My father had a violent temper and when he got angry, he was loud. When I say loud, I mean VERY LOUD. To a small child, say, four years old, it was truly terrifying. That child was me.
Today I had lunch with a long-time good friend, someone whom I've known half my life and whom I had not seen in several years. During our conversation, there were times when she became loud (and she can by nature be LOUD). And the space we were sitting in, concrete walls and a low ceiling, simply echoed and amplified the sound, so that, at least to me, it was VERY LOUD.
I was shocked to find myself shaking.
I wrapped my arms around myself and fidgeted a bit and I'm sure she didn't notice. I was doing more shaking on the inside than on the outside. But I actually had a physical remembrance of the fear I had had of my father, something I hadn't felt since I had recovered the original deeply-repressed childhood memories, thanks to a number of sessions of healing touch by performed by Sister Bernadette and Sister Thérèse.
The mind may forget, especially in trauma, but the body never forgets. And I was once again that child, crouched down with my back against the wall, my arms over my head to protect myself, and screaming. Screaming. Screaming at the top of my lungs.
It may have only happened once, but once was enough.
As I was walking down a university corridor after lunch with my friend, I was thinking about how much that fear of my father had sculpted, and to some extent still sculpts, my life. And I thought to myself, I'm never gonna forgive me for what you did, you bastard.
I came to dead halt. I had switched, automatically and almost unconsciously, from I'm never gonna forgive you to I'm never gonna forgive me.
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
