Memories

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the Chiropractor, well no, it actually happened at the Chiropractor but it started at home. Clear as mud? Yesterday I sat down at the computer to blog on the subject of memories and had to rush to get ready for a 7.30 am appointment with the chiro so I didn’t finish it. I was going to talk about how the recent correspondence with my cousin Bruce had brought up feelings of sadness that I never had a chance to get to know my cousins and that I have very few memories before the age of 6 due to my immediate family migrating to Australia. Memories at the best of times can be cloudy so I have had to rely on my parents’ memories, home movies and Aunt Grace’s weekly column in the Manson Journal which is in book form. I’ve laughed and cried through her stories. It is a part of my family history and I don’t remember any of it. All I can remember is the darkness of panic attacks. So that brings me to the Chiropractor who also does Applied Kinesiology and it was during this session he pinpointed trauma at the age of six and all I could do was swear loudly. He hit home. I turned 6 on the ship coming to Australia and it was there that I had my first major panic attack. I call it an Alice in Wonderland episode because I was in the kindergarten/crèche on the ship and the room got smaller and I got larger so I thought I was going to suffocate. I suppose at the age of 6 my conception of a long way away was going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house in South Dakota in the next state. I had no understanding of 12,000 miles away on the other side of the world. I was a shy nervous child who, as my Mum tells me, was born anxious. I hadn’t realised until yesterday that I have been carrying a profound sense of loss with me all these years. Not only that but both my sisters went to America on working holidays when I was 15 and they never came back here to live. It is nobody’s fault it is just something I have to deal with. I do believe in a greater power which guides and directs me so I feel a tapping on my shoulder to get on with it and heal. My life is here and the past can’t be undone and you know I wouldn’t want it to be because too many good things have happened to me in this life. I’ve been through years of counselling and drug therapy to help me through depression and the sense of loss has been a theme all through it so I thought I had dealt with it. It blew me away when a complete stranger did a few tests on my muscles and came up with the same information without me uttering a word. I have had two sessions with this Chiropractor and I haven’t had a headache in 3 days, which in itself is a reason to celebrate. I think I am on the right track and have been for some time because the psychiatrist thinks I’m ready to come off the antidepressants after 10 years. Woooohoooo!