Childhood Strobe-light

I'm not sure how the time line of my life flows. I see images as if I'm watching a scene in front of my face where a strobe-light flashes only allowing me to see portions at a time. Each image is a memory, a story, but I'm not sure how they flow together or in what order they run. From the ages of 5 and 15 everything seems like a streak of color. A blur. I know there are events, but I might as well simply write them on pieces of paper and tack them to a line with my eyes close. Whatever order they happened to line up in may as well be the truth.

I've been trying to write about my childhood and my parents divorce. I simply see images and hear noises in my head. I remember a line of dialogue or I see a toy I once had and hear something in the distance. At times it feels like I'm wondering down a dark hallway and desperately trying to find a light switch. Every now and then when I was growing up we would lose electricity in the house. Instantly everything would go black and silent. I used to be terrified of silence and now I embrace it openly. Whenever the power would go out I'd be instantly dropped into a pool of anxiety, fear, I'd freeze and instantly start crying. When the lights would come back I'd run around the house as if a murder had been committed and I had to find the culprit. Even as a child I felt like I could easily be in control of everything, I was directing the flow of the world and any mishap on my watch was my fault.

After my parents divorce I stopped playing because I was afraid that any time I left a room things would happen that I couldn't control. I hated leaving my sisters in the same room as my mom without me because I knew how angry they were. I hated to be in the car because I had this irrational fear that someone was going to get angry, grab the wheel and plow the car off the road into the deep ditches that lined the roads around our house.

At a young age I learned to live with this feeling of constant anxiety. There was a period a few years ago where I basically stopped eating because sitting at a table brought back too many arguments in my head. Even eating now at times makes me sick.

The only guidance I can remember getting growing was "give it to God". As if any problem in the world could simply be prayed about and all would be taken care of. I wonder why God never took my anxiety or let me know everything was going to be ok. It's funny, everything really does end up being ok.

Sometimes I still feel like the child standing in the dark waiting for the lights to come on. Most of the time now I'm able to find the switch though and nothing makes the lights come back on like silence.