Wicked Souls

20

"I'm not crazy right?" I looked up at him.

"No, you're not," He speaks in a calm and reassuring tone as he meets my eyes and looks at me directly. He realizes that I'm probably feeling insecure about my feelings of remembering my father and whether or not that was normal. His voice remains gentle as he speaks and he lightly squeezes my shoulder once more.

"It's quite normal to repress certain memories when it comes to traumatic events. Your brain acts as a protection mechanism to help shield you from pain and to minimize the harm of remembering traumatic things,".

I nodded "My Dad like to draw like me, he did like museums apparently,".

"He liked to draw and go to museums?" He responds with a soft smile on his face as I share more about my father, I can see that it makes him happy that I'm remembering more and more about him. His hands shift to my shoulder and his fingers rub it gently once more.

"What kind of art did your dad like to draw?" His voice remains soft as he asks me this question, he's curious to know about the type of art my father enjoyed drawing.

"Emotions, he struggled with mental health just like me,".

His eyes widen in surprise as I reveal another key piece of information about my father. This further adds to the puzzle he has been putting together about my past. My father struggled with mental illness just like I do.

"He struggled with mental illness just like you?" He says softly. A slight look of realization crossed his face as he spoke about that, he was piecing things together and he was discovering that there were a lot of similarities between me and my father.

I nodded "He was unhappy for years since he was an infant like me then growing up. Then he was happy then unhappy, then he died when I was five,".

"He died when you were only five?" He says softly, a slight look of sympathy crossed his face as he heard my words. His hands were still resting gently on my shoulder and he waited for me to continue speaking. He was curious to hear more about my father's life, he was interested in how the similarities between us both went beyond just mental illness.

I nodded.

"His life sounded hard..." He said in a solemn tone as he nodded in response to me, he could sense that the life of my father was a difficult one. His hand squeezed my shoulder gently as he spoke.

"He wasn't the favourite child, he was the middle child,".

"He wasn't the favourite child?" He repeats back the words I just said, he wanted to see if his interpretation of it was correct. He had guessed that my father was in a difficult position growing up, now it certainly seemed as if he was right. His hand continues to gently squeeze my shoulder.

I kept nodding.

He realizes that I confirmed his interpretation of what I just said. Now he was certain that my father grew up in a difficult situation as the middle child in the family, this realization just adds to the similarities between me and my father.

"I'm starting to realize that your father and you have more and more similarities... did he have depression just like you?"