Memory

Memory is a strange concept to me. Science can tell us that our memories are malleable. Just look at eye witness testimony. There is a reason leading questions can be so dangerous in a courtroom or an investigation. It’s like even your mind wants to please you by conjuring what you are looking for there.

I don’t know how to call on a memory. My mind works more in “that happened” as opposed to showing me the images. I used to push them away. It was too much effort to actively seek out my memories. Some come to me without warning, just a feeling or a smell. Small things. Some barely register, and some punch me in the gut.

Watching a scene of a hospital in a TV show once sent me into a PTSD kind of state. It doesn’t take a lot to guess what it triggered, but I still don’t remember what actually happened. I don’t think I ever will. I think I’m too scared to really try.

I was lucky enough to survive a terminal illness as a child. At least, that’s what my mother tells me. I spent a lot of time in hospitals, and the friends I made there weren’t as lucky as I was. At least, that’s what my mother tells me.

If I wasn’t so terrified to relive whatever I’m hiding from, whatever I’ve always been hiding from, then I could try hypnotism. But that in itself is terrifying as well. Letting someone else, a stranger, have complete control and “guide me” through my most vulnerable moments…I don’t know if I could ever do that. I don’t trust easily, and I almost never relinquish control. Fear drives me more than I realise a lot of the time. But I can never tell if I am more afraid of myself or everyone else.