Someone Told Me I Was Wrong

When I wrote my last article about shame, I knew there was a chance I would learn things I didn’t want to learn. You can’t talk about guilt and shame from the complexities of life and not expect to learn a few things about yourself. The crazy part though is that when someone did reach out after reading the article, it was someone, and something, I didn’t expect.

Out of respect for the person, I will not mention their name, nor go into intimate details. I am diving deeper into this to process this situation for myself, and to help others to continue to learn. It puts me in a very vulnerable position, but if it helps one person to not have to be on either side of this situation, it’s worth writing and sharing.

What I’ve learned through this moment in time is that two people can have a shared experience, but remember things very differently. As I stated above, I won’t get into any of the details, but the back and forth messaging has been an emotional rollercoaster. 

Memories are reconstructive, rather than reproductive. Rarely, if ever, are memories exact replicas of the past. Instead, memories are often stitched together into plausible—but not necessarily accurate—narratives based on beliefs, feelings, intuitions, guesses, and memory fragments. - PubMed

I’m not trying to pick a side with whose memory is the most correct. I’m trying to say that if someone has a traumatic experience, and doesn’t deal with the emotional toll of that experience for a length of time, the stories they tell themselves, and the memory of those stories, has the opportunity to evolve. 

I can say the same for myself. I was a heavy drinker then, and was up until 2022. I’ve also had many concussions from riding dirt bikes and mountain bikes; As my wife likes to say, “Your Memory is Shit”. What I do remember of the moment being discussed feels clear to me, but my sanity gets questioned as I read what I’ve been told. 

This continues to show for me how complicated sex can be, or how complicated it can get. Sex should always be a consensual moment between those involved. When you’re in the heat of the moment though, you might misread signals or unknowingly move past moments of hesitancy. You begin to act under the assumption that sex is next, and that they’ll speak up if that’s not the case.

But what happens if someone doesn’t speak up or doesn’t “break through the noise” of the moment. Now we’re in murky territory. We as human beings need to be strong enough to speak up for ourselves, and/or strong enough to control ourselves. We need to be sober enough to understand where and when we are, and emotionally secure enough to turn off the hormonal response we’re being driven by. 

Holy Shit, that’s a lot of responsibility.

As a society, I don’t feel like we have enough discussions around this part of sex. “No means no” is loud and clear, and rightly so. But we should also be reminding everyone that people are going to change their mind, and when they change their mind is of no consequence. 

There is also the need to remove the murkiness around consent; consent can change. If someone is having sex, and they decide the sex needs to stop or be halted, there can’t be hesitation or soft spokenness. As a species, human beings can not read minds. This is asking a lot of those who are inherently shy, or soft spoken. I don’t know that I have a great answer for that, other than teach your kids to speak up for themselves or get them in self-defense. I’m not trying to down play anyone, this is a tough subject and it isn’t easily solved. The hard truth is some people are more passive than others, and if those people are in a tough situation, do they know how to handle themselves enough to get out of it or bring attention to the situation so they receive the necessary help.

As I’ve been processing all the learnings and messages, it hasn’t been easy. I’ve lost sleep, my anxiety has been ramped up a good bit, and I’ve gone to see a new therapist (I like to do therapy in person). I think therapy is another sticking point that needs to be discussed more, and seen as a tool for when someone is feeling an emotional toll. 

If we break a bone, we go to the emergency room. They do what is necessary to begin the healing process of the bone. Once it begins to heal, we do the requisite rehabilitation, and at some point in time, the bone will be fully healed, or it’ll be the best it’s ever going to be. From that point forward, we go on living our life. We may tell our war stories about the physical trauma, the bone breaking and the healing, but those stories don’t typically weigh us down. They’re light hearted, almost a badge of honor, but they are accepted as part of our past.

We can’t see emotional trauma. It’s this ubiquitous moment that lives inside our mind and body. It feels like it’s easy to push away something that we can’t see, like a moment in time that sticks with us differently than other moments that pass right through.

This lingering acute moment, when ignored or pushed away, can fester. As it bubbles up and resurfaces, we begin to push harder to try and ease the pressure. By doing this, we create chronic tension that often begins to surface as physical alignments such as headaches, body aches, difficulty sleeping, a racing heart, and/or a multiple of other physical symptoms. This is the body keeping the score.

Your body, believe it or not, remembers everything. Sounds, smells, touches, tastes. But the memory is not held in your mind, locked somewhere in the recesses of your brain. Instead, it’s held in your body, all the way down at the cellular level. - PubMed

This is why it’s so important to see a professional when you’re experiencing the effects of trauma, feeling chronic tension, or life altering moments. The more we try to forget, or push away, the emotions and feelings, the better chance we have of them coming back with a vengeance.

I didn’t write this to hurt or dissuade anyone. I wrote this because I can’t change my past, but I can find the opportunity, the lesson, in it. I can be open and vulnerable in a way that help’s others learn from my history.

I have grown a lot over the past 20 years. Some of that has been due to life shaping me, but more recently, it’s been because I realized I wasn’t who I wanted to be. I was unaware that some people haven’t seen that change, or care that I have changed. They still see me as the person I was when they knew me, when they were more active in my day to day life. They’re still judging me, and my character, on the person they have built me up to be from someone I have grown out of. I don’t have control over that.

When I wrote “to the best of my ability to remember, I never raped anyone”, I didn’t expect what happened. I didn’t expect someone to tell me that a moment I do remember was in question, or that I was remembering it incorrectly. It’s not fun, it’s not easy, and it’s not something I wish upon others.

As a society, we need to stop treating sex as something taboo and mythical. It's a fact of life, and education around all parts of it needs to be front and center in the discussions.

As parents, we need to stop being scared to have conversations with our kids. If we don’t have these conversations with them, someone else will, or worse, no one will.

As individuals, we need to stop pretending we’re ok when were not.

I am currently seeing a therapist to continue to process everything I am learning. I will continue to write what I learn in hopes to share in a way others can leverage.

I’ve added some links below if anyone wants to keep reading, or wants to look for help. I’m also always looking for book recommendations. Please drop other resources or books in the comments.

Links

• TrueNorth Therapy PLLC: https://www.truenorththerapypllc.com/

• BetterHelp: https://www.betterhelp.com/

• The Body Keeps the Score: https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-score

My hope is to start conversations around topics that help others live a life of fulfillment. Please share with anyone who may be searching for more.

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