So hologramic, oh my TVC15
I got dumped by my therapist. She had more problems than me and could no longer commit to afternoons. Six months of talking about my past and we never even got to EMDR.
Not that that's her fault. Apparently with EMDR the process involves identifying triggers (images, etc...) that are painful, and then doing some voodoo treatment to neutralize the negative effects. The result is you can keep your memories, but the bad associations are removed.
Ya, there are problems with this, not the least of which is I don't necessarily have images that trouble me (life's not like a movie where you flash on a bunch of psychotic imagery). I remember feelings mostly, and I don't really want that taken away. Also, I have associations with practically everything in my past that are mixed with ennui.
Never was this more apparent than my recent foray into the world of Ebay. It began sort of as a joke. We have so much junk around the house that I decided to test some of it on Ebay before hauling it off to the thrift shop. The joke ended when I earned close to $300 from some old Wacky Packages cards I had when I was a kid. So then for more giggles I put these up:
That's right. It's part of my bottle cap collection and it brought in twenty bucks. My Dad asked for a finders fee since he was the one that drunk these in the 60s and 70s.
Trouble started when I put up for sale old comics and hockey cards. With the cards I couldn't figure out why in many cases there were three sets of everything (hence having extras to sell), until my Mom pointed out that some of the cards were Theresa's (I am the "guardian" of the 2nd set; my brother's). Yesterday I sold a bunch of Casper, Richie Rich and Little Dot comics and then realized that these were most likely Theresa's.
Now I'm paranoid about selling some of the stuff. I noticed that one of the Archie's had Theresa's name scribbled on it and I've started to read through piles of Betty and Me, Laugh and Pep in search of little clues, foot prints to our past.
This is absurd of course, I should just dump the lot of it. I can't keep everything, it's all going to rot away so why not make a little money and clear it out of the house? But I feel so guilty about it. And it brings back memories both good and bad. For instance I remembered that we hated the moralistic Archies - the ones (usually around Christmas) that had some preachy message: Dilton Doily and the Gift of the Magi. Theresa always called them "sucky"; we preferred the straight up jokes with Reggie cracking wise.
I remember when W-Five came to film in Chapel Hill and I pulled out Theresa's old pogo stick and started bouncing 'round the drive-way. It was shortly after that that they departed. I think they thought I slipped a gear. The pogo stick I'll never sell - my last Christmas present to Theresa, thirty bucks at Fairview Mall.
Comics, trading cards, old toys; these things can send me into a tailspin. I don't even see it coming. The stuff brings me great pleasure, it's not until a couple of days later when I've sunk into depression that I realize the damage done.
That's not right. Can't psychology come up with something to take away the side effects of that?
Most addicts say they feed their addictions to satisfy an emptiness, a hole deep inside. You can pretty much guess what's in my hole, and in my life I've used every addiction (save drugs: drugs were taboo - ironically because of a misconception that Theresa died from drugs) you can imagine to plug that hole. The process of recovery is maddening. I just want to be like other people. I want my memories, I want a balanced life. I also want to look at the past without the prospect of being destroyed by it.
Why is something so simple so very hard?
The header for this post is a David Bowie song, TVC15, which goes like this:
One of these nights I may just
Jump down that rainbow way,
Be with my baby,
We'll spend some time together
One of Theresa's favorites, I listened to it on the way in to work this morning. I should be able to listen to it without self-injury.
(with thanks to my good friend Eric who is posting some wonderful stuff about his great uncle Leo over at Is That Legal?)
posted by John Allore @ 3/15/2007 01:19:00 PM
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