Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Keeping it in


Recently binged this Netflix serial The Keepers and it was a very tense and intriguing true crime deal featuring the catholic church, some scandal of the type you'd predict plus a whole lot more. It features some very sober; sometimes chilling perspectives on the proven phenomenon of repressed memory.

Recently I witnessed something which led me to look at another form of repression; clearly related. I won't go into that directly but instead offer a more simple example to follow.

What I realized is that when the mind represses certain thoughts (current; not memories) from surfacing because they are... too dangerous to immediately contemplate it might not be able to remove the reaction to them; the pain, but merely to delay it.

Take a look at this video: a well-meaning and perhaps misguided attempt at fun by loving parents who think they understand their child and probably don't always. They are perhaps tickled at the tears of joy they produced in their boy's eyes, without realizing that these are actually tears of pain which only manifested after it was finally safe to let them out. Meaning: The pain was delayed and muted but not fully extinguished. The source of the pain is the sudden irrational fear that he may not be loved - or loved sufficiently, which is, again, probably never fully appreciated consciously, but enough to manifest a shadow of despair which is only freely felt once he perceives it was a false alarm.


Boys Don't Cry

Save some bees. You know it's them that feed you eh?



No comments: