M is for Memory

Day 13: “M is for “Memory”. Write about your most painful memory, or something that you really do not want to look back on.”

I wish I could say this was hard to do because I don’t have any painful memories, but I have so many that the hardest part is choosing one memory. My first memory is of me wishing I was dead. I have many memories of abuse as a child, then as a young adult.

Should I write about being beaten with a belt buckle? Or maybe the time I had my head cut open by my mother’s first husband? Or maybe when my mother’s second husband dragged me up the stairs by my shirt and I had carpet burns on my body. Should I write about being molested a few times as a kid? Technically, it was rape, but I thought I deserved it. I still think that today. Maybe I could write about the time that my mother’s husband put a gun on me and told me that he was going to kill me and my mother.

No, I have to write about the something else that was painful. When I was twelve or thirteen my grandmother took custody of me. I thought life was going to be incredible. I was so happy that the past was behind me. Unfortunately, my life was never that way.

My grandmother got cancer. She was very ill. I took care of her as best as I could while my grandfather was at work. I would cook something for her to eat. Eventually, the cancer was so bad that I had to move back to hell with my mother.

It was long after I moved back that my she died. I was distraught. The only person that ever loved me was gone. I was completely alone. There was nobody to hug me. There was nobody to comfort me when I was hurt or sad. There was nobody to say I love you to and nobody to say it to me.

I was alone.

I met some people who smoked marijuana after my grandmother passed. They told me that I looked so sad. They has something that could help me. It did. I laughed for the first time in a long time. I wanted more. I wanted to feel that high all the time.

As most addicts know, it was not enough. I had to get other kinds of drugs. It was a downward spiral. Every night I got high from something. I don’t want to go into all the things I did.

Eventually, I escaped it all and start to get back on track. The point for me in this memory is that my life was terrible and I have so many horrible memories, but I am working every day to get better. I have P.T.S.D. and A.D.D. and anything else they want to label me, but I never completely give up. I have struggles every day. I have battles every day. I relive crap every day. I want to use the horrible stuff to make it better for others.

What is your most painful memory?

P.S. The picture holds some of my memories. I never put photos in a photo holder unless it is given that way to me.

Excerpt From: Scott Green. “397 Journal Writing Prompts & Ideas.” Apple Books.