Eerie Confirmation

[sun seeker]

The truth of my past is coming to me in snippets here and there, adding up to a fairly horrific whole. I will likely never have outside confirmation for most of it as my family is still either amnesic or in denial. I'd gotten used to that idea.

However, last night I was looking at a rare photograph of myself as a toddler. In one of my memories I'd convinced myself I must be remembering parts of it wrong, and therefore maybe the whole thing was wrong, because in it the living room furniture was not how I remember it being. It was a particular way, as far as I remembered, during my whole childhood, and in this memory it was placed completely differently. I figured maybe I was remembering something symbolic and not literal, like how backwards life felt at the time.

But peering closely at this photograph, worn and blurred by decades, I made a startling discovery I had never noticed before. Indeed the furniture was set up the way I saw it in my memory, even though I had no previous conscious memory of it ever being that way.

Anything like this happen to any of you?

 

[rosey]

It is amazing what your mind recalls. I have had several confirming moments very similar.

What hit me was that in fact part of me in a way always hoped i had been wrong strange as i knew i wasnt. A few years ago i reported my abuser and many confirming moments followed. Such as when a police officer told me his bedroom was exactly as i described it (30yr later)

What hurt most was hearing the truth that mu mother had known and encouraged it i had hoped i had imagined that.

Confirmation can be both reasuring and painful.

 

[sun seeker]

Confirmation can be both reasuring and painful.

Oh yes, quite so. I like how you note that "part" of you hoped you had it wrong. Not all of you. That's about how I've felt, too. This stuff is soooo different from the otherwise fairly normal childhood I had that getting my conscious mind to catch up to what my subconscious mind and body remember has been quite a process.

 

[Bloomy]

Kinda yes. I have a childhood picture where Im trying to sleep in the dolls bed. I have total amnesia frm this episode. Expet that I had an idea the dolls should be in my bed for some reason and I should be in theirs. Mother & her bf came to my room late at night and thats how the photo got taken. I always thought of this as strange. I mean - how come they would come to my bedroom to take photos in the middle of the night? Mother always given explaination I couldnt belive. Then suddenly it dawned to me. Of course her explanation is not correct. She is hiding that they would come to take me from my room at night to abuse in their room. So thats why I put the dolls in my bed hoping in some stupid child fantasty they would leave me alone and take the dolls instead. And that I could sleep safe i their dollsbed.

 

[Bloomy]

Oh shit........... Until I just wrote this right now I never even thought to ask why they had a camea.......... Oh my......... They had a camera........ Why would they have a camera? Since I never thought of this point I didnt ask mother about it when I asked he about the picture. Shit.

 

[sun seeker]

So thats why I put the dolls in my bed hoping in some stupid child fantasty they would leave me alone and take the dolls instead.

Aww... my heart goes out to that child who attempted such a clever plan to keep herself safe. It sounds perfectly logical. A child's logic, but logical just the same.

 

[sun seeker]

Until I just wrote this right now I never even thought to ask why they had a camea....

This is where you can lean on knowing that there are different parts of you. The part that wants the truth, just got some confirmation. The part that wants not to know might need something to distract it. Is there something in your present location you can use to ground yourself? Beginning with breathing is usually good. You might go on to remind yourself of all the things that make you safe in the present moment.

 

[sun seeker]

Also, it is possible they left the room and came back with the camera. We don't really know, and there are a lot of possibilities. Don't know if that makes it better or worse but the thought comes to mind.

 

[Bloomy]

Sorry sun seeker I dont mean to steal your thread. I didnt think about the camera before and this really starteld me. Kinda in a state of shock right now so I just need to settle with this new fact or what it is..... Sorry :(

 

[sun seeker]

No worries, you can say whatever you need to say here. Sorry about the impact this has had on you. Be kind to yourself, whatever that might mean to you right now.

 

[Bloomy]

Yeah I know sunseeker - they told me that. But I know they used to come and get me at nght even do my memory is for the most blank about this. I have some few memories and kinda glad I dont have more. But it confirms what used to go on in the house at night.

 

[Bloomy]

Ill be ok sunseeker. As I think its also for you and for many of us there are eery memories sometimes not yet onfirmed and when they kinda are its just a mediate shock. Depending on where we are in our healing process it can either be terrible and a reason to go down or we can eventually settle wth the schock of yet another disturbing memory.