My earliest memories are flashbulb memories.

For those who don’t know, a flashbulb memory is a vivid, detailed, and long-lasting memory that is triggered by shocking or emotionally significant events.

These particular memories became flashbulbs not because the circumstances were unique, in fact they were quite common, but because my thoughts about them became conscious.

In these moments, the lessons changed from being subconscious assumptions to being conscious self-realizations that stayed with me far into adulthood.

At this point, I want to offer a trigger warning and ask that anyone who has experienced mental or emotional abuse prepare yourself before continuing. What I’m about to share may not affect most people, but to those who can relate, it might hit hard – but my hope is that what I have learned and have to share might be worth it.

One of my earliest flashbulb memories was when I was young enough that I was still playing with colored stacking cups and learning how to count. I was on the floor of our living room, in front of the couch playing with those stacking cups and counting them. I was on the purple cup. Then I messed up my numbers.

My mother’s immediate reaction was red hot anger. But she wasn’t just angry that I got the number wrong. She was angry because she said I knew the right number and that I was pretending to be stupid to get attention.

This wasn’t the first time that she’d accused me of pretending to be stupid, and certainly would not be the last, but it was one of two that sticks out to this day. Clear, vivid, and without the faded edges of typical memories.

This was the day that I learned that being wrong meant anger from her and pain for me. I made a clear and conscious decision to hide when I didn’t know the answer.

All throughout my childhood and long into my adulthood, even at times to this day, I struggled immensely when asked or expected to learn or try something new in the presence of another person.

The second flashbulb memory related to that frequent accusation was a few years down the road. I’m not sure exactly how old I was, but I was reading and writing and excited by both.

On that afternoon, I was silently reading every street sign we passed, as many divergents and young readers do, when we passed a ‘pedestrian crossing’ sign. Having never come across that particular word in my books, I didn’t recognize it, so I absently asked to no one in particular, “ what is a ped-e-strain?”

It’s funny that it took me about twenty more years to realize that it was a simple error of mixing up two vowels as we drove past the sign – but that’s because severe emotions can overwhelm cognitive processes, particularly for people with brains like mine.

Anyway, this moment became another flashbulb because, when she angrily told me that I was pretending to be dumb, that I knew that word, and made an ordeal of demanding that I say it correctly, as my frustration and fear and pain only slowed my ability to process further – that’s when it all led to a clear and cutting thought process that stuck to me like glue.

This was the day I realized three things.

I realized that I was so incredibly dumb that my own mother couldn’t believe my level of stupidity.

And I realized that I was so untrustworthy that she assumed I was faking it.

And finally, I understood that wanting attention was a very, very bad thing.

As the years progressed, there were other flashbulbs with other profound realizations.

The day I realized that anyone who tried to help me would be taken away.

The day I learned that no one left would protect or even believe me.

The moment I finally understood that I could not fully trust my own memories, perception, or truths – and if I dared I would be forced into betraying them.

And when I came to see that there was something “wrong” with me that nothing I could ever do would make “right”.

On and on the lessons continued. Each one as distorted and fundamentally flawed as the next.

That last sentence I wrote so casually, as if that’s a given understanding.

But coming to that understanding was anything but casual.

It’s been eight years since I started the REAL healing work, and for a decade prior I worked through the seemingly impossible process of just acknowledging that there were things to look at and healing to be done.

Admitting that I needed to look OUTSIDE of myself for the origins of my struggle was a monumental task. A task made even harder as I read books and watched documentaries that told me to do the exact opposite.

I was, after all, a disgusting, frustrating, untrustworthy, sinful, and intellectually inferior girl – so I was more than willing to completely accept sole responsibility for my own fear, pain, and anger.

But both truths can exist simultaneously. The answer must be found both inside and outside – a paradox that someone on the healing journey must come to understand in their own time.

There is still much to be done, but what I have now are breadcrumbs.

Pieces of the puzzle that I bled and cried and sweat profusely for – that I am now ready to put out there for anyone else who may need to stumble upon them.

And my breadcrumb today has to do with flashbulb memories.

Every person’s journey is unique, so my process may be wildly different from another’s. But what I learned is that these memories – the ones that stand out as well as the ones that are so painful they hide in the shadowy back shelves hoping never to be seen – they are keys.

The ellipses in the story are there so you can go back and rewrite the premise.

Read that again.

The points that are the hardest to understand, the most painful to look at, they are moments in time where a program was being written. And so, later in life, they are also the points you can overwrite.

That sounds simple. It is not. But it is worth it.

I have traveled alone these many years, and I am only now realizing that it’s because of those early lessons. I was terrified of letting myself be seen while still learning. Terrified of being wrong in front of someone else.

I have traveled alone, but I do not recommend it.

Identifying the false lessons in your own story is extremely difficult and can take far longer than it would if you had someone who could help you pinpoint and correct them.

And this is where I am still learning.

But there also things that I have already learned.

Things that I will leave behind as I venture on through this beautiful, messy process.

And so it begins. I will be seen. I will at times be wrong. I will at times be right. And every bit of that is okay. Because I found my ellipses.

~ Cristen Writes