Moving a mountian

Well, the human mind can forget, at least in part, the pain that one suffered. If the mind is traumatized to the point of breaking. My mind did this. I don’t remember too much of my childhood. In fact I only remember fragments of my life until I was about 8 or 9. I thought this was normal, until I began to talk to my other friends. The few memories I do have of that time, are like broken pieces of a dream. And that dream is not good. Don’t get me wrong I have a few good memories. But mostly those stem from pictures and what people told me happened. And I assume I drew my own memory from that. I was raped at 3 years old. I can remember the before, the beginning and the after extremely well. I can not however remember the middle. The worse of it. I knew it went on for 5 yrs. I don’t remember the 2nd or the 100th time it happened. I don’t know if it happened 100 times. I don’t know if it happened 10 times. I have tried to be hypnotized and “regressed” to the point of remembering. I believed that I would not be able to move on, unless I remembered. I had a therapist when I was 17 that told me that I did not need to remember to go on with my life. That I had to let it go. That my body would not let me remember, and there was a reason for that. I should not fight it. I fought it. I dwelled on it for years, trying to grasp the memories and pull them from the abyss of my mind.

I never remembered everything. But I can tell you that even if I don’t remember everything that their are triggers to my memories that brings them back. Take for example my “father” gave me a music box, Every time I opened it and heard it play, It would take me back. I would not remember an actual memory per say, but the emotions were so raw that I had a hard time escaping the pain. I would literally break down. Even now thinking about the music box, it is making it hard for me to think, the pain in my chest is deep and piercing like a knife is stabbing me.

I never forgot. I did however let go. I do talk about it, when the situation arises that it is necessary. I do not hide my past from people. But I can talk about it (most of the time) with no pain or emotion. Because it is a part of me. But it is not all of me. I did forgive in part the people that raped me. (yes it was more than one) and there was more than molestation, rape, their was also mental abuse.

To this day, I know that what happened to me as a child has shaped me, has damaged me. I know that my illness, in part,was caused by my mind trying to compensate for the horrible things that were done to me. I do not let those people that hurt me off the hook. They have to (or should have to) accept some responsibility for damaging another human being, for taking the conscious effort to know that they were doing wrong. No matter what the situation.

In short, (although this response is very long), You cant forget, because even if you do, your body wont, your mind wont. There will always be a part of you that reacts differently to every situation because of your abuse. You can forgive, but sometimes the anger and the rage that comes from not forgiving them, carries you through the next day. (It did me for years, it was the only reason I am still here) But weather you forgive or forget, you have to learn to let go of the pain. let go of the abuse. Because if you don’t then you will never move on. You will never learn to grow.

Its like tying a rope to a mountain and trying to move it. Let go of the rope, stop trying to put he mountain where it doesn’t belong, and accept the fact that it is there for a reason, you must learn to move around it, or climb it, because if you keep forcing it to be something its not, or go somewhere it doesn’t belong, then you will become defeated, and you wont learn how to overcome the mountain. You must overcome the mountain, despite its enormous size and power, but you cant move it, you cant ignore it, and most of all you cant let it define you.Accept it for what it is, and give it no more power than it deserves