I know this is really strange, and probably it won’t affect you, but if it does, I’m really really sorry.
my father died a little over two years ago.
this fact, as well as almost anything directly and indirectly linked to it -since- he died, is little known
to me. by “little known” I mean I blocked it.
a lot of memories have disappeared in my head. there’re huge chunks of time that are unaccounted
for. basically, I’ve lived maybe a year of the past two. usually while at work, or while engaged in
some activity that didn’t remind me in some way, shape or form of my father.
I’ve been through this with a different situation. It lasted my junior and senior years of HS. those
years are still pretty foggy. I remember people, to some extent, but not really any names or events.
in trying to remember the last two years of HS I keep remembering the first two, which sorta makes for
uneven events.
as a child, I had a perfect memory. never forgot a name, a face, a place. everything was crystal clear.
I developed a block shortly before my teenage years, a minor one then, and by the time I reached
adult-hood it was my self-defense mechanism. my mom explained it best to me.
“it’s like police in your head minding the streets of your memories. road-blocks are set up around any
portion of the memory that could cause you emotional distress. any information that gets stored
along-side the distressing memory gets policed as well so that you don’t remember it either.”
it’s pretty simple, and lends hope to the restoration of memory. I’ve gone about five years with two
whole years of HS being a big fog. Granted, two of those five years was also spent in a fog, but the
three leading up to the missing two would’ve probably granted me some restoration, I think. mayhap not.
in other words, I’m not hoping too much, but it’d be nice (hear that stupid police-of-my-memories?) to
remember people and things.
I’d say the worst of this situation is that a most loving, caring person was hurt by it because he believed
me to be fully lucid and aware of stuff. even I had no idea the extent of my memory loss. one thing that
triggered my worries was his mentioning going somewhere I’d previously been with my father, and I had
no recollection of ever going there with him (I only can remember going with my father) until he probed
and I finally remembered a bent giraffe, and some sort of butterfly gift shop.
I started praying every night that I’d stop forgetting things. shortly after that I had a long conversation
with my mother, and somehow I brought up the memory loss, and she explained everything to me. my
own grandmother went through the same thing when her second child died of SIDS. a whole year of
her life is gone. for me, it seems to be two years.
I remember almost everybody, probably nobody’s forgotten. it’s the things I might’ve done with you, the things you may
have told me, that I’d have forgotten.
if there’s anything key that you need me to know, to remember, let me know with a journal or some such.
the only thing that kept me from completely forgetting that my father was gone was to read my journal.
I’m still in something of a fog, but I’m trying, whereas before I had no idea what was happening to me.
I need time, patience, good thoughts, good feelings, and lots of hugs. hair-ruffles are fine also as I’m a kitty.
this is possibly the strangest thing to have happen to me. I feel like rip van winkle.
