Emotional Discovery

Emotional Discovery

The day before my birthday was a very difficult day for several reasons. The thing that happened to trigger the rage I flew into wasn’t something that would normally bother me.

I had decided that I wanted Chinese food so I placed an order. I had planned on paying one way but then I found out that they had changed the payment methods so I wasn’t able to have what I wanted. I cancelled the order and I became angrier with each second. I wanted to break something; I was heading toward a full blown rage over something as simple as not getting what I wanted. I couldn’t get myself under control.

I was feeling so angry but I had no idea why the situation had me so angry. It took me awhile to find some calm, actually I didn’t find it; I was guided to it. My best friend tried reasoning with me to help me see that anger wasn’t a response I should have in that situation. I think I was getting irritated with the questions to figure out what the real problem was. Hearing the questions restated and phrased differently help the answers flow out after some time.

The story goes back to the time that I was between the ages of 8-9. I had always believed that I was the eldest child. This particular day my mother had put my favorite doll away, as punishment for my transgression (I don’t remember what I did). So there I was looking at the place where my doll was being held hostage, and I wanted her back. I was alone in the house and angry that I had been punished.

So I decided I wanted it back and decided to get it. The doll was on the top shelf of the closet, which meant that I had to climb the shelves to get to the top where my doll was. In the process I knocked a box down; I was irritated that I had been careless. I knew I needed to pick everything up and put it back without mom finding out what I did. I had even gone as far as replacing my favorite doll with a different one. I really didn't want mom to know that I had gotten my doll back.

I climbed down and started picking up the things and putting them back in the box. The items that had fallen out were baby momentums, I was curious there were 2 sets of them, diapers, bottles, newspaper articles and pictures. I read the articles and found out that my parents had had 2 other children before me; they hadn’t survived the day they had been born. I remember tears streaming down my face and rocking myself, consoling myself.

In seconds my reality had changed. I couldn’t handle the information that I had found out. I felt betrayed, I didn’t know my place, and I ran from the shock. I hid for a very long time. I came back after a very long absence. But I wasn’t who I remembered. My memories had ended the day I went after my doll. I didn’t know where or who I was when I came back. I had a friend help me adjust to life now. I had to come to terms with the loss of years and to merge my memory from that time to the current time line.

I never knew why I really disliked my birthday being in January much less on the 14th. The reasons I had given myself was that it happened in the middle of winter, testing always seemed to fall on it on a regular basis, and a few times my parents had forgotten. Now I know why. My brother had been born exactly 364 days before I had been; and my sister almost 15 months before me.

This event was a deep wound and the pain was fresh. It was like being a child again and feeling everything again. Feeling the betrayal and desolation left behind after reading the items in the box. To this day my mother doesn’t talk about them. At some point I edited my memory and I had the knowledge but not how I had gotten it. It was a sanitized version.