Complex

I am having trouble getting going on Memoir 2 after what I think was a decent attempt at an outline. (See Memoir 1.) 

Maybe it could just be that one page. A one-page memoir.
Except I didn't mention my dad there, and I had one, one I liked very much, who died in 2001. He will have to go in somewhere.
Either here in this blog or somewhere else, if I ever get it together to write a real memoir. 

Anyway, I think I know what's stalling me. Or at least what direction to look in. (I hate looking actually, but I want to get this over with.) 

After I typed in "complex trauma," Google AI thought for about three dots and came up with this:

"Complex trauma (and Complex PTSD) refers to psychological damage from repeated ongoing interpersonal abuse, neglect, or captivity - such as childhood abuse or domestic violence - where escape feels impossible. Unlike single-event PTSD, it disrupts emotional regulation, self-identity, and the ability to form safe relationships."

A bit further down, listed under "Causes": 

"Long-term childhood neglect, repetitive physical or emotional abuse, domestic violence, or human trafficking." 

OK. So, facts I cannot discount or minimize or ignore because they do not directly apply, are  "childhood," "physical abuse," "repeated," "ongoing," and "escape feels impossible."
Those were things I lived through and that shaped my child brain.

My mother battered her children. She called it discipline. Robert Sapolsky would call it "displaced aggression." I agree with Robert Sapolsky. 
(My father had been raised with physical abuse, so I think he just thought it was all normal. In fact two things I remember him saying were, "Spare the rod and spoil the child," and, "children are to be seen and not heard.")
I do not know if la mere (as I started to call her a few years ago) had ever been subjected to physical abuse by her mother.
Probably?
But there's no one left alive who would be able to confirm it. 
My mother broke several wooden spoons on us. Then she found an optimal length of clean rubber fuel line hose, and used that. It left large linear bruises hidden beneath school clothes. 

Anyway, now you know. That's the backdrop. 




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