The Innocuous Memories

Therapy Session 008

RAENI

He looks at me with concern as I wipe the tears from my cheeks. I cannot stand his gaze of pity. It makes me want to cry even more.

"Can I tell you why?" He asks politely in the light voice he uses towards me.

"Whatever." I suddenly wanted to revert back to my shell. I didn't want to be here anymore, vulnerable and crying in front of this man. Some stranger that happens to know to me.

"Derek is a representation of the father figure in your life."

"That man was no father figure. I never had a father figure in my life." I spat out with bitterness. He winced back as if it hurt him. Good.

It's not that I want him to feel guilt, I want him to not feel any comfort. I had no father figures, I don't need one now so he can stop.

"He is exactly that. A figure. A distant shadow that was lurking in your past." He places the clipboard down on his lap and the pen down as well. He's getting comfortable. "And possibly haunting your present."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

On the contrary, the diplomas and certificates on the wall laugh at me.

"You broke the cycle." A glimmer of pride shone in his eyes. "The cycle of abuse. Your mother, she—"

"She what?" What could he possibly know about my mama that I didn't know?

"She watched her mother repeat the cycle. It's all she ever knew. Its all you ever knew." He took a deep breath. "In most cases the cycle repeats onto their children and so forth. Whoever choses to break it becomes the one that has the scars and past mannerisms—"

"So because I couldn't bear children, I was saved?" I grimaced.

"Because you wanted a baby so bad, you broke the cycle. You didn't want that kind of life on her. You thought enough is enough, you need to break free. You still had hope for a child and did not wish for her to grow up in that environment."

I swallow down my prideful words.

"You subconsciously chose the partner that your mother chose. It's all you ever knew. That...that life. You fell in love with him because you never knew that there was other love out there."

I twisted the ring around my finger.

"You possibly don't know how to move forward from this, thus making you struggle in your newest relationships. You try to forget the way things used to be and the way you'd react to situations, has changed."

I glare at him. A sudden anger bubbles inside of me. It bubbles and broils because he's right. I do struggle a lot with moving on and I feel so helpless as he reads me to filth.

"You're afraid. Afraid of everything I've revealed to you. Petrified at the thought of his shadow, his words still haunting you. You're afraid to make one wrong step because you know—"

He paused as he leaned forward.

"You know you'll relapse, find comfort in your old self."

"I'm not as strong as I appear to be." I admit to him. "I feel like at any moment if I say or do something, it'll trigger that part of me. I love myself. I want her to stay, not whoever I was with him."

"You cannot ignore a past like that. You cannot ignore those memories. They will always stay with you, no matter what. These..." He paused to think. He was trying to find a word, a word that would describe it.

"Innocous." I fill in for him and he glances up at me. "I can't run from it."

"The innocous memories of your past will never determine your future. You need to move on. You need to heal. Tip toeing around those feelings and unhealed scars will only open it up even more."

He sounded less like a therapist and more like a dad.