Childhood Trauma

From time to time, the spirits have asked that I write on various topics in my childhood, so that I can see patterns and in doing so, dismantle them. It’s amazing how much self-discovery you can do that way. The trauma from my childhood was severe enough that there were blank spots, and the things that I have previously remembered are… well… let’s just say I needed a specialist back when I was trying to make therapy work.

The writing exercise jogs them into conscious memory—memory might be deceptive (and is), but if I’m carrying it around with me, it needs to be exorcised. It is private, as well, allowing me to summon, face, and banish things that I might not particularly want to be discussing with other people until I am no longer bound by them.

As I write, as some of the nastiness transits into the page, I discover myself. I discover modes of thought that do not serve me, I discover reactions I did not know I had. I discover associations not just from my memories, but ways that the person I now am is influenced by some stupid shit some dumb motherfucker once told me that somehow, I carried with me for this long.

It is like an exorcism. Memory is a haunting, deceptive and ultimately parasitic. I am happy to pull it up, see it for what it is, and yeet that shit right on out.

The interesting thing is that, as I write it out and see those patterns, I am free to say that such and such happened, and it means nothing in particular to me. I am not bound by it. I can say, for instance, that I had a violent childhood, and I feel nothing in particular about it.

Freedom is a part of the oneness that is the core precept of vodou. Freedom from all things, including childhood trauma.