Emotions and Memories - The Tag Team!

I nabbed this image from the internet. Credit goes to Aimee Stewart: https://www.pinterest.com/annitagielen/aimee-stewart/

Albuquerque for the past 10 months has served as a self-paced training and practice ground for me - a gossamer mistress who in an instant places people, situations, venues, words, pictures, music, and love in one's path with the ultimate intent of helping one grow.  This mistress knows for all time one's capabilities, tendencies, likely responses, quirks, strengths, and constitution; and everything happens right on cue; while being at utmost patient, loving, and accomodating to our free will.  What has the gossamer mistress been showing me so far?  Getting in touch with my emotions - she was eager to bring them forth as I had much potential of development in this area, and have shut them out very strongly for a long time.

It felt deeply sickening; a horrible feeling where every fiber of your being is on fire, screaming a funnel of world regret; of something that I have done of utmost disrespect.  I wanted to vomit the most vile of black, creeping, acidic bile.  I wanted to burn off this dross that had permeated every cell like a lethargic slime threatening to drown me completely and leave no trace.  I wanted to scream so that everywhere it reaches, the dread sin could be heard and hold me for the ultimate punishment.  I wanted very much to cry tearless, dry tears to express the intensity of regret and pro-scribement of the consequences to come.

About a week and a half ago I was contemplating a multitude of things; and I suddenly felt an intense series of emotions well up inside of me.  It felt like a rising tide heralding a gigantic tidal wave of significant impact.  At first these feelings were completely foreign; then I "remembered" what it was - it was not a memory borne of the mind; but a memory borne of the body.  I suddenly "knew" that every single cell stored this memory, and it had been dormant for a very long time.

I immersed into this feeling, and laid back in the couch, lifting my head upwards and backwards, and asked myself - what is this?  Moments later, a memory came flooding back in full.  A memory from a very long time ago, from a forgotten place, intangible, veiled, disguised, and boldly coming towards slowly for full measure.

Woodland Hills - 1983 - Preschool playground.  Several kids were beating me up, randomly taking turns over and over again, pouring their rage out like drums full of Kool Aid onto the ground, a little at a time, until they came empty; only to fill up over the coming evening and the pouring starts again the next afternoon.  This is a daily routine that goes on for three years.  I am told by my mother that I would be found hanging from the tire swing, severely bruised, bleeding profusely, and sometimes a piece of my glasses would be sticking out from somewhere on my head.  This would be a daily sight for her for three years; and a lot of tape used to repair my glasses.

<snip to a tangential story that is connected to this story>

I've often been punished in severe ways by my father for various forms of mischief, and he is often so angry that whenever he punishes me, it is from rage.  He is a bodybuilder and uses steroids to maximize his looks.  I figure out that I could lessen the amount of rage and anger he directs when punishing me if I get rid of his "medicine".  While he is at work one day, I find his "medicine" and dump it all into a gallon bottle of water.  When he comes home, he is angrier than ever and decides to escalate the punishment so that I would never do that again, and for me to feel the intensity of his pain.  He turns on a burner on the gas stove, takes my right hand, and holds my 4th finger to the blue flame and carefully creates a crescent shaped burn on it.

<another snip to another tangential story that is connected to this story>

At the time, the neighborhood was a once classy neighborhood that had recently gone downhill right after Mexican immigrants started to move into Los Angeles county, and more of the county started to become poor areas.  My parents and I were the first non-White people in this particular neighborhood, and all the neighbors were really angry at the state of affairs of the county.  I remember hearing one set of neighbors scream slurs each time something bad happened on the television; such as the Lakers losing a game, or some crime occurred on the news; blaming the "foreigners" for everything.  This was universal among all the neighbors, and although they could not do anything to us; that did not stop their anger and rage from affecting their children - my schoolmates.  They had no such filters, and as I was a "foreigner", they took their emotions out on me.

<end of snip>

I am age six, and slowly over the last three years, I have seemingly accumulated the kind of anger and rage that my father showed me one day as a result of destroying his "medicine", and getting really tired of that daily routine.  One night, I watch a scientific documentary that talks about inertia and I am suddenly inspired.  Those kids were much stronger than I, and there were many more of them than me; but this documentary showed me that I did not need to be as strong or as plentiful as they are to win.  I could use their energy against them.  That rage turns silent, and turns cold, turns sharp as steel.  This new feeling has a point, a bright, white point.  Everything goes quiet, and my determination similarly focuses into that same white point.  I finish watching television and turn in - bedtime is always at 8pm, and I always wake up at 6am for school.  The morning beating is usually at 7am.  Tomorrow will be a different day.  If I win just this once, they will all leave me alone.

7am comes around and the other schoolboys have grouped together with one in the lead.  That lead boy takes my brown bag school lunch from me, takes out the orange within; stomps on it to bust it open and throws it at me, calling me "orange-head!".  I lose myself to the anger and lunge towards the lead kid to hit him.  The fight starts.  I look around in between thrown punches and notice these massive stone columns with an outward facing pattern that makes the surface pointy.  I knew I found my inertia target - I just need to somehow redirect his energy so that his head slams into one of those columns.  A hurting head means he cannot see me properly to continue his assault on me; and a beaten leader means nobody will fight me.  Instinctually, I grab his arms as he begins to throw another punch and I start to spin and circle around, with him in tow - it was like those teacup ride dance.  I remembered this sensation as I recently went to Disneyland and rode in those teacups and remembered how they spun, and went places.  I remembered the pattern and thought to do the same thing with this boy, and work my way towards the pillar.

I remembered from the documentary that the more energy was redirected, the more inertia it had.  I simply thought that the faster I spun with this boy, the harder his head will slam against the pillar, so I spun harder and faster.  I vividly recall the boy's face - he was confused, surprised, not knowing what was happening, and I dimly recall the other boys watching, standing still.  The pillar was much closer now, and the boy was very close to it.  Time seemed to slow down, and everything got really precise.  I had that feeling of sharp white focus again, the boy's head was at the center of his body, atop his torso, so it was not his head that will hit the pillar first.  His shoulder will.  I needed to push his head past his shoulder so it will hit the pillar.  More movement happens, I see so clearly that he is about to hit the pillar and the trajectory was perfect, my body motion was perfect.  I took my other hand, the free hand and reach out, and push his head towards the pillar with it, fast and hard.  His head connects with the pillar and I hear no sound.  I feel the impact throughout both our bodies.  It is a satisfyingly hard impact.  I let go of him altogether, lose balance and fall back.

Time resumes, the sharp feeling disappears into what felt like a flurry of activity as another boy, seeing what I did runs up and starts punching me in the stomach after I fell down on my back.  I don't feel anything, I don't hear anything, I do not see anything, except that I won.  Nobody joins the other boy beating on me - someone else pulls him back, and it is the adults.

I am now in the principal's office - a wrinkly old black man, really confused on what to do with me.  He is in a very awkward position, as I did not start the fight; yet he feels pressure from all the anger the parents have towards the neighborhood issue; and he is seen as a "foreigner" as well for his skin color; and yet he is also the principal of the school.  He writes up some paperwork and I find myself in the classroom, everyone else really far away from me.  The day goes by in a blur - I am dazed by my victory, nothing else matters.  The next day, the kid I slammed into the pillar isn't there.  The second day after goes by like a blur, but then that feeling happens - that sickening, horrible feeling.  I am really scared.  I knew the boy was dead - there was no need to confirm, I knew deep down he was dead.  I didn't even know what dead was - except that feeling told me it was so.  The kid was not there the second day after - and him missing was the visual confirmation.


Like my father, I wanted that kid to feel the kind of pain I had built up.  I thought that winning meant that this time, he would be beaten up, just like me, not me this time.  It didn't mean I wanted to kill him.  Yet, there it was - I set up a clear intent, and this was the result.  It did not take any effort, strength, or will on my part.  It was so clear, so easy to grab his hand, spin him like the teacup ride, and push his head against the column.  It was so easy and effortless to do.  He is dead now.  This was not like the stories I was reading where I would set an intent, struggle really hard, work really hard and long, and achieve my intent.  This was set intent, do little action, not even struggle, and achieve much more than the intent.  That is scary.  My anger is scary, my rage is scary!  I am really scared now.  If I could do that - what if I got even angrier and actually struggle hard, and work hard - how much deadlier would it get?  I didn't want this!  This is not what I wanted to do!  I only wanted him to feel my pain; and for the other kids to leave me alone!  I shall never let loose my anger like that again!

Never!

I opened my eyes and I am back in the present staring at the ceiling in broad daylight.  The feeling subsides and I sit with it for a long while.  I understand what the feeling means.  I committed the most disrespectful act at the time - I took another life.  I forced my free will over another soul.  Every cell felt the violation and how in-authentic the action was; yet I exercised it freely of my will.  I set an intent back then, just like my father did, and that was the result.  It took very little effort take his life - which means that there is very little difference between life and death - only intent separated the two; and that intent is only there if I desired it, otherwise it isn't and therefore no difference between life and death.

So that was when I first started to not ever let my anger get expressed like that; why I became afraid to ever assert myself or put more than a certain amount of determination or focus into something when it was borne of anger.

When I had my memory loss, I had a fragmented scene when I was on the ground and someone was beating away at my stomach and I felt and heard nothing; but never a story surrounding that "scene".  I had this vague feeling that I did something bad; and made up a story that I might have killed someone, but I was not sure about that story.  My mind did not remember, but my body remembered the feeling.  I now felt it, and upon asking, I received the full memory.  I guess it was a very traumatizing event and my mind was protecting me from it until I was ready for it.

My cells always remembered the feeling, and stored the memory the whole time; waiting for the time when I might be ready to face that memory and feeling.

With something like this, I wonder if our minds and memories induce memory loss or memory distortion I read so much about in order to protect us?  Do people who experience extreme trauma forget these things in order to protect themselves, even against the will of the person?  Do we sometimes forget intentionally?  What do you think?