Amnesia, or: Why it's all your damn fault

It's one of those images which just remain with you forever. Seeing these people whom you know to be classmates come walking around the bicycle shed and crawling through the gap between its boards and the concrete foundation, as they make their way towards you. Slowly, inevitably. Standing on the field behind the bicycle shed, you know that all you can do is await the inevitable. There were probably a few dozen of them. It felt like hundreds.

As they circle around me, the jeering, insults and egging on starts. Pushing my way through the throng, I leave them behind, but knowing very well that I cannot escape them. They'll always be there. Each lunch break. And outside school time as well, as I noticed one day when they tried to block my way while I was cycling home. Only by quickly leaving the bicycle path and passing their blockade by using the road was I able to avoid whatever would have come next. Nothing good, I imagine.

I remember well that time I got punched in the stomach. It hurt so much. As I stood there on the parking lot, buckled over in pain, I just heard others laugh at me, and call me weak and a sissy. Or that time when someone spit straight into my face. I never told a teacher about any of this. I ignored it all. Maybe it would go away?

Years ago I learned that I had apparently taken on the main bully from back then, during primary school. Apparently I had confronted him and beaten him up something fierce. After that he stopped bullying me and we sort of became friends. Funny thing is that I do not remember any of this. A lot of my primary school time is like that: gaps where significant events should have been. Things which I should have remembered. Like getting revenge on this bully.


In hindsight it was likely that I suffered a blackout, as a result of the trauma I suffered as a young child. Abuse is all the same, after all. Likely something had finally snapped inside of me, after suffering all of that abuse. Same as how I suffered a blackout a few years ago, due to the abuse I suffered at the hands of doctors and psychologists. There's a lot one can take psychologically, but at some point something just... breaks.

When possible, one's mind seeks to just cover it up. Put the memories deep away, where they can fester and hurt without one consciously realising why one struggles with all of these painful feelings and weird if not disturbing impulses. I guess in that sense I'm glad that I'm beginning to remember things now. Things of my childhood, mostly.

The memory I recalled a while ago of the big man standing over 5-year old me is becoming more clear now. Most recently I seem to remember him yelling at me. Accusing me it all being my fault. Everything that had happened. Everything that was just done to me. All my fault. I did it. If only I hadn't been there. If only I didn't exist. Everything was my fault. I should just have cooperated. Followed orders. I think that after this I was left alone in that dark room. To cry and feel horrible. To leave and try to forget what had happened. Maybe it would go away?


It never goes away.


I always feel it's my fault. Something is just wrong with me. Something which justifies getting abused as a child. Which justifies getting bullied during primary and high school. Which excuses everything about the horrors inflicted on me by doctors and psychologists. The very reason behind why I'll never find a home again. Ending up homeless and dying on the streets is the only fate that's acceptable for someone who is such a terrible person like me.

I cannot stop hearing this man yelling at me. It is my fault. I believe it, somehow. If only I hadn't resisted. Hadn't struggled. I am just a child, what do I know?

I'm still that 5-year old child. I'm still suffering the same abuse, the same yelling, the same terrible darkness and loneliness afterwards. Over and over again. It never ends. I try to argue that it's not my fault, that none of what happened to me was my fault. Somewhat like the struggle to stop blaming myself for being raped in 2006. Anger is helpful there when it's a past event.

When it's still ongoing, one can only keep putting the feelings and memories away. To let it fester and sap away one's mental strength. Things like the medical madness, with doctors and psychologists blaming me, saying that it's all my fault. If only I would just accept what they keep telling me about me being just a boy. Why can't I just follow orders? I'm less than them. They know better.

Or with the eviction case. It's my fault. I shouldn't have reported issues. I shouldn't have attempted to reach an agreement on reduced rent. I should just have suffered the abuse. Like a good little child. This is an adult's world. Your opinions and thoughts are irrelevant. We know what's best for you.


It's all my fault. It has to be. Or maybe it's just that man's voice which keeps haunting me. Yet I do not feel the confidence to say that what this man yelled at me was incorrect. Maybe everything is my fault after all, even if other people tell me it's not. I don't know who is right. Between all of these horrible memories and fragments of this rapidly fading lie of a carefree youth, I'm not sure who is right, or what reality is any more. Who to trust, either.

Why are people such horrible creatures who have to keep inflicting so much pain upon others?

I don't understand any of it. I just want to get away. Somehow. Make this pain inside of my head stop.


Even if...


Maya