And the Truth Shall ... Well, It'll Do Something Anyway

Veganstein asked an interesting question in the comment section of my Invisibility and Dark Shadows post:

I am not sure that I want to uncover anything else in my life. I have huge blanks, but the memories that I DO have are negative enough that I made my NC decision some time ago. I don't think that I need further confirmation that my parents should not have parented. However, reading your blog, I wonder...is there a healing in finally knowing?

I needed to think about my answer to this, and discovered in the few days that I turned it over in my mind that I wouldn't ever be able to put my thoughts, theories, experience or reasons into a smallish comment box.  So, thank you Veganstein, for prompting this post about my reasons for trying to remember!

Why do I need to fill in the blanks?  I have enough evidence with my top-of-mind memories of the way the Crazymakers functioned to know that they are A) Crazymaking B) Unhealthy C) Narcissistic D) operating in and further perpetuating a broken family system E) Toxic F) Willing to blame all their troubles on me and G) Abusive to the Nth degree.  In other words, I don't need any more proof that NC is the only choice I have here, should I choose to continue remaining sane myself. 

So, why dig up any more, why shine the light on what I know are going to be bad memories of truly horrific and real events that hurt me deeply - so deeply that I had to forget them in order to survive them?  It seems masochistic, in a way.  Why do I need to pick off these metaphorical scabs, re-break ill set figurative bones, dig around in the emotional wound that I know is gangrenous?  That way be monsters, it seems, so why do I steer for them?

I have a few reasons, but my primary reason is fear.  I've written before about my high pain tolerance due to the twisted expectations of my childhood.  I wasn't allowed to hurt, or at least to show it and if I did, well- that created more hurt.  So I learned not to show it, and eventually that meant that I learned not to feel it.  It's the same way with fear for me.  I'm terrified, terrified, of certain things - the dark, open closet doors, heights, small spaces - but I learned early on not to admit my fears. 

I was ridiculed for my fear of the dark and of my open bedroom closet door by NM, EF and the sibs.  In fact, EF used to send me down to the dark basement on a regular basis to retrieve items from the chest freezer.  And when I was down in the damp, dark dungeon, one or the other of the sibs or EF would turn off the light and lock the door.  Once I crawled my way up the steps, absolutely bat-shit crazy and shaking with fright, they'd laugh on the other side of the door until I screamed loud enough or until they got bored with the 'game.' 

I know this now, but I didn't for a long time.  I just knew that I had this irrational fear of the dark that would sneak up on my while I was down in the basement of my own home putting blueberries that I'd picked into the freezer.  I wasn't prepared for it at the time, so that fear grabbed hold of me so tight that - as a married woman with two almost teen children at the time - I ran up the stairs of my own safe home screaming and convinced that the door would be locked and the light would be going out at any moment. 

It wasn't, of course, but it sure as hell felt just as scary as it did when I was a kid.  In fact, when DH and I got our first chest freezer, I subconciously did everything I could to convince him that the (non-attached, thirty feet away from the house, unheated) garage would be a better place for the freezer than the basement. 

So, why do I want to remember that this fun little game of Lock the Scared Girl in the Dark Basement Until She Cries and Screams was real?  Why do I need to remember that they did this to me repeatedly in every house we ever lived in that had a basement?  When I already know that they are Crazymaking shitheads, why do I need to know the specifics?

Because I want to be able to go into my fucking basement to get some of those blueberries without turning back into a scared six or ten or fifteen year old again.  Because I want to remember why I'm scared of things so that I can understand that I don't have to be any more.  I like what Alice Miller says in The Drama of the Gifted Child about this:
"We become free by tranforming ourselves from unaware victims of the past into responsible individuals in the present, who are thus aware of our past and thus able to live with it. 
Most people do exactly the opposite.  Without realizing that the past is constantly determining their present actions, they avoid learning anything about their history.  They continue to live in their repressed childhood situation, ignoring the fact that it no longer exists.  They are continuing to fear and avoid dangers that, although once real, have not been real for a long time."

It's been my experience with fear-driven behaviors that I can't think them away, I can't intellectually understand the fear well enough to make it go away until I get to the root of it.  I have to know why I'm afraid before I can find a way to get rid of the fear.  So, now that I know why I'm afraid of the basement, I know how to be rid of, or at least assuage, that fear and keep it at a reasonable and manageable level.  I tell myself as I'm descending the stairs that there's nothing to be afraid of - and I know this to be true because I know that NM, EF, OS and YB aren't at the top of the stairs - but if I'm having a particularly bad day, I know why I'm scared of the basement dark, so I know that all I have to do is to take a flashlight with me.  Knowing the 'why'  just takes the mystery out of it enough to make it practical, and prevents my fear from sneaking up on me when I am vulnerable, sick or just plain unaware. 

I have had similar experiences with remembering the root causes of all the fears I listed above - locked in closets, being told that if I didn't stay in bed all night long the Closet Monster would get me, OS trying to push me out of a roller coaster, etc.  And knowing the reason, for me, has taken a lot of the wind out of the sails of fear.

So, I want to know so that I can move forward, that's all.  And yes, there's been healing in the knowledge, for me.  Even when I don't need to know about a fear or its root cause, I still try to remember everything I can to fill in those blank spots.  Because my GREATEST fear is that I will wake up one day and find out that I have turned into 'them,' that I am like them.  And those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it.

Love,
Vanci