part 108, or "Sawyer is super dreamy"

I was watching Lost (we have the whole series on DVD) last night, and I was at the part where Locke has the dream about Boone being all covered in blood and chanting about Theresa and some stairs. The scene started without defining the context as a dream, so it seemed real, and then there are flashes of Boone covered in blood and not covered in blood, and Locke's mother is off in distance telling him something, and then Locke is in a wheelchair, and then it's all like, "arghhhhhahhh!" and he wakes up.

The flashes when Boone was covered in blood and not covered in blood triggered something for me, but I'm not exactly sure what, except that it was very similar to how I remember some things, especially when there is blood. Here is the thing about me and blood: I've seen A LOT of it. It involves that one thing that I am not comfortable sharing in my blog yet, but there has definitely been a lot of blood involved.

My dad has hurt other people while I was present, and even encouraged me to participate in the hurting, as though I was his protégé sadist.

I've been exposed to these specific instances of violence at least four times between the age of 4 and 15 (I'm pretty sure). I say "at least" because even though I thought I was done remembering, I wasn't, and I'm not ever going to be sure what else is out there. And most of the shit I'm remembering now is absolutely beyond comprehension. So I don't really like to talk about it.

However, I do think a lot about it, and all the other shit, and what it means to me in a philosophical way (I don't ever really decide to be philosophical, it just happens). Its kind of like I'm becoming aware of the information like I'm being dealt a hand of exceptionally horrifying cards. Each time I get a new card, I am very much affected physically, I guess like a shock, and the separateness (dissociation - whatever) comes down on me like a blanket.

I am still able to interact with the world, although my functioning get quite spotty at these times, and my mind is not pulled all the way into the memory to stew in something the feels like sticky mud. What I can do is, turn the card over so I can't see the image, and add it to the cards I've already been dealt.

Every now and then I will turn over one of the cards and see things that I had not known were there - normal things that are stuck in the middle of brutal chaos, like getting dusty red clay on my white shoes when I was five. I am able to just kind of meander back to the actual experience, and it eventually gets played over and over again, enough times to where I remember something new about each of the cards each time I go back there.

I need to interject something very quickly - I don't have any trauma-related memories of dusty red clay getting on my white shoes when I was five (not yet, anyway - fuck; maybe that's what's coming next. Sigh) I just used the dusty red clay thing for an example because I can't think of an actual memory that would not have to be explained in some detail to put into context.

Also, as I was just writing that, I realized that I don't really remember being five. I remember turning five, and I remember kindergarten - actually it seems that all of my memories of being five are associated only with kindergarten, and Letter People, and the milk cart. Huh.

Interjections aside, being able to look at the events of my past in this way gives me a lot more objectivity - it is a lot easier for me to see exactly how fucked up it was. It also gives me an opportunity to feel pain, a little bit at a time.

The whole thing has a very sobering effect, and I find myself not laughing when other people do, and I don't find myself feeling disbelief at news of atrocities like other people do.

I am, though, really, really, really sensitive about situations in which harm can come to people. I don't like weapons - I mean, I know what they can do to a human being, and shit like that happening is not something I want to be aware of in the context of a film or book or tv show or whatever, because it is already such a big part of my real life. It may have been twenty or thirty years ago that those things became a part of my life, but that shit just doesn't fade like other things do.

It seems to me that most people (that I know, at least) are affected a lot differently than I am when it comes to violence. Its strange, because I don't get shocked at the brutality people unleash on each other, but I get really shocked when I hear that a seven year old got a rifle for Christmas, and when people say mean things to their children, and how powerless kids are over their own safety and mental health, and when I hear about parents who didn't realize there was a problem until after their kid has killed him/herself.

I get shocked at how many things most people are not shocked by, but I accept the occurrence of real-life brutality as something that is real and that happens to people every day.

It seems like people can't get enough of manufactured violence, but try to put the news about any war at all on the television at a sports bar and the tv may as well be turned off.

I don't know - Lost has a lot of stuff in it that I am extra horrified by (I mean, almost all of those characters' parents were such cruel assholes). The real news does, too - every fucking day.

I don't really understand things like the hour-by-hour status updates of a white, blonde graduate student who has a flesh-eating disease on all the front pages for days and days, but a mother chasing down and shooting four of her children to death, and then committing suicide is an event to tsk tsk about for thirty seconds, and then put out of your mind.

I would really like to say that my is point here is merely to illustrate the difference in my comprehension alongside of other peoples' comprehension, and has nothing to do with getting all high and mighty and looking down on people and judging them for seeing only what they want to see, but that pretty much is what I'm doing.

I don't think people should feel compelled to shower concern on all of those suffering and less fortunate, but I do really think people might think twice before smacking the shit out of their kids or telling them to shut the hell up. I mean, those are the things that are doing the real damage, the things that breed evil and hate a tiny little drop at a time.