Disremembered

The brain is a powerful mechanism. It's the computer that regulates all other systems in our body. It processes pain and pleasure. It controls heartbeat and respiration. It's capable of remembering things that are real, and imagining things that are not.

As good as memory is, occasionally forgetting is better. This week, Janet raises the question, ”What are a list of things you wish you could disremember?” The first thing that comes to mind are my recently resurfaced panic attacks, notably while driving. One could argue that driving itself is the cause, that traffic, near misses, and actual collisions collaborate to put me in a foggy state of not quite getting enough air. Ultimately though, I've isolated the cause to be concern over the attack itself. “What if this happens when I'm in X situation?” No sooner did I remember that, something I'd managed to disremember for a good four years, then I reopened the door.

It's not a terrible problem, a shadow of what it was years ago when it first developed. I don't need a copilot, and I've yet to pull over. Most of the time, I get that lightheaded need-to-yawn-but-can't feeling, my heartrate starts to go up as I wonder if I'll remain conscious long enough to reach the next traffic light, and I try to think of something else. I pay attention to the radio. I think about the things I have to do at work. I can't force myself to be distracted, but when I relax and allow myself to drift naturally, I suddenly find miles have passed and I'm okay. Oddly enough, this takes more effort driving to work in the morning. Coming home in the afternoon, it doesn't seem to be as much of a problem. It's easier to get out of my brain and think about other things. Maybe it's the exercise I get at lunch, getting my circulation going again, or maybe it's the increase in mental stimuli. I reflect on my day. I think about what movies or shows might await me at home. And before I know it, I am home.

I've always thought it important to remember, to learn from the past. When I was a kid, I actually used to recap my life as I drifted off to sleep at night. Sometime after college, I stopped doing that, either because the real world gave me too much to think about, or because I couldn't stay awake long enough to relive the years I'd accumulated. But there probably are things we should forget, or at the very least details that should be allowed to wear with time.

The most important “detail” to disremember is pain. We should know at an early age not to grab the handle of a pot on the stove. In time, we might remember that there was pain and avoid doing the thing that caused it. But do we remember the pain itself? I know for a fact that weeks of my life went by with sharp, stabbing pains in the right side of my abdomen. I know I ate less during this time, and slept on my left side in a fetal position, the only way to sleep at night. I remember pins and needles, ringing in my ears, and evidence of internal bleeding I could no longer ignore. But these are faded memories, words rather than sensations. I don't wince when I think about it, or even get a twinge reminding me. I did for months after the surgery which corrected the birth defect causing the near-fatal problem, but now I can't even imagine it. The brain forgets to protect us, to keep us sane and functional.

The imagination is a dangerous thing. I can see something sharp like a knife or a pen, worry about poking myself in the eye, and sometimes physically flinch. I usually put the potentially dangerous object away when this happens. I've never actually jabbed myself in the eye. Once in high school before a final exam, I reached for my shirt pocket and my hand came back with a freshly sharpened pencil sticking out of my palm. To this day I still have the tip in there and I can see the graphic deep in the meat of my hand. After that I remembered not to have sharp objects sticking up in my pocket.

We remember the cause of physical pain even if we can't, thankfully, recall the exact sensation. But what of emotional pain? Perhaps there lies the things I wish I could disremember. I wish I could disremember kids laughing and pointing in second grade when they identified the handwriting on a love note to a girl I liked. I wish I could forget the people who made fun of me, the feeling that I don't belong and shouldn't talk to people unless they talk to me first so I know it's “okay”. I went from being open about my feelings and expressing myself to closing myself off and guarding myself. Instead of being outgoing and making friends, I became shy and withdrawn. I actually used to go up to strange kids and just start talking. I'd make friends whether I was shopping with my parents in a store or sitting in a waiting room at a hospital. By the time I was in high school, my neighborhood friends were “blackmailing” me to play the games they wanted to play. If I didn't comply, they'd shout out the name of the girl I had a hopeless crush on in middle school, whom I never told. Most of all, I guess I wish I could disremember distrust and be the full human being I should have been.

I think the only emotional pain I wouldn't want to forget is that of loss, which differs from the crippling pain of the fear of rejection and mockery. I don't want to forget how upset I was when various pets died, or my grandmother, my Uncle Armand, my music teacher, my Aunt Irene, or my mom's cousin. The thing is, the brain works the same way with emotional pain as it does with physical pain. I miss these people, but I don't break down every time I think about them. I remember jokes my aunt told or life lessons my music teacher imparted along with music lessons. I remember that they all existed, and were important to me. I might forget the emotion of loss, the lump in my throat and stinging at my eyes, but not the ones who are gone.

Janet asked for a list, but as usual I rambled into prose. To sum up:

• Being made fun of for being me
• Getting beat up
• Being laughed at for liking various girls
• Anxiety
• Phantom sensations of imagined pain or past actual pain
• Anything from my past that causes me to hold back in the present

And finally,

• Various things people have shown me on the internet, ranging from a guy at my old job that showed me footage of one of the beheadings in the Middle East to maligning links Rey has concealed behind a TinyUrl. Most importantly, and I can't stress this enough, if B13 ever sends you an unspecified animated gif or any link with the word “party” in it, exercise extreme caution in clicking.

Ultimately, time is our greatest ally in disremembering, and our greatest enemy in holding on to the memories we'd rather keep.