Sing Me Awake

I spent every day locking away everything that didn’t fit into a file, like it didn’t exist.

A lock on every drawer, a way to pretend I was normal.

Every time someone would see ME, I ran away, put that day inside a file, carefully locked them away.

Now I don’t know the faces that I see in my own photos, I can’t recall them, or me.

I hide away inside from the horror on faces in realization, every good time and joke is gone.

I frantically clutch at worthless paper, empty folders full of empty faces, vacant stares.

I leave them there and slam the drawer.

Then, the beat takes me, and my mind attempts to soar, an amazing feeling.

My mind in atrophy, it has never jogged no matter the incentive, yet I hear her voice and the memories wash over like a flood.

Dancing and crying the torrent can’t stop now.

Like waking from full body anesthesia the paper hits me with a thousand tiny cuts.

Just the initial notes making my tiny hairs stand up.

The tears dry and I collapse, lost in my fears, that I don’t know who I am.

Like I’ve been seeing the world with 3/D glasses, yet still nothing seems to pop.

No matter how hard I stared at the magic image in the mirror, I could never see my heart.

Half of all of me has been in a state of transparency, until I let her music enter me.

Everyday more of me materializes.

Soon I’ll be drowning in paperwork.

Accepting incoming recollections, second by second jumping and riding each shockwave as they come.

K.B. Silver

This explores the sudden breakthrough I had with my repressed memories. I have spent my whole aware life knowing I couldn’t remember my childhood. Therapists know that efforts to directly access repressed memories may do more harm than good. Not only because of the suggestibility of our minds, many times the memories “regained” that way can be false. I have always opted for natural memory recovery but it was starting to seem like I was never going to regain any lost memories, since none of the typical triggers were resulting in material gains. Not only that as the years went by I was in fact losing more memories.

Not all forms of therapy work for everyone, but for me once I started getting regular access to the medication that works and using music therapy things changed drastically. Music has a very powerful effect on me, but when I started listening specifically to La Roux songs, in conjunction with my writing therapy, and my new medication. It was like a switch instantly flipped. I started following the hints of memories where they led. I finally had my breakthrough. Usually, the memories lead to a locked cabinet. A hard metal wall and a panic attack ensues. Not anymore, now the memories have started to sometimes come out normal, and good, with which makes all the bad ones worth it. Instead of only dark, unspeakable, panic-inducing sadness ruling. For a long time I really only connected in that way with Artist La Roux’s music. After doing this kind of therapy for over a year I can finally use other music like this too.

I haven't just been making mental strides, not that those aren't worth making, I have been taking important actions in my life. This means cutting out those bad actors that have been abusing me my entire life, taking a renewed look at my physical and spiritual health regimens, and reconnecting with my husband as much as possible. One of the most shocking realizations/ memories to get back is the fact my mother specifically, I can only assume my father as well, have known my whole life I am autistic and have been hiding it with other diagnosis. Simply taking the screening, some of the questions made me sob. This poem, came directly to mind, when it asked if I describe my mind as a filing cabinet, or some other organization system, or unique item like that. I have always described my personal memories and ideas this way. My mother told me not to tell people that, because it made me sound crazy, and any time I said it to one of my friends they did in fact say it sounded crazy. Almost every question was a painful jab.

My single moment in time, that first rock dislodging, or the first thread giving way. Once the unraveling begins, there is no stopping it, not without concerted mending efforts, shoring up the dam. I am finally letting it flow. Sitting there, in the stream of sound, letting the pain and power pour from me until I know it all. What has been seen will not be unseen again.