Remembering

This isn't a quite post about remembering Grandma or Grandpa, or about remembering your wedding, first child, cute moments with a loved one, etc.  This is about how easy it is to remember something or swear it never happened, or rather you don't remember.

I was reading in the Sun Magazine yesterday a story in which a woman illustrates how her sister taught her certain things about life.  What makes this such a wonderful story is the older sister is schizophrenic, thus the things she taught the younger sister weren't what one would expect.
In one part, the author relates there was some sexual abuse going on, and when she told her mom, her mom just said, 'Oh! That is what all the questions were about.' No further explanation, her mother went back to work, and then later in life, never remembered even saying anything about the abuse, or the mention of it to her. 

In real life, I have found through stories I have heard from children and adults alike, this lack of memory later in life happens a lot with parents.  It is sad, really, as it un-validates the abuse, which was validated when the parent is first told about it.  Much of what I hear is in court cases wherein a child will say the father, uncle, mother, brother, sister, neighbor, whoever...abused them to another adult.  An adult they felt they could trust, and who would in turn, validate their pain, confusion, and shame at being abused.  What happens later, is the adult is asked to appear in court to confirm the allegations of the child, and suddenly the adult doesn't remember the conversation the child is referring to, or is unable to comment.  This type of sudden un-remembering hurts...it hurts the child greatly, or in some cases the adult who has memories of abuse and seeks validation from a parent. 

In my case, I had sudden memories as an adult sexual abuse had happened to me.  I knew, and so did my Mom, there had been physical and emotional abuse by the handfuls, depending upon who she was married to at the time, or dating.  When I came home from work and was crying, needing to talk to someone, who would possibly remember something from this time period, who could tell me these memories were either false or real, I called my Mom.  We lived across the county from each other at the time, so a cup of tea in the kitchen wasn't going to work!

When I called her, told her about the memories I was having, how they were disturbing my work and life, she responded, "So, that is what all those questions were about when you were five."  That was enough for me.  Born in '63, making the time the abuse occurred in 1968, and me only five, I apparently, as to what my mother stated in this phone call, had asked lots of questions about sex, penis', touching, and all kinds of stuff.  She said she thought it odd I would be asking those sorts of questions at my young age, but she told me, she didn't feel she needed to follow up on why I was asking these sorts of questions.  We then cried together on the phone, tears stretching for miles, and somewhere in the Midwest, touching. 

Later, I returned back to my home city, which was just one state away from Mom, a five/six hour drive, depending on how fast I drove.  I started therapy out there with a very trusted and wonderful counselor.  She didn't try to push for more memories, do any hypnosis on me, she just started with where I was at, and worked with me to be able to put these demons behind me.  In part of the therapy, she suggested I talk with my Mom more about the questions I asked her, as there were memories which didn't quite make sense to me. 
I called my Mom, and started asking about what questions I asked her specifically.  Suddenly she had no memory of me asking any type of questions about anything inappropriate for a 5 year old child in 1968.  She said she never said she remember me asking questions when I called her from the state I was in before.  She remembered the conversation but said it went something to the effect of, "I am having these flashes of these bad things happening to me, do you have any idea of what my step-dad may have done to me?" With her responding, as to her current memory, "No, I have no idea what you are talking about.  I was in the house all the time with you girls.  I was sleeping in the master bedroom, how could anything have happened?  I would have known." 

This broke my heart, and threw me backwards in my therapy and life for a while.  My therapist finally worked with me and explained how her validation didn't matter that much, as I knew what I remembered and that was truth to me, so we just needed to work with my own truth.  But, I have never forgotten this un-validation, and she continues to this day to say the same thing, "I was in the next room: I would have known if something was going on." 
I later told her of a story my ex-husband had revealed to me about him with his first wife.  He said after his wife had gone to sleep, he would slip out of the house, go to another woman's house, or find a hooker, have sex, and then return home before she ever woke up.  I watched my mom's face, wondering if she would see that if my ex could slip in and out of the same bed, how easy would have been for my step-father to slip out of the bed and into my room.  She just showed further disgust of my ex, and didn't find any connection.
There have been a few shows on TV which are either real life stories or crime shows, in which a mother is shown to have let abuse go on right under her nose, knowing the whole time what was going on, but never protecting the child.  My mom can sit and watch these shows, and verbally condemn the women, whether real or fiction, and state she would never have done that, she did everything in her life to keep her children safe. 

Now, she has chosen not to remember a very important issue which happened at her last job.  She was caught using the company credit card for personal expenditures, and had been doing this for some time, but had always been able to pay back the card before it was found out.  Well, she was finally caught.  Her boss tried to stick up for her, but she did end up losing her 401k and had some garnishment of her check for a period, but was allowed to continue working there.  She doesn't remember this at all.  She claims it was a client of mine, or someone else I know, but this never happened to her. 

My therapist at one time stated the reason my mother didn't want to acknowledge the abuse later was she was not able to psychologically able to handle the implications of letting her daughter be abused.  She stated this was something she was going to have to come to terms with on her own, and there was nothing I could do to make her see where she failed me.  I have friends also who have the same problems with their parents, but as I tell them, they cannot make their parent go back and see what they see, so they have to work on their own issues, just knowing this person may not be a safe one to confide in in latter years. 

When one thinks of memory loss, usually Alzheimer's comes to mind, but memory loss can just be selective and subjective as well for the owner of the memories. My mom's memories are not due to a disease, a medication, or anything else except simply uncomfortableness with the memory.  It is not cool to remember you might have been sleeping in the next room while your daughter was being felt up; or that while visiting the next husband you will have, another man was touching your daughter (now about 8) in obvious (to an adult) ways a man should not be touching a child; or to remember you almost lost your job due to basically embezzlement.  Yeah! These are memories which would be quite subjective and easy to loose since they cause one to be very uncomfortable in their own mind and skin.