lost in a memory i don't remember

when memory loss keeps you in a perpetual state of grief

originally posted on Substack

One moment I was joking. The next, I was having a life-altering realization.

Oh.

2020 is a year most won’t forget. I was in New York City, essentially in a petri dish of my worst fear, along with two roommates which carried it’s own complications. Being in the first epicenter of the United Sates, it was quite a bit of pressure.

But the pandemic, while still significant, isn’t the main memory I think of personally. It’s when a light hearted evening in the midst of said pressure turned into the beginning of remembering, unknowingly opening a Pandora’s box from my childhood.

Memory loss is a tricky thing. You never know what will trigger a flashback. My life wasn’t a mystery until my brain revealed the devastating truth.

It was a joke that led to the realization of the danger I grew up in. This led to a conversation with my sister the next day.

“You don’t remember when…”

No, I don’t.

That led to a call with my mother.

Why didn’t you tell me?

Immediate sobbing.

“I didn’t know what to do!”

It felt like my whole existence shifted, who I was at that point becoming clearer. Leftover memories now new discoveries, fresh understanding with this new layer inserted. It’s like I died alive, reliving a painful childhood in seconds.

Two phone calls leads to hyperventilating, three panic attacks back to back. Rocking on the couch, terrifying one of my roommates, repeating that I don’t want to be taken to a mental hospital. I don’t want to go, as if it was inevitable. My family history coming back to haunt me.

I was losing my mind.

It felt like my brain split in two. It was the most excruciating physical psychological pain I’ve ever experienced. I couldn’t believe the reality of my childhood. Up until then, while I didn’t think highly of it, I felt like there were so many other people that had it worse. Worse and better always exist so denying my pain due to comparison blocked out the depth of my trauma. Dissociating certainly didn’t help, a protective measure that has harsh consequences.

I don’t know who else is in frame (not that it couldn’t be someone I remember), I don’t know where I am and I don’t know how old I am in this picture.

Apparently I was a happy child, real easy, not too fussy. I kept up the illusion that it never left, my role solidified. My joy was harvested, my sorrow unwanted, pacified with minimal effort. Told to smile in pictures, muscles moving despite resistance. Real turned into fake, a false image I was forced to maintain.

I grew up not trusting my mind. I don’t remember. The gaslighting amplified the doubt, stories rewritten to manipulate me. Lies sprinkled with enough truth, capitalizing on my innate sense of justice as well as my kindness. I didn’t have a chance of knowing.

My life was a daze, flickers of present. Mask secured tight, it took me a minute.

I didn’t feel like myself for 3 days. I went to therapy for a year after. My therapist told me that if I didn’t come back to myself, I could have developed a split personality disorder. What a mind boggling thing to even conceptualize.

The mind can be terrifying. It’s been five years and I still don’t know everything, I don’t think I ever will. I get bouts of paranoia, bracing myself for whatever else I might remember. I’ve never been scared of the dark, only the shadows of lost memories, of a time where my body was present but my mind wasn’t.

What happened to me?

I’ve become well acquainted with grief. It’s a cycle that repeats as often as it needs. I struggle with it still, so much of it stored in my body, not knowing where it’s coming from, slowing down the progress.

Building inner trust has been both instinct and my biggest hurdle. My emotions were used as a compass, guiding me based on how people or things felt. I had to trust what I didn’t know, navigating the unknown became my normal.

My moodiness makes sense, the struggle leaking out. I couldn’t contain it, my actions becoming stiff. Trying not to succumb to the chaos, I became hyper vigilante.

You don’t know how you make others feel, said by a sister only in circumstance.

My joy is resistance but my grief is infinite. How does it feel to be known, to be loved, to create memories untainted by betrayal? I genuinely wouldn’t know.

In 2024, I drove across country by myself with all of my stuff in my car. My lease ended as well as my job. I went to live with family who lied about the state everything was in. I thought I would be safe and yet, here I am, grieving the only relationship I thought I had only to find out I’ve been manipulated for the entirety of it. Everything I thought came crumbling down as reality slapped me in the face yet again. So much effort for little return, a miscalculated investment made on misinformed data.

I’m 31 trying to maintain my sanity. I write about hope and freedom yet I’ve only felt it in passing. I live by it despite how I’m treated, a vessel that allows messages to flow even in disappointment. The grief of neglect is vast, I get lost in it. I used to try to bulldoze my way through it, brushing it off in the name of it is what it is.

I’ve discovered silence is madness, it’s deafening. We were thrown into the midst of chaos. We are born of it, it’s intrinsic. It can look like a genius masterpiece or a horrifying nightmare and everything in-between.

There was no skipping my truth. I couldn’t become without confronting reality. Even if pieces are still missing, there’s enough to get the picture. I trust me. I have no choice, me is all I’ve had. Help has always been temporary and support has always felt like fantasy. Most of what I received, while I will always be thankful, I wasn’t fully me. Everything felt transactional, something I’ve never been able to be.

Somehow my kindness didn’t break even though there were times I wish it did. My sharpness only coming out in defense but always offering grace first. An opportunity to spread more of what I crave than what I experience. Resenting my own resistance, why couldn’t I succumb to the poverty? Why be more when less is all I have?

I couldn’t give in for the life of me. I knew there was a reason, even if I couldn’t see it. This knowing is coming from somewhere, a hidden map that can only be experienced.

The trust that is built in the unknown is unbreakable. It is the ultimate surrender, the ultimate commitment to your vision. A symbiotic relationship with the universe, another story worth existing.

I’ve had to accept that my life is a mystery to me, neural pathways created in forgotten memories. I interact with the world through a lens of isolation, the nomad that wanders, viewing the world from a distance. Sometimes I don’t know pop culture references or music or dances or history or significant details from the communities I’m a part of. I come off green yet seasoned. A life of constant movement turned into a life of constant observation. I’ve seen a lot but I also don’t remember everything I’ve seen. I move with a knowledge that precedes me and a trust that whatever is revealed is necessary.

Grieving what you don’t know can feel like an endless pit, a boogieman rarely seen, leaving behind evidence that can only be interpreted by myth. I’ve become friends with my demons, letting them roam during the day. Becoming acquainted with the knowledge that they exist and that’s okay.

I tried to forget my grief but grief never forgot me. Now I honor the version of me that was scared but refused to give up and tried anyway. Effort matters and along the way I decided I was worth the effort.

Grief is the part of you that needs the most patience. It’s tender, a slow burn of emotions. Grief is layered, not always visible but always there. Grief is a wound that needs dressing. Grief is a scar, a memory that’s always present.

When grief asks for an audience, I give her all of my attention. I cannot change what already happened but I can change how I process it.

And sometimes, it is what it is.

So we keep it moving.

Until the next.

m.c.