I had a really interesting watsap chat with my friend in Australia on Wednesday morning. (Sometimes I love the time difference, especially when I am awake at ungodly hours😲) I won’t go into the whole conversation but the gist of it was something along the lines of “choosing” our words carefully and how they can have a lasting effect on other people’s confidence and self-esteem.) We got onto an incident that happened years ago when I was still in university. I had been working at my waitressing job at CJ’s (which was a nightclub) when my ex-boyfriend, who had recently dumped me, turned up with his “new” girlfriend. I remember that night vividly. I remembered feeling angry and hurt watching him dance with her and resentful that he had come into ‘my space’ to do it. I remember playing pool and him being there trying to flirt with me which only made me angrier. I felt like he was deliberately mocking me. Right at the end of the night as he was leaving he passed a very deliberate comment that he needed to go “find his girlfriend” which in my recollection was the final straw. Without so much as a blink of an eyelid, I threw out an incredibly bitchy, hurtful and cutting comment…(one which I still remember to this day but I will not repeat). I remember him standing there wide-eyed in disbelief. I remember guys around us laughing as it would have been downright humiliating for any man to hear. It wasn’t my finest moment but I felt justified, at the time, because he had hurt me. Years ago a male friend said that he had been out the previous night and a man had been acting like a complete arse towards his female friends …..he laughed and said he wished that I had been there because I would have put him in his place. I probably would have…🙈.

My friend brought up the point that she had bumped into my ex a little while later and he had told her how much this particular comment had hurt him. In my defence, I tried to explain my side of the story and that yes, I was cruel, but the way he had broken up with me had been specifically hurtful AND frankly that night he was being an absolute jerk …..so maybe I was a little justified. (Something about ’cause and affect’…or ummmm is it ‘complete denial’🙄.)

My friend then messaged back very kindly and pointed out that she had been there that night and that wasn’t quite what had happened. She said that as far as she could remember we hadn’t actually broken up yet. This boyfriend had told me he couldn’t go out that evening, resulting in her and I making plans to go out together. He had then called to say a friend was visiting from out of town and he felt obliged to take her out and had decided to bring her to CJ’s because we were there. Unfortunately what he probably forgot to factor in was how hot his “friend” was and apparently, I had been extremely jealous and livid at him the entire night. When he finally decided to leave he had made the comment “let me go find my girlfriend” as a joke to tease me (In hindsight probably not the wisest thing to say to an already pissed of girlfriend🙄.) And that was when I delivered my mighty, somewhat, castrating blow.

Wow!!! I have to admit this revelation shocked me to the core. This was a completely different story to the one I had been remembering for 19 plus years. So after my initial rush of shame 
(What wrong with me that I could have possibly have got this so, so wrong?🙈) …I realised I had two options

1. I could argue my point and stand my ground that I was right and that my friend was wrong
or
2. I could accept the idea that just maybe I was wrong.

I found myself leaning towards option 2 for a couple of reasons. This is a good friend whom I love and trust implicitly and she has nothing to gain from misremembering this particular story. I however did. (It’s considerably easier to forgive yourself if you feel like the victim in a situation🤔) That night wasn’t bound up in emotion for her as it was for me. When I think about it logically there were more inconsistencies in my story than in hers…like why was I playing pool if I was supposed to be working? Frankly, that would never have happened. I also would never have behaved that way in front of people had I been on shift as I probably would have been fired on the spot.

I then decided that rather than go down the road of blaming and shaming myself I would rather use this experience to learn something new. The one thing I have learnt about shame is that bringing it into the light significantly reduces it’s powerful, and sometimes debilitating hold on you.😵 Was it possible that I had simply fused the pain I felt with him breaking up with me, a little while later, to that one particular incident? (Umm…funny how all of a sudden ‘why’ he broke up with me has become significantly clearer!!) Or did him saying ‘no’ to going out with me that night and ‘yes’ to going out with his ‘hot’ friend simply feel like the ultimate betrayal for a neurotic, insecure younger Gayle? So much so that for me it literally felt as if we were broken up? Was this poor guy then hanging around a “pissed-off” girlfriend simply trying to get her attention and not trying to rub anything in her face? It’s interesting that I think of that particular incident as one of the turning points in my awareness. As I delivered the comment I was instantly aware of how much shame I had brought on him. The truth of the matter is anyone that spews hurtful nasty stuff at other people is simply acting out their own pain. While I am genuinely not a bitchy person I am very aware of the exact point I decided as a 14-year-old teenager that rather than being rejected by guys and ultimately hurt…I would learn to reject them. (Truly solid adolescence reasoning that developed into the perfect adult defense mechanism🙄🙈) I am embarrassed to say that I used to think I was cool and tough because I could stand up for myself cut people down with my words….now I realize that it actually takes more “toughness” to be kind and loving when people are unkind or hurtful towards you.🤐🤐

So thinking about all of this got me intrigued and I spent the last couple of days googling the reconstruction of memory. I found some very interesting articles. In one of them, the author Dr. Shimamura sited the video I have attached below about New York Times columnist and former drug addict David Carr. In the video, Carr talks about a particularly bad night out with his friend where his friend, in desperation ended up pointing a gun at him. Some 20 years later on chatting with his friend, he is pretty shocked to hear that he was the one who actually had the gun. No doubt a memory he had absolutely no knowledge of.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/…/reconstructing-memories-t….

Another article by Dr Jeremy Dean sites how author Oliver Sacks recalled a vivid childhood memory in his autobiography.
*****************

During WWII he lived in London during the Blitz, and on one occasion:

“…an incendiary bomb, a thermite bomb, fell behind our house and burned with a terrible, white-hot heat. My father had a stirrup pump, and my brothers carried pails of water to him, but water seemed useless against this infernal fire—indeed, made it burn even more furiously. There was a vicious hissing and sputtering when the water hit the white-hot metal, and meanwhile the bomb was melting its own casing and throwing blobs and jets of molten metal in all directions.”

*****************
The only problem was that when this mans book finally came out his older brother informed him that he hadn’t even been there at the time. He had in fact been at school when the bomb struck.

(Eish and I thought my forgetting was bad….😂😬😱)

What the brothers eventually managed to piece together was that this “false memory” had been implanted in Sacks mind by a letter that had been written to him by his brother who described the frightening event in great detail. Hence over the years, this letter had gone from being a third-person report to a first-person memory. Sacks however still struggle to see how this memory could be false as he truly felt like he was there. 
Further on in his article Dr Dean goes on to explain how this memory “reconstruction” is not actually as uncommon as we might think….in fact it actually happens pretty often😓😌 https://www.spring.org.uk/…/reconstructing-the-past-how-rec…

Random story: I remember a few years ago a friend and I had an argument over something that one of us supposedly had said. One was livid and adamant that it had been said. The other was livid and adamant that they had never actually said that. (For the record I never bloody said it🤐😂) The comment was of a religious nature, and my friend is an atheist- I like to consider myself pretty accepting of all people’s paths so felt angry and insulted that he could even think I would even say something like that to him. I tried to explain the wording I had actually used but that was not what my friend had heard and we found ourselves at loggerheads and just unable to agree. It was very frustrating for both of us as we both felt blamed, angry, misunderstood and ultimately hurt. Luckily my friend who is pretty healthy, found an article that discussed exactly this and gave it to me. I can’t remember everything that it said but it highlighted how so often our memories can be tainted by our own perceptions and the emotions that are running through us at the time. In a similar article, I found by Dr Rick Nauert he writes about how very often after an argument or disagreement with our significant others we might find that both parties remember details of the event very differently. He goes on to explain that what we might naturally perceive to be the other person’s selective memory’ of the event (ie they are just being difficult) could quite simply be put down to their individual personality type or their specific attachment styles.

https://psychcentral.com/…/personality-influence…/11026.html

So I have to say I find our minds truly fascinating which is why I wanted to share this with you. I am definitely not a psychologist so I am not even going to attempt to get into any specific scientific explanations of why or how this so often occurs. All I hope is that my writing can serve as a little food for thought.🤓 My personal goal is that the next time I find myself in a situation and someone is recalling things I, quite frankly, don’t remember (or vice versa) I will try to be a little more gracious and understanding. I also sincerely hope that the next time I am confronted with two little distraught souls telling me “their version” of the sordid abuse in the playground I will be able to focus less on finding the “truth”. Hopefully, I can try to focus more on understanding each child’s perception of the event and giving them the space to be validated and heard. Ultimately isn’t this what we are all looking for?

And finally, I give you my word, that should I ever bump into before mentioned ex-boyfriend I shall sincerely apologise for my whacked-out younger self’s behaviour. Thank God she grew up and left me in charge!! 😜😂🤗

Have a beautiful Friday 
🌲💐🐝🏵🌹🌷🌺🌻

#grateful for friends that make me think
#regretting burning 20 years of journals last year🙈 If you are a writer….Don’t do it!! Don’t do it😂