Memories and Fears

Memories are our friends or foes. They’re our friends when we can remember the smell of a freshly bathed baby asleep on our shoulder. They’re our foe when trauma is so vivid it feels as if we’re still in the midst of the battle, or assault from someone who shouldn’t be hurting us.

Fear sets in when these memories cause feelings we’re uncomfortable with, and we often fear those feelings. We don’t like to be uncomfortable, and we’d rather not remember things that make us feel that way. What can we do?

We can learn to work through those feelings, and learn we’ll be ok. The memories cannot hurt us. Yes, they can make us feel uncomfortable, but we will not be hurt in the same way. We need to work through uncomfortable feelings, positive or negative. It is very possible to learn feelings can help us as well as hurt us.

If we recall being burned by fire, we are reminded of the event as painful, panic, and fearful. If we recall play, celebration, joy, and happiness, we come to learn we deserve those feelings, and work to enjoy them as often as possible. We can work our way towards putting memories in their proper places, between trauma and happiness. Eventually, we gain control over where our mind goes.

I remember very specifically when my son Frankie drowned. It was in 1978, when I was 26, pregnant with Becky, and taking Nick to the bathroom. My worst fear came true, my son drowned and would have died, but for the two people who knew CPR were at their going away party with us. One week later, no one would have known how to save his life.

My whole life, I was fearful of water, fearful of drowning. I remember the feeling, the fear, and the shaking I’d go through when I’d smell wet sand, wet clothes, suntan lotion, anything you’d experience at the lake. It took years for me to stop shaking, sobbing, and not hover over my five year old. There was no help back then for PTSD. They didn’t even acknowledge it’s existence. And no, I was told, “just don’t think of it,” by my doctor. I’m so glad things have changed drastically.

Know of someone who needs to talk with someone about trauma? There is help. Tonight, I took my last Peer Support class. Tomorrow is graduation. The time has gone quickly, we’ll meet one last time, and become ready to listen where needed. It’s a good feeling, and I expect it will be rewarding to listen and offer ideas when needed. Mostly, it will be supporting the efforts of people, to live their lives. And that’s always a good thing.

Thank you for reading, we’ll visit again tomorrow.

Note to Self: Don’t Trust Your Memory!

We probably missed a once in a lifetime opportunity last evening. As an alumni of Bellevue University, an event was held last night at our Holland Performing Arts Center in Omaha. Gary Sinise was the speaker. I sent in reservations for two, printed out the info sheet, and promptly forgot to write it down on the daily calendar. I’m sure it was a very good talk and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had the Lieutenant Dan Band with him. That hasn’t been confirmed yet, but it would have been way cool.

And I missed it because I trusted my faulty memory again. Yeah, that wasn’t one of my better moves. But you know what? It’s not the first mistake I’ve made and certainly won’t be my last. That’s what being human gets you. Accepting it is what soul seeking does for you. Once we accept our shortcomings, things are easier. Unless someone else decides to Lord them over you as a “joke”. Then you can become angry or worse. And why? You know you’re not perfect. Why get angry?

Again, we can’t escape being human. It is something that never changes until after we die and enter eternity. Hopefully, that’s a long time away. Until then, I’ll get mad if you give me too much crap and push me beyond, “I’m just joking.” Sometimes you really aren’t. Sometimes it’s a poke at something you may not like about me, and usually it’s true. It’s part of my humanness and imperfection. Would you like a litany of your imperfections? I didn’t think you’d like it. Even if I were “just joking.” I wouldn’t be. I’d be trying to hurt you back.

And doing that is a knee-jerk reaction of protection. It’s learned, I think. Is it from being bullied as a kid? Could be. A long, long time ago, I’d pounce, unloading on the person who committed the “crossing the line,” or I’d just keep quiet and feel lousy about myself, thinking, “Yeah, they’re right.” That’s also a learned behavior. Your spirit is beaten down so you can’t react or stick up for yourself. Takes time to unlearn that. Why hurt someone simply because they hurt you? Tempting as it is, at the very least, it’s not how I’d want to be treated.

Breaking the curse of dysfunction takes many, many years. A lot of self-analysis. And you can feel proud when you are in a situation and think of how NOT to handle it. How you can draw a boundary between what’s a “joke,” and what isn’t. And how you’d react if you hadn’t learned how damaging that lashing out behavior can be. You feel better about showing the anger but not the “getting even” behavior that is so destructive. You have established a line you won’t cross. And that’s a good thing.

It’s not easy living with other humans, no matter your ages or longevity of your relationship. Loving someone isn’t simply enough. You have to have understanding of each other and where they come from sometimes. That is the hardest thing of all. Especially when your other person may have had a bad day, or bad moments from their own rubbish in their brain. It happens. We all have it. Let’s all take out the rubbish, the garbage of bad self-esteem. Let’s clean house of those bad memories that trigger things in ourselves we don’t like. It’s about getting through things, not over or around them.

Personal improvement is not easy. Recovering from traumas isn’t either. Anything worthwhile in this life is hard! The driving force behind my love for the Babe is, “Someday, one of us won’t be around. It doesn’t matter when the 1% sneaks in and rears it’s ugly head. It’s the 99% of contentment and love that matters.” That thought has been forefront since two close friends have lost their husbands this year alone. I don’t want to have any regrets as my grandmother did. We might not get our tomorrows.

That said, I hope to be here to write tomorrow. I hope you’re here to read. And I hope to become a better person. Work on that today with me. The world will become kinder, and we can all use that.