I Am

[Bach]

There was an incident when I was a child in which my mother put her hands around my throat and squeezed until I started to black out.  Then she pushed me away and left the room.  I remember falling down onto her bed and lying there for a few minutes, and my most enduring memory of it is the feeling of tired resignation I had when I was lying there, like this was something familiar.  Something to be borne, to disregard as much as possible, to accept that I had survived and get on with my life (These are of course my adult words for child feelings that at the time I did not analyse or attempt to describe, but I'm pretty sure they're accurate). 

Based on emotional flashbacks, I have my theories about why that experience felt familiar, but I have questions and doubts about the usefulness of believing things that I can't know for sure occurred, and so I've chosen to dismiss from my mind any idea I have that I actually know what happened to me in very early childhood.  This incident, though, I remember with as much certainty as I remember anything in my life.  I don't remember exactly when it happened, and in particular, I don't remember what provoked it.  It could have been something I did or was doing, but it might not have been.  I might have just been existing in the same space as my mother at the wrong moment.  I wish I did remember the exact situation, but at the same time, I know that it doesn't matter because there can't possibly be ANYTHING I did to deserve that.  Still, though, I wonder and wish I knew.  I also wish I knew whether it happened shortly before I turned 10 and precipitated the terrible flu I had during the week of my 10th birthday.  I think that it might have, because I can look back over my history and see a pattern of suffering a trauma and then getting sick. 

That formative week.  Staying in my room when the family was home so as not to infect them, bringing my quilt out to the living room to lie on the couch under it and watch cartoons and game shows during the day when they were all out of the house.  Feeling safe because I didn't have to deal with the world either in my home or outside of it.  I still remember how I wanted to get better because who wants to be sick? but also did not want to get better because it meant going back to my regular life.  I'm afraid I kind of still feel that way.  I would really like to stop having to suffer over things that happened 50 years ago.