Memory & Trauma

Day 1017.

Tonight we watched Toy Story 3. Toy Story 1 was a favorite of Luke’s when he was small.

He proudly owned first a Buzz, then later, a Woody too.

Luke learned  a lot of his language from film. Toy Story was one of those beloved films.

We remembered that when Luke was away in treatment, we had been to the cinema to watch a Toy Story, and we had all three wept for the lost innocence of those bygone days and for the peril Luke was in.

Tonight as we watched, some parts seemed familiar, but we didn’t remember, we were convinced that trauma of lost innocence had been triggered by Toy Story 2.

But after the film was over, as we dried our tears, emotions so stirred once more for our Luke.

Something was off, which Toy Story was it? Which one had brought us to tears in the cinema when Luke was in rehab?

Obsessing in our confusion, we checked the dates.

It had indeed been this film that we had seen that sad night, and yet our memories had erased the plot. We only recalled the imprint of the sadness of innocence lost and our fear as Luke was fighting to re-find himself.

So much memory is lost in the traumatic struggle of watching your child battle with drugs.

A member of our grief group, kept a journal throughout her time with her son’s battle.

She now has those journals, which she is slowly unpacking with her therapist - genius!

How I wished I had done that too. 

How I wish I had recorded the trauma of that time, as I flew to and fro through endless time zones, attended seminars, ALANON, NA meetings, wrote letters and worked tirelessly on learning all that I could that may help, whilst keeping an eye on a less than perfect treatment programs, living then with no space for my emotions. If I had recorded it, it could be unpacked now, for there is so much there - so much trauma left within me from that time. With memories clearly blurred and erased, can I ever truly revisit and clear it, make sense of it?

And so, I urge you, if you are in the midst of a similar struggle, either for yourself or for a loved one - keep a journal, so that later, whether in the successful recovery of your loved one, or God forbid, like me, in their loss - you may have an account of all the craziness and of the emotional see-saw that you have endured.

It’s not because I want to drag it all up again, because believe me, it’s not gone away. But the trauma erases the memory, the details, leaving just the unanchored emotions and now I wonder, what other memories, what emotional landmines are locked inside of me, hindering me as I try to wade forward.