Hidden Memories Awakened

Hidden Memories Awakened

The other day I was having a couple of headaches and they went away after talking to my closest friends. It turned out that I needed to unload some things that had been weighting on my mind for some time. We had been discussing one topic and on a tangent I ended up telling them different events during my childhood with a connection to an event that happened a few years ago.


I had remembered about being locked in a closet when I was younger. It took place at church. I screamed until my throat was raw. That was the day I learned that my peers could be so very cruel; just because I was different. My parents had to go looking for me because the teacher didn’t even know where I was. I don’t know what happened after I screamed my throat raw and when my parents found me. I do remember feeling terrified. I guess I had buried this memory because it was so traumatic for me to deal with then.


A few years ago I had been locked in the garage with no way to communicate with anyone. I flew into a rage, I screamed. My mind had shut down. My thought process had come to a screeching halt. For about 15-20 minutes I was ruled by rage, an anger so animalistic I wasn’t myself at all. I was snarling and growling; I couldn’t think clearly. When I finally reined my hot anger and banked it; it was an icy logical one where I could think. I found a hatchet in the camping gear. I almost started hacking at the door until I realized that replacing a door was more expensive than replacing the door knob. Using the blunt end of the hatchet I struck the door knob repeatedly until the offending door knob broke off the door. I used a screwdriver to open the door. I tossed the broken knob into the trash on my way upstairs.


After making it upstairs I made a call James and told him that he needed to purchase a new door knob. At which point he asked why we needed a new one when the one that was there was working fine. I think I laughed at that point and that was when he knew something had happened; in an icy tone I explained the ordeal, hence his need for a new door knob. I actually think he had been on the verge of laughing until I told him I wasn’t in the mood to be ridiculed or laughed at. To avoid rudeness or unseemly behavior I hung up on him. He came home with a new door knob that evening.


Talking with Shawn and Leah about the separate incidents helped me understand myself a bit more. It also explained why I have a fear of small enclosed spaces, why it terrifies me to be in elevators. It explains why I felt like a caged animal when I was locked in the garage my mind shut down and I was back in that locked closet when I was little. I was helpless. I needed to rescued. I was weak. I hated myself because I cried and screamed when I couldn’t get out of the closet. I had been ashamed of myself for years because I thought that my fears were irrational and that I should have been able to handle it. I finally know the reason for the fear and I can work on it. Each time I get into an elevator I have to concentrate on breathing because if I don’t the fear builds to the point of choking me.


Maybe there is a reason that I have a hard time relating to my peers. I have always gotten along with older and younger friends but not many friends my own age. I think I always thought that I wasn’t good enough to have friends or white enough to hang out with my neighbors. I was 7 years old when an adult told me that I wasn’t white enough to enter her house. She told her daughter I may as well have been black (mind you she didn’t say it with those words) where it concerned her because I wouldn’t cross her threshold while she lived. *cries* how cruel could someone be OMG I was only 7 years old!


I always felt like an outcast. I was never pretty enough, white enough, athletic enough, or even smart enough by other peoples standards. I don’t know why I’m writing this now. I didn’t plan on getting into this topic now. It still slices through my heart. What was even crueler was that my friend had to tell me that I couldn’t enter her house knowing I had heard her mother. What’s truly ironic is that she married an African American. I wonder how that went down with her family. I truly wish I hadn’t remembered that memory. I feel awful.

~ * ~

Prejudice

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For "with(out) prejudice" in law, see Prejudice (law).


Prejudice is, as the name implies, the process of "pre-judging" something. It implies coming to a judgment on a subject before learning where the preponderance of evidence actually lies, or forming a judgment without direct experience. Holding a politically unpopular view is not in itself prejudice, and politically popular views are not necessarily free of prejudice. When applied to social groups, prejudice generally refers to existing biases toward the members of such groups, often based on social stereotypes; and at its most extreme, results in groups being denied benefits and rights unjustly or, conversely, unfairly showing unwarranted favor towards others.


This is different than viewpoints accumulated though direct life experience, which are neither prejudiced, conditioned or necessarily instinctive: they are not pre-judgments but post-judgments. Some argue that all politically-based views stem from a lack of sufficient life experience; this, however, provokes the question of how much life experience is required before a viewpoint is no longer regarded as prejudiced. If no amount of experience entitles a person to a viewpoint - if every point of view is biased - then there can be no objectivity. Judgements based on experience may, however, be coloured by prejudice. One might imagine a continuum from "prejudiced" to "based on experience," with many, if not most, views coming somewhere between the two extremes.


Fallacious extension of one's own negative past experiences to the general case can be harmful; it can be termed bias, or more colloquially, "lumping". If a person has developed the concept that members of one group have certain characteristics because of a sour past acquaintance with a member of that group, s/he may presume that all members of the group have such characteristics. For example, a person who has had a series of bad relationships with members of the opposite sex may develop a prejudice against that sex, thus adopting the prejudice known as sexism. This is typical of all prejudice: racism, linguicism, ageism, religious intolerance, heterosexism, prejudice based on differing political stances, etc.


In other cases, it may be a matter of early education: people taught that certain attitudes are the "correct" ones may form opinions without weighing the evidence on both sides of a given question. Many prejudicial behaviors are picked up at a young age by children emulating their elders' ways of thinking and speaking, with no malice intended on the child's part. The prejudiced adult might even be shocked to hear a slew of racial slurs and their own half-cocked opinions on various groups echoed back at them from their children. Early learning is highly influential, however, prejudice can be learned at any age.
In Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice, the heroine forms a strong opinion of a man's character before she hears his side of the story. The balance of the facts, when finally made known to her, challenges and ultimately overturns this prejudice. Prejudice is also a theme in To Kill a Mockingbird, in which a man is wrongly tried and convicted because of his race.


Sociologists have termed prejudice an adaptive behavior. Biased views are necessary at times for human survival: we don't always have time to form a legitimate view about a potential foe before adopting a defensive stance that could save our lives. Conversely, prejudice is non-adaptive when it interferes with survival or well-being (e.g., refusing to patronize the only doctor in a town who could save you because he or she is black, or rejecting a potential friend/partner because of ethnicity).


Differing opinions of what constitutes prejudice can promt us to reconsider our views, with an emphasis on self-understanding. Does, for example, criticizing another person as being prejudiced in itself sometimes involve pre-judging the very person being criticized? Another interesting intellectual conundrum is to consider whether deeply-held spiritual or religious views are also prejudiced, since they are not necessarily based on direct experience.


There is some confusion between common and legal usages of the term "prejudice." In law, the phrase "with prejudice" implies a judgment having been made after the presentation of evidence; it does not imply any form of bias.