remember. My memory protects me so well now that I rarely ever remember what I say or have said to people, when I listen I have to ask questions multiple times—and when I do communicate with people, I always distort what they said unintentionally. You know the saying, “you only hear what you want to hear”? That is kind of what I’m talking about. There is just one thing that is different. I hear what I don’t want to hear. Yeah, fucked up right? However, I think I have finally figured out how this happens (after years of therapy mind you). It’s like this: my mind subconsciously is on the defensive from the get-go, it trusts no one. Only me. Therefore to protect itself from pain, it takes statements totally out of context and distorts them to fit into ideas I’ve already create for myself. Essentially, my “mind” commits suicide to protect itself from murder.

What disturbs me more than that realization, is to think about why a child younger than seven, develops these habits in the first place.