The Thirty-Second Post

Plainly put, I look like shit warmed over. It parses for me on account it’s a fair description of how I feel, if you’re into vastly understating things.

The memory from before did not stand alone. The combination of the mathatical improbability of that incident being isolated plus the catalytic combustion of its integration as a whole memory sparked a chain reaction on my therapist’s couch and soon the prodding became the opening of the floodgates, and I fell apart in front of her. I could feel my father’s hands on me, feel myself shrinking, see his leer and nothing but, and the creeping but undeniable sensation of being penetrated. With something. A finger.

“What if these aren’t real memories? What if they’re constructs, part of the trauma, like a memory dump full of bad code?” I ask. Almost hopefully.

“Well. You have a really strong, clear memory of many other things,” she says, her eyes soft, but certain.

And I know she’s right. And I know it happened. So I turn my head and cry softly for a few moments. And catch her almost doing the same. I wonder if this is hard for her. And part of me wants to comfort her.

“I’m really sorry,” I manage.

“It’s okay. It’s part of the process.”

I’m not crying anymore. I’m aware of my body, relaxed, in the sofa.

“What’s just happened?” she asks.

“My pain just got compartmentalized.”

She thinks. Then,

“For now, feel free to keep using that.”

I came back home right after the session. Ragged by 10AM. And slept. Slept through the recurring nightmares, the sensations of intrusion. I woke up in the early evening–morning in my mother’s time zone, and dialed her in my bed. She answers. Knows from my voice something’s wrong.

I tell her. Share the first memory. Hints of the others. And end it all with a shaky but simple: “I think dad might have molested me when I was really young.”

And whatever her response was going to be, I wouldve never imagined it to be: “Yes, I saw that happen. But he was really just playing.”

And adds, as I start to sob, as the phone almost slips from my hands: “It’s okay to let these things out.”

I hung up in horror. And slept.

Which is how I’ve kinda been spending my days. In bed. Sleeping it off. Going to therapy and back. I can hardly eat more than a meal a day. I haven’t gone to the gym. I’m broken. Shattered.

The nightmares. Psychosexual. I’m sexually vulnerable, then I’m stabbed.

I’m so tired.