II. Trauma
Speaking of the path of tribulation, I noticed something very eerie develop in myself at the age of late eight to nine years old. When people go through things, a person’s whole way of thinking can be altered and mine was. My decisions were super fast in an eerie way. And, I’m going to share this because maybe someone can relate. My decisions became so fast I found myself looking back at the decision I made and then later on realizing why I made it.
The first time I noticed this was with the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin from the Brother’s Grimm stories. In summary the story goes, a town had an issue with a rat infestation. The Pied Piper came along and offered to get rid of the rats in return for payment. The town people agreed to his terms and he got rid of the rats by playing his instrument that drove them to commit suicide in a neighboring body of water. After he did the deed, the people decided they wouldn’t pay him and told him to go away. In revenge, he played a tune on his instrument and all the children in the town followed him into a mountain and disappeared forever.
My teacher semi-told this story to us the class. And after she finished, she said that the Pied Piper was not a very nice guy, and asked, didn’t we all think so. She also said, don’t we all feel sad for the people of that town. And every child in the room nodded their head yes, except for me. The teacher didn’t see me shake my head disagreeing, but a student did and pointed me out saying I was saying no and laughed. Well, the teacher called me out and semi-scolded me while the other students labeled me mean. She never asked me why I thought what I did. But, it didn’t matter. I felt and thought to hell with her and all of them anyway. There was no way in hell I was going to worry about what a fellow student thought, there were hundreds of other places I could be. I didn’t think the decision was strange. I only wondered why I made that decision for a minute then it came to me. I remembered I felt the way I did because rats are very smart creatures. When a rat got into our little home, it was insanely hard to get it out or trap it. It took days, weeks even, to catch one or kill one. They would go to traps and eat the food down on it just enough to keep the traps from snapping closed on their little necks. They out-maneuvered us in getting access to our food easily and everything. You didn’t have to be a little girl to see how smart they were. The Pied Piper came into a town and used a single instrument to get rid of them. And not only that, he led rats to commit suicide. He didn’t even do it by baiting them with food or hiding traps. He led them to commit suicide with a sound. Because of this, the Pied Piper was perceived in that storytelling as a very dangerous man. And to me, the townspeople did not deserve just sympathy, not at first, instead they deserved my anger. They decided to ignore the capabilities of this person over their own greed. To me, they were stupid and they were the ones that contributed to that terrible incident that happened to their children. No, the Pied Piper wasn’t a mean guy or a bad guy who was just a bad dude looking to make trouble, although he did do a terrible thing; he could have used his powers to take their fortune instead of harming their children. Yet, I still felt more anger than sadness towards the townspeople because they ignored the danger overall.
Regarding all this, my decision-making was so fast I caught myself looking back at it. I don’t have a word for this. But, what I do understand today is this fast decision-making came as a reflex caused by some trauma. I know that because I have done this many times. The trauma that caused this fast reasoning and decision-making would happen in the event of threats. It doesn’t matter what type of threat, whether it be financial or physical, mental or emotional, it is a threat. It happens because of the potential to receive or experience suffering or pain in light of a person, thing, and/or decision of another. I don’t know what I have done or others have done to my brain when I was a tween to make it operate this way, but let me tell you one of the things I have done to my brain as a teenager. In the past, this had to be in 1997, I took up ballet in the small space of my room. My mother was untrusting and wary of people so me being able to go to a school for it was out of the question. I had my weight where it needed to be for my height, and I one can tell because your toes and ankles will crack and ache like hell when you stood on them. My problem was real leg strength. I wanted my legs to move as graciously as my arms. I wanted them to be as light as my arms when I lifted them. One day I remembered an old movie I had seen, Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932). There was a lady in the movie that had no arms. She did everything with her legs and her feet. It was the absence of her hands that made her legs and feet suffice for what she needed. How I decided to do this was by having my mother tie down my arms very tight so that I could trick my own brain into not relying on my arms and instead relying on my legs and feet. LOL!!! My mother was not happy about doing this but she did it anyway. It worked. This made my legs stronger. Anyway, the conditioning of the brain to get it to help you do something you cannot do is what is important to note here. I wonder if it was the bad experiences in my tweens that created this lightning reasoning and decision-making in that way. I know I have been using this my whole life and it is as fast as air but the surety of it causes me to fear it. I wonder if it could be dangerous to me. I wonder about the chains it could put me in because it’s so swift regarding threats. Does it make me out to be a person that is consumed by fear? I don’t feel I am consumed by fear although it’s swiftness and certainty is with regard to threats. What else is at play here? I wonder, what is the thing in me that knows without a doubt that this is a valid threat? What is it that knows the threat is real? Or, is that reasoned and deducted too? Maybe there is nothing saying it’s true, which is just disturbing. How silent and strange the reasoning and decision-making in what looks like an unconscious state of my mind is. The perception of a threat could cause bad decisions when there is no threat at all. The feeling that there is no threat at all when there is one could cause bad decision-making too. What is bothersome is, the swiftness of the decision or conclusion itself from the reasoning that is determined as true, seemingly without permission from me. But somewhere in my mind, I did give permission because I agree enough to go with my answer. After the decision is made, I agree. And based on how I am feeling about the decision, I agreed before I was conscious of my own decision. Is there a multitude of people in the world like this or only a few?
I’m a storyteller, and my mind is the beacon, the innovator and creator. It is the most important part of me because it is has been the haven, the sanctuary, the entertainer, and home. I have not ever caused anyone any harm with my decisions in this life or my lifetime, which I am proud to say. I am an environmental person and geography, conservation, preservation; land-use planning that’s beneficial to all life forms is my thing, plus telling some scary stories. My decisions like this are always inward because it is only a threat to me I am making decisions about in this way. I just think this is something that is extremely ODD and it is a part of my Oddness, but it is a part of my successes and survival too. I would love to know if anyone else has this experience as well.