I have only very short vignettes of memories, and few of them. Most of those, I think, are a combination of photos and my mom telling me a story about each one.

I was born in 1958. I turned 12 in 1970…smoked pot for the first time in 1968.

I don’t remember the 1970s, beyond a blurry feeling that it was filled with an excess of, well everything.

I have always assumed that my very spotty and vague memory was due to the drug and alcohol abuse…but who knows?

Psychologists might suggest that our kind of memory-deficit could be a self-defense mechanism to cover up memories of abuse…

I don’t know. People have invented horrible “memories” following that line of reasoning, so I’m not going to endorse it.

I do know that once, riding in a DAV van with other veterans, as a woman told me about the rape she suffered while on active duty, memories of traumatic sexual abuse,(violent rape), began flooding back into my conscious memory.

I held back until I got home, then I dissolved into a blubbering mess of tears and snot.

It’s a dangerous thing to assume that all blind-spots in our memories are hiding abuse, but it shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand…

You seem like a fine young person to me. I think that you’re going to be okay. If anything triggers a memory such as mine, talk to someone about it.

Peace, my friend.

--weezi--💖🙏🏼💜🙏🏼🦄🥳🎉