L
Luke
I have realized I have revealed little about myself or my past in these forums. This is partially due to the troubling nature & trust issues exacerbated in doing so, & also due to my reluctance to acknowledge many aspects of what troubles me as more than abstract allusions of events & times in the distance past. Although I can & will openly speak about myself, I rarely speak directly about myself (in a sense), without some degree of nebulous separation. I will not complicate my explanation of this proclivity beyond that. Revelations are difficult for me in that they violate a formidable element of my abhorrently protective facade, & further avail me to possible turmoil & or a ridiculously innate fear of some perverse retributive punishment.
This is an excerpt from something I (probably imprudently) shared with a friend. It is from a missive in which I (for some inane reason) attempted to explain what reluctantly revisiting a time in life life was like, how how those intrusive recollections affected me, as well as how they may have inadvertently effected those around me.
"One of the flashbacks I was having at the time has to do with my mother wielding a knife in our R******* kitchen, & my having to treat her like a rabid animal or whatnot. You know; no sudden movements, no running away, but no backing down. She was in the far corner of kitchen, past the sink, & where the two kitchen counters met. We had a wooden butcher block table in the center of the kitchen. She had been saying something about my father, then about me, then she spun around with the kitchen knife in her hand & was shouting at me. I don't remember what. I said something witty (for a precocious pubescent anyway) I suspect. She came at me with the knife. For some reason, attached to this memory, I can vaguely recall being punished (in **) because I ate a second PB&J sandwich as a child. It's amazing I don't have food issues. She demanded strict control of everything I ate back then. She was opposed to the jelly I guess. My father will always joke about my Mother almost killing us with her food & bad cooking. Yes, she was a terrible cook. The other side of that tho... was that she would forcibly feed me rotten food (something he never had to endure but was aware that I did). I'm not sure how or if that was or is humorous. She was a health nut. I was not allowed anything like soda or candy or whatnot. I can recall going to some sort of a kids' social event in ** & binging on so much candy & junk food that I became violently ill. My father picked me up from the event. He stopped & waited a couple hours with me as I threw it all up in a parking lot, before he drove me home. He seemed to understood why I'd done it. He knew I'd be punished if she discovered I had. He was often a kind & clement man. He just didn't intervene often or enough. I'll never understand exactly why this was or how he managed to rationalize it. So, in this sense it's fitting that this flashback occurs in the kitchen.
All I can recall of my mindset is; I somehow thought that if I didn't seem to care, or be afraid, she wouldn't hurt me much. I don't know, that's how I remember it anyway, maybe I really didn't care anymore. Maybe at 11 or 12 years old, I'd just had enough. She wouldn't run the risk of killing her only son because he wasn't afraid of being cut or pulling the knife out of his own chest as she looked on. After all... there were so many already, what was another wound? At the time, It just seemed like it would have been just another wound. No less no more. Besides, I thought, how could/would she explain that? Her son with a downwardly angled stab wound in his chest. I held my ground. I did not flinch. Soon, she lowered the knife, & with it shaking in her hand, she took a step back. I took a step towards her, & she took another step back. I took another step, & she was against the counter. She held the knife tremulously, still pointed towards me, at her hip & by her side. Then she turned around & put her hand, still clenching the knife, on the counter. Then, I began to slowly walk out of the kitchen.
She had been preparing acorn squash in a clear Pyrex baking dish. She used to stuff & bake hamburger in the middle the acorn squash. My father seemed to like that. It was one of the few things she could cook successfully as I recall. I can see the acorn squash, with their green skins & the yellow guts quite vividly.
Another unsettling aspect of this flashback, is that I'd seen it before. I'd recalled it vaguely when awake, probably in terms of knives & kitchens or threats or whatever my father would sporadically offer in recapped bits & pieces, & I know I'd seen it in nightmares. The things is, I'd always thought of it as if I was standing on the other side of that butcher block wooden table, & she was threatening my father with the knife. What never made sense was, in these thoughts & dreams, he's never there. I'd never see him in the kitchen. Of course, he was never there because... he wasn't there. It was her & I.
My father must have been home for that, & he witnessed or overheard some part of it. It's likely he heard the shouting & he came in to the kitchen as I was slowly leaving. Then she turned around again & towards him with the knife when I was safely on the other side of the butcher block table. They shouted at each other briefly. He kept a safe distance from her, standing in the entrance to the the dining room. He left, then I left, & it was over. He has occasionally made allusions to my Mother wielding a knife. He has alluded to her wielding a knife at both he & I. He makes it seem like it wasn't a singular event. How could he have left me with her then? Why would he take that chance, & for so long? It just makes no sense to me. It just makes no sense. Even now, when this things occur in my mind, I think to myself, "What the hell was she so upset about, & what did I do to deserve that?".
It's not even so much that she might really have severely hurt me with the knife, although that's part of the furtive emotion within that instance. It's more that it's hard to understand how or why they occurred. Also, how or why I came to be like that, just passive & calm, if not dissociative or brave, by that age. It's hard to realize that I had given up any hope or thoughts of escape. Then (just from a practical standpoint) it's strange to think that I was never suicidal. Then it's hard to imagine what possible good any of those experiences have ever done me, or how they may have made me tough or more resilient as my father would imply. Along with these flashbacks, I felt the fear, the confusion, the anger, then... Ultimately... then they just often made me sad. I had nowhere to put that distress & sadness, no use for it whatsoever. Then I could only just tell myself to... to try &... "Stop".
Flashbacks are like dreams within dreams, nothing is real although it's certainly been realized. They're merely nightmares of who you were in whatever just happened to be or was. My flashbacks usually have to do with being a captive in all that stuff. All that stuff I couldn't run from, or fight off, for any extended duration. There as if the convolutions of my repressive mind have colluded to bring forth a great retrospective splash from these relatively serene little ripples & undulations that have persisted on the surface & throughout time. The flashbacks make emotional waves on these tranquil waters, as if to force the acknowledgement of that which rests beneath, & has laid dormant for so long.
So, anyway... That's an example of a flashback I was having at the time. A time that started slowly rumbling around my birthday, then erupted late in the fall."
Again, that's from something I shared with a friend of mine. These flashbacks eventually led me to seek support, & make some further revelations about myself. There remain some revelations, or even acknowledgements, I still can not seem to abide, as they tend to threaten my very ability to appropriately function as a man in general &/or in certain situations.
So, whatever. Perhaps this provides some fleeting elucidation to who or what I am, or have become, as I drudge & advance in years.
This is an excerpt from something I (probably imprudently) shared with a friend. It is from a missive in which I (for some inane reason) attempted to explain what reluctantly revisiting a time in life life was like, how how those intrusive recollections affected me, as well as how they may have inadvertently effected those around me.
"One of the flashbacks I was having at the time has to do with my mother wielding a knife in our R******* kitchen, & my having to treat her like a rabid animal or whatnot. You know; no sudden movements, no running away, but no backing down. She was in the far corner of kitchen, past the sink, & where the two kitchen counters met. We had a wooden butcher block table in the center of the kitchen. She had been saying something about my father, then about me, then she spun around with the kitchen knife in her hand & was shouting at me. I don't remember what. I said something witty (for a precocious pubescent anyway) I suspect. She came at me with the knife. For some reason, attached to this memory, I can vaguely recall being punished (in **) because I ate a second PB&J sandwich as a child. It's amazing I don't have food issues. She demanded strict control of everything I ate back then. She was opposed to the jelly I guess. My father will always joke about my Mother almost killing us with her food & bad cooking. Yes, she was a terrible cook. The other side of that tho... was that she would forcibly feed me rotten food (something he never had to endure but was aware that I did). I'm not sure how or if that was or is humorous. She was a health nut. I was not allowed anything like soda or candy or whatnot. I can recall going to some sort of a kids' social event in ** & binging on so much candy & junk food that I became violently ill. My father picked me up from the event. He stopped & waited a couple hours with me as I threw it all up in a parking lot, before he drove me home. He seemed to understood why I'd done it. He knew I'd be punished if she discovered I had. He was often a kind & clement man. He just didn't intervene often or enough. I'll never understand exactly why this was or how he managed to rationalize it. So, in this sense it's fitting that this flashback occurs in the kitchen.
All I can recall of my mindset is; I somehow thought that if I didn't seem to care, or be afraid, she wouldn't hurt me much. I don't know, that's how I remember it anyway, maybe I really didn't care anymore. Maybe at 11 or 12 years old, I'd just had enough. She wouldn't run the risk of killing her only son because he wasn't afraid of being cut or pulling the knife out of his own chest as she looked on. After all... there were so many already, what was another wound? At the time, It just seemed like it would have been just another wound. No less no more. Besides, I thought, how could/would she explain that? Her son with a downwardly angled stab wound in his chest. I held my ground. I did not flinch. Soon, she lowered the knife, & with it shaking in her hand, she took a step back. I took a step towards her, & she took another step back. I took another step, & she was against the counter. She held the knife tremulously, still pointed towards me, at her hip & by her side. Then she turned around & put her hand, still clenching the knife, on the counter. Then, I began to slowly walk out of the kitchen.
She had been preparing acorn squash in a clear Pyrex baking dish. She used to stuff & bake hamburger in the middle the acorn squash. My father seemed to like that. It was one of the few things she could cook successfully as I recall. I can see the acorn squash, with their green skins & the yellow guts quite vividly.
Another unsettling aspect of this flashback, is that I'd seen it before. I'd recalled it vaguely when awake, probably in terms of knives & kitchens or threats or whatever my father would sporadically offer in recapped bits & pieces, & I know I'd seen it in nightmares. The things is, I'd always thought of it as if I was standing on the other side of that butcher block wooden table, & she was threatening my father with the knife. What never made sense was, in these thoughts & dreams, he's never there. I'd never see him in the kitchen. Of course, he was never there because... he wasn't there. It was her & I.
My father must have been home for that, & he witnessed or overheard some part of it. It's likely he heard the shouting & he came in to the kitchen as I was slowly leaving. Then she turned around again & towards him with the knife when I was safely on the other side of the butcher block table. They shouted at each other briefly. He kept a safe distance from her, standing in the entrance to the the dining room. He left, then I left, & it was over. He has occasionally made allusions to my Mother wielding a knife. He has alluded to her wielding a knife at both he & I. He makes it seem like it wasn't a singular event. How could he have left me with her then? Why would he take that chance, & for so long? It just makes no sense to me. It just makes no sense. Even now, when this things occur in my mind, I think to myself, "What the hell was she so upset about, & what did I do to deserve that?".
It's not even so much that she might really have severely hurt me with the knife, although that's part of the furtive emotion within that instance. It's more that it's hard to understand how or why they occurred. Also, how or why I came to be like that, just passive & calm, if not dissociative or brave, by that age. It's hard to realize that I had given up any hope or thoughts of escape. Then (just from a practical standpoint) it's strange to think that I was never suicidal. Then it's hard to imagine what possible good any of those experiences have ever done me, or how they may have made me tough or more resilient as my father would imply. Along with these flashbacks, I felt the fear, the confusion, the anger, then... Ultimately... then they just often made me sad. I had nowhere to put that distress & sadness, no use for it whatsoever. Then I could only just tell myself to... to try &... "Stop".
Flashbacks are like dreams within dreams, nothing is real although it's certainly been realized. They're merely nightmares of who you were in whatever just happened to be or was. My flashbacks usually have to do with being a captive in all that stuff. All that stuff I couldn't run from, or fight off, for any extended duration. There as if the convolutions of my repressive mind have colluded to bring forth a great retrospective splash from these relatively serene little ripples & undulations that have persisted on the surface & throughout time. The flashbacks make emotional waves on these tranquil waters, as if to force the acknowledgement of that which rests beneath, & has laid dormant for so long.
So, anyway... That's an example of a flashback I was having at the time. A time that started slowly rumbling around my birthday, then erupted late in the fall."
Again, that's from something I shared with a friend of mine. These flashbacks eventually led me to seek support, & make some further revelations about myself. There remain some revelations, or even acknowledgements, I still can not seem to abide, as they tend to threaten my very ability to appropriately function as a man in general &/or in certain situations.
So, whatever. Perhaps this provides some fleeting elucidation to who or what I am, or have become, as I drudge & advance in years.
