random stuff

when I was 16, and not at all aware of myself, I went to an OB/GYN
considering options for birth control, since I was sexually active with a boyfriend......
The doctor, upon examination, said to me; "You've had a baby already."
I was in denial, so naturally, I denied it. He went on to tell me that my breasts showed signs, I had stretch marks, my pelvic exam revealed the expansion of my bones [like for delivery] and I also had a condition he said he had only seen in textbooks; vaginal hemoroids.
I always remembered he had told me these things, but I could not make a connection.

I also started realizing that I wanted to get replacements for things my mother took away from me in 1966-67......... never understanding why she kept stealing my stuff. She actually went so far as to give away all of my Barbie dolls and other dolls in 1970, to a neighbor girl when I was at school. I had them in a box under my bed, saving them for when I had daughters, and she just gave them all away. That was every last birthday and Christmas gift I had ever gotten before turning 13.

Anyway, I started a new Barbie doll collection when I lived in Emmitsburg with my second husband, and made wonderful things for my girls with their dolls, like a big doll house with hand made furniture.
It took a lot of antique shopping to find the original Skipper, and the Barbie vanity with mirror and stool..... as well as the Allen doll with sailor outfit, but was making quite a good collection once again.

All of those things got stolen from me too, when my mobile home was broken into in 1997.

In 1999 I started over again, mainly with the Happy Holidays Barbies, one here and one there.... then in the 21st century... I discovered ebay!
Suddenly I was finding what I wanted without even leaving home!
I got the Pink Sparkle outfit my Barbie had in 1966-67 and another vanity,
another "Barbie Babysits" set with baby in kimono...... somehow the Allen doll was overlooked by thieves, and I have made my own doll house and a special wall display with Barbies and G.I. Joe "JFK" sitting to tea.

Silly? Perhaps, but with a result; reclaiming my history.
Did my mother actually know that stealing my stuff would help her make a bigger gap in my understanding and recall? I suspect she was just behaving badly, dismissing me, punishing me for having a baby, whatever, she never seemed smart enough to be sinister. Sorry, but it's true, I was smarter than her in second grade. Maybe earlier. I knew dad belonged in jail, I told him so when I was 4 years old. When he held a knife to my throat and tried to force me to say that I loved what he was doing to me, saying "if you don't say you love it, I'll cut your throat from ear to ear and you'll be dead."
I told him "Go ahead and kill me then, I'm not going to lie."
He laughed at me.
Later I tried to kill myself and failed.

O.k., about re-collecting stuff connected to the past; the 3 strand crystal aroura borealis necklace my grandmother gave me, Mom took away imediately. Same with the rhinestone tiara grandma gave me..... when I was 12 the tiara was cool, but I stilll love crystal necklaces, so I got an identical one.
When memories of the abuse came back, after seeing a tin sand pail and shovel like the one I had at age 6, I was pretty shaken up. I bought the pail and hid it in my closet. Somebody stole that too, possibly Mom when she visited for Christmas, she did take back all of the tree ornaments she had given me years ago.
Anyway, the tangible things had a connection with lost memories, and they did come flooding back. I went and visited all of the places we ever lived growing up, and compaired the places to my memories, and the details all fit very well. I thought I had remembered it all.
Years went by, and the bad dreams of faceless people kidnapping my baby boy continued, and the heart ache of 'I want my baby back' haunted me forever...... I didn't know why.

In 2008, when my first inkling of having a baby boy surfaced, I started to tell my new therapist. She cautioned me that I might be wrong. I'm braver than that, so her cautions fell on deaf ears.
I remembered the episode in the basement on Gainsboro Rd., when I fell to the floor thinking I was dying from the pain in my abdomen.

I got out some poster paper and made a graph of the basement, tiles on the floor, and a cut out of the sink, the washer and dryer, the toilet and shower stall,the metal shelf unit, my brother's matress on the floor where they both slept. I even stained it with a teabag to make it look like theirs, which was badly urine stained as they were both still bedwetting. [at ages 14 & 11]
Also; a paper cutout of myself, curled up on the floor.
The visual made it all tangible, I remembered the chloroform in the brown glass bottle dad kept on the shelf unit in the basement and the rag he held over my nose and mouth.

I phone my younger brother and asked him if he remembered chloroform, and he did remember it, he had even mixed some of it with other stuff making 'formulas' experimenting as a kid.

The other memories came back in different ways, like when I heard a car horn, just like the day J.F. was born, there in the basement while my siblings were in the car waiting as they were told, one of them honked the horn to make us hurry. They had no idea what was going on.

so, tangible things, smells, sounds, flavors, photos...... can all form a link to our memories, and it is a very effective tool to recovering what is lost. I don't know if anyone reading this has lost memories, but finding them is a long journey, and filled with migraines [for me] and feelings of fear and anger and anxiety and depression.
Fortunately, I have my faith instead of combat boots, my knowledge that my God is stronger than the unknown, and if I lived through it before, I can live through it again.
I suspect it is a lot like being a P.O.W. or other torture victim, and my childhood was certainly full of torture.

I have survived it.