Broken Minds

I was writing a blog on friends with benefits, but, I find this way more important. Earlier tonight my best friend invited me to go to a lecture on the Narrative, Memory and Ruins by Jaime Ginzburg from the University of Sao Paulo. Needless to say, I found this lecture fascinating and important. It has such an impact on me, I almost cried.

The lecture brought up how we have fragmented memories especially when pain and suffering is involved. And for some reason, I knew the lecturer was going to bring up rape, and ta da! Ginzburg brought it up and I almost wanted to cry. I had to distract myself somehow and look at my phone. The talk became so personal in literally ten minutes. And for some reason I felt like I was the only one in the room. It also did not help that Ginzburg would ever so often look in our (Evelyne and my self’s) direction. This also may be because Evelyne now has purple hair and I was that dumb girl wearing a showy outfit with red tipped hair.

Ginzburg brought up several points. He talked of how we keep our memory out of common sense-- through convenience and what is meaningful to us. This means we are trying to repress anything that makes us uncomfortable. We create our own memory, we have this self- protectionism and self knowledge. It's funny how true that is. I only tried to remember the good parts of my childhood. I remembered the beauty of Cayman, gymnastics and my friends, but I barely remembered my father's best friend or the days he hurt me.

But the problem with this protection of self is that these bad memories appear unpredictably and can cause a collapse. We construct our own memory and our past as best as we can, but at the end of the day events happened and we cannot change that. Trauma certainly has a profound effect on people in every way through nightmares and so on. 

Trauma effects the person in every way. You may notice that people that have gone through certain traumas have a different perception of time and their language is different. Then there is this problem of the narrative of how we (traumatized people) communicate our stories and whether or not people are prepared to listen. An example being from the Holocaust as many victims do not remember everything fully and cannot thoroughly explain every detail, rather they agree with one another as a collective on what has happened and not speak from the individual point of view.

I could relate to every issue Ginzburg brought up. And I realized after he talked of how society is not ready to handle such harsh and controversial issues, it is us, the hurting, that we must speak out and let society listen to us. To be quite honest, the reason as to why I am so open about my sexual abuse is because it helps me recover and may even help others recover. Also, I just do not want this to happen to any other little girl. People need to realize that rape most often occurs when a victim trusts her offender, as I did.

Just like Ginzburg pointed out, my perception of time is totally flawed and I honestly did not remember all the events until last year. I was that girl that collapsed psychologically and was totally messed up in every sense. I found myself needing to talk about it, but I could not. Ginzburg even pointed out that although people with trauma must speak out, they cannot because society would never understand and empathize. People do not want to hear depressing news or learn of more negative matters, hence why so many watch trash television. We cannot cope with it and we do not know how to because we cannot empathize.

But then there’s me. I find myself attracted to negative and sad news because it helps me. I guess that is sort of why I keep an optimistic view on life and try my best to be the nicest person possible because I really can empathize with people, and I bring it upon myself to try to help people.

Being a rape victim has empowered me in a sense. My senses and mind may be cracked, but the point is, being someone who has been hurt, I can understand and feel what someone else has been through.

Now, I present to everyone on how to deal with bad situations. Approach these negative situations with a clear mind. Stop being frightened! There is no need to not know how to act. It’s perfectly fine to not know what to do. You don't have to do anything but listen and try to understand. Again, I’m going to reference Evelyne. I don’t think she understands how much her friendship means to me. I would probably be drowning myself in self- pity, cigarettes, sex and alcohol if it weren’t for her. She is the one person who could take me in my worst shape and just listen to me. There are so many times when I just needed someone to listen to me rant on my trauma. It’s not that I talk about it often, I honestly, genuinely try not to bring it up at all. I hate talking about it or even writing about it. At the moment I’m trying my best to not cry.

We as people just need to understand that although violence occurs in many areas in the world to different people, it can relate to us. I think we need to find something relatable to one another in order to empathize. For example, I may not know anyone who is directly affected by the Gaza bombings, but I can empathize with victims because then I can imagine and realize what life would be like without a certain person in my life. I think people just need to sit, meditate and think about every situation and how this may relate to them. We are all one in this world. I have a theory that one event may effect another in every way. I believe me typing this can help someone see something or someone in a new light.

I refuse to think of someone in a negative way. I just cannot. I believe there is good in everyone and you just have to find it and allow it to grow. Empathy: it allows everyone to come together because now you can relate to one another.

To that broken person, only you can help yourself to allow others to help you. My love, you have to get up and realize you got to do something to help yourself. You obviously are not alone. Heck, feel free to even contact me! You can see my email on the side if you scroll over to right something should pop out, click my face and my email should show. My email is dreyeu@gmail.com. I promise to email you back.

To deal with your issues is hard. Trust me, it definitely is not easy and it takes a lot of time and effort to overcome your troubles. But trust me, it is worth it in the end. Sometimes, we do not find the need to go through this time and effort because it is painful. And believe me, I know it is painful because I, myself am having trouble right now. I go through a lot of pain sometimes and I still get night mares, but that does not mean I give up. I will not let my pain overcome my life because there is just so much happiness that can be achieved.

I am a firm believer that if we do not communicate the bad, it may just happen again. Ignorance is not bliss.

I’m sorry if this blog has been all over the place. I just didn’t know how to write everything that I felt. All my thoughts and feelings are all over the place, so I’m really sorry if this is disorganized. I really am happy right now, yet I am also sad. That probably does not make sense, but I am just excited to see where all of this goes. I hope you are too.

I love you,

Drey