Where do I start? Everyone has their own childhood story to untangle

Where do I start? Everyone has their own childhood story to untangle

Where do I start?

I had a very, very weird childhood. Some people have the religious trauma, some have the undiagnosed neurodiversity factors, some have the abusive father factor, some have the poverty angle – I’ve had all that and then some. But I know I need to start dredging through all this.

I realised on a recent holiday that I am stuck, and I need to bloody well unstick myself before my life is entirely consumed by this. I know I’m not alone, and everyone else has their own childhood trauma/story to untangle.

I am conscious that I am using writing as a type of therapy, but the self-paced format in the Memoir Hub should help manage this, especially with the guidance of a writing mentor. I am usually good at stepping back and objectively observing a problem to solve it (from a technical perspective); I just have to try to do the same with life instead of burying what can’t be changed. I must start processing this stuff and I know it will suck, so a mentor is important for me. I have little memory of my childhood, but I hope by writing about it I’ll start to remember more. I’ve probably blocked a lot due to childhood trauma. I’ve been postponing my memoir because unlocking all trauma will be messy, but I realise how sticking my head in the sand keeps me in a sort of stasis.

Deciding on a theme is one of many challenges. When I write fiction, I like to have a vague idea and let the story surprise me. For non-fiction, I suppose it’s a little of the same; I want to see where my mind decides where I go with this. There are several things I need to untangle, for example:

– religious trauma,
– extremely young parents who both have undiagnosed issues and addictions, who refuse to take accountability for anything,
– poverty,
– growing up too fast/becoming independent very early.

I don’t have memories of childhood, just stories others have told me with a vague sense of “Yes, I was there for that”. I’m not sure if I have aphantasia or have blocked it all. I have one small flash of memory; I must have been three or four. My parents were building a house (on my grandparents’ money), and they showed me which room would be mine and then must have just left me to my own devices (the 1980s was a wild time).

The builders had left a heap of wood off-cuts in the room, so I used them as building blocks and created a city. I “remember” because there’s a photo in my album of me sitting next to my city, but when I think hard about it, there is a vague one-second flash of memory of looking at the blocks and their potential. Little emotion is attached to this memory, more a flash of curiosity. I like this memory because I like making things.

A traumatic influence occurred when, in front of me, my grandfather shot and killed the family dog because it annoyed him. Animals were better than people to me, but to my Eastern-European grandfather, animals were just accessories. Witnessing this act, and observing how afraid the dog had been, made me realise that if people like my grandfather went to Heaven, I did not want to go there. I suppose that’s when I stopped believing in God and began to question the religious dogma I’d been fed, and began following the path that turned me into a scientist.

A person who had a major positive influence on my life was one of my bosses. They trusted me implicitly almost from the moment I was interviewed. Their trust in my abilities made me extremely loyal to that company. Their trust continued, and two years later, they gave me a shot at being a tech support person for the business even though I had no experience with the software; they knew I would figure it out – and I did. The company is long gone (floods ruined them), but they will always be a person for whom I’ll do anything. Trust goes a long way with me.

This memoir is for me only, at this point, and current-me says forever. I’ve no desire to be vulnerable with a faceless, heavily neurotypical publishing market. In short, I’m writing this memoir for me.

Do you have a childhood story to untangle, too? Leave a comment below.