Hey Now,
Damn it feels good to be honest. I think I finally broke down to the bottom of everything tonight. I embraced the truth of what I said and the truth of what I saw, what I heard, and what I felt. I spoke to the last part I couldn't bring into final coordination with the destruction I needed to enable the creation I needed, and broke through the walls they held up to support me. It felt amazing.
The break moment was a walk into my past. I stepped into a moment. It was my last moment with my grandmother. Tears come to my eyes thinking of it. I thought of it deeply. I finally let myself recognize how much she gave me in that moment. The strength she showed me. I had gone to that home to visit my dying grandmother. She'd lived a hard life like most can't dream of, and died a hard way. She took the burden of so many around her out of a pure unconditional love like most dream of being able to give. At that point she was in a place of torture, physical and mental, and in my head I was god, going to go give her my love and energy to help. Even from that place of deep darkness though when I reached out and held her hands and looked into her eyes, I felt her giving herself to me. I'm going to choose that moment to believe in as the thing which either saved my life or my soul, whichever I reclaimed tonight. There are a lot of other pieces which contributed to it. There are bricks built into an incredibly strong wall. A wood tower atop it, letting me see more clearly. A moat around it, protecting me from the world outside. But the part I can't forget is the rock I sit on, the place it comes from. This strength I see in myself helping me battle, it's all a gift. I didn't say thanks nearly enough, but I fought, not always well, not always smart, not always looking good...but as hard as I could.
That gave me the strength to embrace the level of responsibility I needed to ready myself for. To truly look at this idea which I opened myself to I have to follow it through to its ultimate conclusion: my whole memory is a construct, it's not just subjective interpretation, it's repetitive regeneration. It is destroyed and recreated over and over. I felt myself reboot tonight, and I felt the change in it. Computers helped me see. Mind, soul, body. Software, firmware, hardware. Software and background processes. Viruses. Fragmented hard drives. These all serve as analogies which let us approximate ourselves and see more clearly. If we keep looking from different views, we eventually see the truth. When I opened myself to that responsibility, I entered a new world, and it feel like it's going to be a lot more fun.
It's scary to admit the level of responsibility I took though. What I had to accept was that the type of programming glitch I'd analysed in myself and recoded was likely a defining element of the perception of people around me more than they had admitted to themselves. When I opened myself to my past, and the way I saw the world, I saw a new side of a story that was pretty hard to come to terms with. The hard part was taking the responsibility it put on me. The liberating part was the clearer view it gave me of all the people around me, and the way the world just felt like it made more sense. Rather than explain in the details, I'll just say that I still continued to catch myself pushing blame away even after I felt like I hit complete victory. The truth is, I'm choosing to believe this interpretation of my recollection, because it gives me the greatest ability to open myself to a positive experience of my life from this point forward.
The most liberating part of tonight was I finally found a rational structure to liberate myself from this feeling of need to hold guilt against my mother. I had a series of memories of her having serious breakdown/trigger moments, as her own form of manifestation of my temper essentially. In these memories she went dark places that seemed hard to forgive her for and said things which seemed across some ethical line of comfort I saw. The problem was coming to terms with the real reason of those memories. I actually now believe I may have created myself in her and my Dad via manipulation as a self-defense method. When my mother spent the time in the hospital and I visited her, my memory I hold sees her as not seeming like herself, I don't even remember her speaking. I think inside me that felt like she was dead, and scared me deep, deep into my spirit. I felt that, and it scared me to the depth, and I felt my fear of death, and I began to hide from it. Or at least took a step in that direction. I think the fact my mind held onto the flash of the front of the hospital, and the one picture of her in there means a lot. I don't think I remember much else from that year though.. In that time I felt very alone, at my school I had a teacher who was at minimum borderline abusive in mental tactics, trying very hard to brainwash the rebellious kid into belief of god (actually that is definitely an interpretation of an emotional memory. I can not crack into any of my grade 2 memory other than a feeling of fear when I picture her face, and the incident where the teacher I trusted threw me in the locker...what allows me to trust that event is my dad confirming it, but as I believe prior mentioned likely it was significantly triggered... I probably was going so crazy it seemed like the only safe thing to do.) while his mom lay in the hospital and was unable to reach out to him. At my home, I had a father who was torn up inside while his wife lay in hospital, and experiencing a demand that exponentially increased when she went in. I only know what happened in my head, and what I added to this world I was living in, so I will take responsibility for what I added to the chaos. Imagining the level of care it would take to hold two children together while their mother faced mental illness is impossible to me. I didn't give him nearly enough credit for that time in my memory, because most of it is gone.I think I edited my retained experience there to make her feel dead to me to protect myself from the feeling of her loss. When she came back, I'd lost my trust for her, and didn't know it. At a subconcious level I think I manipulated my parents and family into false understandings of each other to create the chaos I felt I deserved. I think I closed myself to my mom and just idolized my Dad, and then in doing so put the drain all on him which he felt, but unwilling to put the blame and responsibility at the source projected it onto his wife. I fed that response with my behavior, reinforcing his interpretation by making it seem easier for him to deal with me by being more cooperative. I even manipulated and controlled my sister. There was a part of me going very crazy. God damn looking back is scary shit now welcoming that idea. It casts a different light on one childhood event that stuck to me deeply... I think a moment when I showed I was going crazy, even to myself. I was very young, I don't remember how old, and in my memory I'm playing with my sister, pushing her around on a cat house. By my memory and I would say with deep confidence by my rational processing at the time I thought I was just pushing her around for fun. But I pushed her near the window, under the little hanging lines for the blinds. She got caught in them, and I remember they left red marks on her neck. The part of my memory that I know should have taught me something earlier is that I obviously kept pushing when she got caught. I know, with absolute certainty, I convinced myself I did not choose to do that. But when I look at things my body has done without even my concious control through my life, there is no way that could possibly be an accident. I think that was the trigger event that showed them I was going crazy. Somehow though I think I convinced them each that it was the other going crazy. Most likely part of that came from them being unable to put the responsibility and weight onto their first born child. They saw the shit that happened to me, they felt like it wasn't fair to blame me even if I did it, or maybe just didn't know how to address it. Or maybe I'm just guessing and reading it totally wrong... I remember getting a time out and feeling really confused. In my head, because it was a mistake, it wasn't my fault... I remember feeling scared of what I did though. I think that was me beginning to realize. I also hope that my interpretation is associating a bit too much power with me, and that it's not possible to take all responsibility from other factors or else I'm just going to return myself to that goddamn god complex. It's a very complicated picture. I'm just going to choose to come to peace with my past by taking responsibility for as much of what I consider hardship as possible, whether direct concious choices or actions taken and created by parts of myself I don't understand.
I began to let it out at school as a temper, and then slowly built up a system of control over this part of myself. I felt like releasing it as a temper was the same thing as actually beating it. Turned out I was actually just training it inside of me. What I was doing when I thought I rejected God was just rejecting my real self, and trying to restrict a part of my being into nonexistence. I thought by choosing to remove God from reality I could choose to close down myself to the animal, lustful, destructive, indulgent, creative, artistic, driven, passionate part. I thought what I saw on Magic School Bus was enough to prove the Brain was running the whole show and that we understood everything completely and it was problem solved I can choose what I want in myself, control myself. I think somehow I felt like if I "understood" I could control everything.
That rejected memory and the feeling I remember in it... the erasing of that year, the way I know I went crazy in that school... I think I did a deal with the Devil to save my mom in some part of myself. Maybe that's where this all came from. That resonates with me... more deeply. I can't accept a picture of myself that looks like pure bad or actual destructive will... I remember the way I feel, I've wanted to love, I wrote poetry, I dreamed of writing children's books, I tried to help people, but I felt broken, I kept hurting, I couldn't trust myself. It was me trying to be a hero and turning myself into a villain. Even when I let the devil I was keeping chained and training in the darkness run the show, there was a part of me all along that knew I was good deep inside myself, that I wanted to be good, somehow I was essentially good. I wanted redemption. I thought I could find it in escapism. Then in work. Then martyrism. But what I needed to do was just look into myself and see myself as clearly as I can, and what I'd find was all that bad, that darkness, I built it. It was my choice. While that's a terrifying thing to admit to yourself, it carries weight and responsibility, it's necessary. For me, it's going to help that I'm publishing it. It's scary, but the thing is it lets it out of me. Everyone can read it, everyone can judge me, and no matter what they think I can find peace. I have come to terms with who I am, I take the responsibility, I learn from it, but I do not carry the weight. I can't go back and change those actions or interpretations. I can't redefine my past. What I can do is rebuild myself, reopen myself, and set a new future. Building the strength of the demon inside me, I think it helped train the other parts too. I believe now that I have looked that demon in the eyes and he looked down first. He has joined my pack. Tonight we howl.
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