Good memories

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute

I’ve written before about how much I love the sound of a train whistle on a summer night, because I can remember that sound from visiting my grandparents. Visiting them on Long Island every summer was one of the few times that I was able to feel safe and just be a happy child.

Well I’m down on the Gulf Coast on vacation, and I’m totally getting that same feeling that I get from hearing a train whistle. It’s the beach, and the bay waters near Mobile and Gulfport/Biloxi that are giving me that same feeling. It’s watching the fishing boats come in at the end of the day, watching folks fishing off the piers, etc. All of those things are tapping into memories of being on Long Island with my grandparents and enjoying those same things. It’s nice to have a few happy memories like that to tap into every once in awhile..

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As she and her guests shared their stories and the research around how this happens, I kept replacing all of the stories; the pain of giving birth, the struggle to bike up 4,000 feet of incline, and others with trauma and PTSD flashbacks. When we have those kinds of reactions, we become different people. Often we become the child who was being abused instead of the adult we are, and we act accordingly. We lash out, self-protect in unhealthy ways, or try our best to hide from it.

The exact reactions are not the important thing. We need to know that it happens. When in an extreme emotional state, we have the capacity to act like a different person. We all do. The problem comes from the fact that we don’t know that person. We are not good at predicting how we will react. When we are in a cool state, the warm state version of us makes no sense, and how we think we’ll act turns out not to be the reality of what happens at all.

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2 Comments

  1. Reading your posts is helpful to me. My husband is a survivor of a childhood rape and also an abusive home. I look to him for emotional companionship and find none. I have just finally realized why he is like he is. He is still in survivor mode. He never looks to the future or dares to dream. He is a wonderful man, and it pains me to think that he is still suffering so severely after all of these years. He has agreed for us to go to counseling, but I know it will end up dealing with his childhood traumas. I have approached him about it, and he said that is okay. I hope someday he is able to have some happy memories(as right now he remembers very little of his childhood or teen years). Thank you so much. You are at a place where he is not at yet. It helps to know other men have come so far after this. I pray he is able to, as well. Thanks again.

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