Opening Old Wounds - Painful Memories and the Positives of Revisiting Them

Some memories are just too painful to revisit

There are memories that are just to hard to bare for whatever reason they are locked away in a secure part of your mind never to see the light of day - like Pandora's box it should never be opened. But what happens when you are ready to open up to some of these memories and look at them in a different way? 

This is something that I've had to do recently, it's been ten years since I was able to explore memories of when I was really ill in great detail without the aid of old journals or clouded by medication. 

A lot has changed since I was fifteen and I've achieved a lot since then but since carry around all the painful emotions and memories associated with that time. 

I've written about my mental health and how as a teen I was gravely ill, much more than I actually realised at the time. In a way my teenage self was deluding herself into thinking that I was fine, that this was just a blip and that I would bounce back. In fact this was the darkest period in my life to date and to be hospitalised is a serious matter. 

Being able to now open the book on those memories and actually look at them with an adult prospective rather than an angry teen who didn't understand what was going on was helpful and I do think age makes you think about things in your life differently in a more mature prospective. 

Revisiting them however was acutely painful, I'd buried the emotions so deep inside myself that I had forgotten the pain of them. To feel that pain again after such a long time was strange but to feel it and not act on it was actually interesting and cathartic in a way as I knew I was in no danger. Although my hands shook like mad and I had to take my time with the memories and sort them out fully and put them in some kind of order.

My memories are hazy due to the medication that I was on at the time, antidepressants do cloud your memories so there were some memories that were more based on the emotional response rather than the actual events. I also have black outs on some memories due to panic attacks so I do forget what happened in certain memories as they are fuzzy. 

The memories that I find most painful are the ones connected to my suicide attempts  (I tried to do it three times) as I had buried them deep in my mind, and I am always very vague on the details of what I did to myself as they were quite serious acts at the time and I was so young which is a factor to be wary of what details I revealed. 

I've always been honest about my self harm though as it is apart of my body and although you can no longer see the scars on my body, I know they are there and also what I did to myself. Some self harming episodes where in part due to meltdowns which I understand as I would do typical autistic things when distressed - like pulling my hair out, hitting my head against a wall and beating myself seeking sensory stimulation but before I did all that I did cut regularly which was not a cool thing at the time, it was before the EMO scene really kicked into action. 

If you ask most people that harm what they get out of harming in whatever method they choose they'll say it's those seconds of feeling a different type of pain, a pain that isn't internal. And I did enjoy that relief if only for a few seconds but it became not enough and that is worrying from an adult prospective that I was stimulated or satisfied enough with the first method. At that time I was still in high school and was trying to hide my harming scars or bruises, I would always put my PE kit on over my tights so no one could see my thighs that where black and blue from harming.

Revisiting these memories were difficult but when done in a positive way can be something that heals the wounds. 

As you guys might not know I'm a huge Harry Potter Fan and in Hufflepuff House on Pottermore ( I wonder if it's the autistic house of Hogwarts based on the traits), my love for the world of Magic and Hogwarts began when I was five years old and for twenty years has been a life saver for me as I grew up through some of the darkest of times in my life. 

I've always been a reader and a little bit of a book worm from a very early age and loved to read (which I still do today) but for getting a great book that entertains, excites and gives me comfort and strength from the characters that live in those pages.
I recently did an article with a newspaper on how Harry Potter helped me over come from very difficult and painful time in my life and which character helped me the most. Hermione Granger was one of those characters as I saw a lot of myself in her from a very young age, she was a book worm, loved to learn and was intelligent beyond her years, but she was also a loving and caring friend and she knew what to do in dangerous situations and always kept calm and used her mind rather than her brawn ( unless you count the time she smacked Malfoy in the face) to over come these situations using her confidence in her own mind and knowledge.
She actually made me think that if she in the books or on screen can be this Courageous ( She is a Griffindor after all), strong willed and prove that you don't have to come from a Pure Blood Family to be a brilliant student in the Harry Potter Universe then in real life why couldn't I be the same in the Autistic sense? What I mean by that is, I didn't have to be 'Normal' to succeed in life and being Autistic didn't mean I had to conform to the social expectations of what a Autistic/Aspergers person should be because and this is a shocker we're all unique in our Autism!

I connected with another well known character in later books, Luna was one of my favourites as she was from a single parent family, she was different and believed in things that were in even in the Magical World strange and slightly odd and she did not let anyone with negative views upset her as she had that confidence in herself that I admired. She's also been through a tragedy that saw her losing her mother at a very young age and at the time I was dealing with Grief and she instilled this feeling of acceptance to that death by showing that even when a loved one dies that you can still remember them in a loving and positive light. She also supported Harry mainly in dealing with death and proved that it isn't about conforming the social norm that is important, it's about the strength and courage again to stand by your beliefs even if other people will mock or disagree with you. She also was kind and never said a bad word to anyone even if they bullied her for it, she stayed calm but strong and that was something in my teens that I needed to take into account at the time.

My Favourite Quote however is not from Hermione or even Harry or Ron but rather Dumbledore, it resonated it me and gave me hope when I was so low:

"Happiness will be found in the darkest of times if one remembers to turn on the light." 

I had no happiness and  I had no joy when I was ill, I was constantly depressed and suicidal, thinking that I wasn't going to see my 16th birthday at one point. I thought by sixteen I wasn't going to be alive but rather dead and the frightening thing looking back is that I was completely comfortable with it, I had made that acceptance to end my life by sixteen and to give up the fight even when I had an amazing life ahead of me. I didn't care anymore and when people ask me why I was so comfortable with that thought, I don't really know how to answer (I kept this out of the article) because that part of me actually did die. That teenager died when I got my diagnosis and when I began to get better in my mental health. She disappeared to the back of mind and locked herself away and sat quietly rather than leave me for good.

When my birthday comes around, I actually feel some form of achievement that I've made it this far. I've seen my 18th, 21st and now recently my 25th birthday as i'm now a quarter of a century old. When you have depression when you're young, I don't think adults or your peers realise that every step to getting back to some form of even keel is an achievement and to be accepting that you will have a life long illness with good days and bad is something that becomes a form of normality which includes the Autism. 

People still think that you can grow out of Autism or that it doesn't exist, you can be cured of it and that it's just you being awkward (Thats on the no no list to say to someone with Autism) is just you being a bad child or a rebellious teen. That stigma annoys the <insert swear word> out of me, it makes me furious! 

But as I've grown older I try and break those stigma's and stand up to people who are so either uninformed or uneducated or just damn well bigoted that I now tell them what for and as a northern girl I don't mince my words. 

I did on Facebook recently replying to an article in the comments section where adults were openly bullying autistic children for no reason! I put the link to my blog in the comment and said if want to read my blog feel free and I hoped it would make them see what it's like to be autistic and what I try to do to help  so many other girls with Aspergers whether diagnosed or undiagnosed. I actually take that strength from Hermione and Luna and have instilled it into myself using my intelligence without being arrogant or unkind because I could've been a lot worse and very nasty towards those people. 

I wouldn't have been able to do that two years ago, I'd get angry at those comments and let them stew inside me before having a meltdown. Now I have the strength and confidence to stand up for the Autistic community thanks to the influences in my life. I'm Aspergers and proud and I've come a long way but I've still got a long way to go. 

Don't let those painful memories or experiences get you down, get them out of your head and accept that they were in the past rather than the present. It's difficult and it's painful and sometimes you need some outside help to get through it all but in the end you'll be a stronger person for it. And never let anyone define you by their perception of Autism, prove them wrong, educate and inform and don't be Sheldon Cooper in the process because thats what NT's expect! 

I hope you have a favourite book or character that has given you the tools you need to get through some difficult times in your life. And as always know that you are amazing in your own unique and wonderfully Autistic way xxx