Shadow Tracking
Reminding myself that IF is an abbreviation for Idiot Factor, I permit myself to explore the most recent memory emergence. Normal childhood memory is notoriously unreliable. When adults I knew as children ask me to help them remember details, they seldom have all the details right. My adult perspective fills in allot of blanks for them.
I have no such luxury as my amnesia damaged memory plagues me with its insistent presence. There is no reliable way to get the IF out of it. I am irrevocably alone with the spectres in my brain. I want to simply stuff them into the halls of forgettance, but that would be to continue the horrors of nightmares and unidentifiable flashbacks as my mind continues its quest to heal. Grasping the straw which has gotten me this far, I treat the newest memory as real. It cannot be disproved any more than it can be confirmed and fighting it is too painful to bear any longer. Leave the IF in it and go with the flow.
I am in a cornfield. The seed heads waving far over my head assure me they will protect me from whoever is hunting me. The potential hunters are too numerous to need identifying. All humans are equally capable of hurting me. I do not care to be discovered by any of them. I peek through the rows to watch them in their circle of light, comforted by the knowledge that I can track them by the length of their shadows in their electric lights and that my escape is greatly facilitated by their night blindness. My eyes are fully night adapted. I can navigate by light they are unaware even exists.
When I first began navigating under city lights in the 60s, it took a long time for me to adapt to the nature of multiple shadows being cast from a single object. My hypervigilannce rocked horribly before I adapted to the phenomenon. Adapt I did. Mostly at a subconscious level. As the phenomenon had proliferated with the still increasing number of ever brighter lights, I continue almost unaware to know the source of the shadows in my world. On my good days, I can walk past a post casting six shadows without flinching.
Lately I have not been having any good days. Good moments are the best I have had for a while. I think I was lulled into complacency by the long familiarity with my old neighborhood. Learning the new eye jabs of the new the new neighborhood has triggered the light = abuse phobia. I am once more craving the places my abusers call dark. The places with light too soft for their electrified senses. I have been aware and rebuilding my tolerances to our glareful nights. It was just a bit of a setback when last night's full moon washed away the security shadows I am still learning.
Leave the IF in it. It is a phobia, after all. An irrational fear based in illogical conditioning. There is no wisdom in expecting sanity in what should never have been.
I have no such luxury as my amnesia damaged memory plagues me with its insistent presence. There is no reliable way to get the IF out of it. I am irrevocably alone with the spectres in my brain. I want to simply stuff them into the halls of forgettance, but that would be to continue the horrors of nightmares and unidentifiable flashbacks as my mind continues its quest to heal. Grasping the straw which has gotten me this far, I treat the newest memory as real. It cannot be disproved any more than it can be confirmed and fighting it is too painful to bear any longer. Leave the IF in it and go with the flow.
I am in a cornfield. The seed heads waving far over my head assure me they will protect me from whoever is hunting me. The potential hunters are too numerous to need identifying. All humans are equally capable of hurting me. I do not care to be discovered by any of them. I peek through the rows to watch them in their circle of light, comforted by the knowledge that I can track them by the length of their shadows in their electric lights and that my escape is greatly facilitated by their night blindness. My eyes are fully night adapted. I can navigate by light they are unaware even exists.
When I first began navigating under city lights in the 60s, it took a long time for me to adapt to the nature of multiple shadows being cast from a single object. My hypervigilannce rocked horribly before I adapted to the phenomenon. Adapt I did. Mostly at a subconscious level. As the phenomenon had proliferated with the still increasing number of ever brighter lights, I continue almost unaware to know the source of the shadows in my world. On my good days, I can walk past a post casting six shadows without flinching.
Lately I have not been having any good days. Good moments are the best I have had for a while. I think I was lulled into complacency by the long familiarity with my old neighborhood. Learning the new eye jabs of the new the new neighborhood has triggered the light = abuse phobia. I am once more craving the places my abusers call dark. The places with light too soft for their electrified senses. I have been aware and rebuilding my tolerances to our glareful nights. It was just a bit of a setback when last night's full moon washed away the security shadows I am still learning.
Leave the IF in it. It is a phobia, after all. An irrational fear based in illogical conditioning. There is no wisdom in expecting sanity in what should never have been.
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