On Memories, Dissociation, and a Sense of Self
Evading the quicksand of a renounced memory
For the sake of candidness: I don’t pride myself on my memory. No, I don’t. Every mundane occurrence and every momentous occasion has a way of slipping away slowly but surely from my mind, from me. I have had several instances, with friends and family alike, when everyone is transported to a time in the past, reliving almost every detail and nuance of a shared memory. I, on one end of the room, am found spiritedly grappling to keep up.
On the other hand, it appears to me as if my short term memory is as good as my long term memory is bad.
It is as if I’m not allowed to remember for life.
Well, it’s not all that apparent, let alone dramatic. But what is dramatic is the tortuous road my mind has to take down memory’s complex lane-network to withdraw experiences.
A testimony, then. One day as I dropped in my spartan chair, charged by an emotional stimulus, I reminisced about a particularly formative, definitive period of my life. This was a time that brought inner adventure to me, bedewed my life with a new experience every day.
It was a time when I first felt a longing. And when I first felt belonging.
Having employed all my available conscious capacities and energies, I was perplexed that day at what I was able to bring to fruition.
Nothing.
I failed to recollect any noteworthy scenes from that period I was trying to relive, failed to perceive any flashes of recognition. I failed to see through my own eyes.
Of whatever little came back to me in little spurts, every bit felt like somebody else’s experience. This nameless man, of an inscrutable countenance, stood in places where I faintly thought I had stood. He spoke my words, and heard their muffled voices. I barely recognized the voices, one in particular. But he was not the one to cozen me and feed me vicarious memories. That prerogative had always been my own.
Unsettling as it was, and provoking and challenging, I tried my best to see how I fit in this person’s shoes. At some level, it did work — it helped me recreate that time in my life a little. The juncture I was trying to revisit was not very long back from now, so it shouldn’t have been so hard to remember. But if not for how the most important aspect of my being had also spiralled away from me during that time, I would not have made the conscious effort to blot the memories out of my mind altogether. It simply felt necessary, for sanity’s sake.
This failure to remind myself of things that I had done, my mistakes and my successes and my learnings, conjured up an unexpected pang of — for lack of a better word — guilt.
Mind you, this was not a guilt for which I might be tried, except by my own conscience. The guilt I felt was not towards an immorality on my behalf, a wrong I committed, or some asinine behaviour. Instead, it was directed towards not remembering my actions, experiences, relationships, and causalities at all.
I found such abandonment on my part to be inequitable to the recipients of my actions, the people who in this time had a great part in shaping me as a person.
I believe they do have the right to know that I still vouch for my actions. In some cases, they have the right to know that I’m spending my life to make up for them, to expiate them. Circumstance has a way of getting between people, and it has surely gotten between me and them. And yet, simply internalizing the fact that I believe this is what helps me live as a better person today.
Perhaps, because I seemed to have renounced a part of a shared memory, this had been its way of getting back at me. After all, it is no one’s right to, metaphorically or literally, forsake a shared experience. It does not belong to an individual. It is the property of the moment.
Moments are undying — they have a primeval urge to become eternities.
Ultimately, this was guilt towards my own conscience for being incapable of withholding even that which was supposed to be truly mine. It dawned on me, slow and foreboding, that in having renounced those memories, I couldn’t really remember what shaped me — the things I did, the things that happened to me, every causality that made me “me”.
The imbroglio I found myself in asked me how I could be sure of really being the person I thought I was.
In a way, this writing is a proxy for indemnity against such guilt, a security against not remembering. We must adopt such methods, must we not? Nevertheless, I remain somewhat unaware of how invulnerable it will help me be in the future.
Today, the foundations on which part of me is built are still nebulous. This does not necessarily mean that they have been yanked out from underneath, but their haziness had once engendered a serious existential concern, one which I had never expected to befall me.
Here, I don’t seek a waiver; only a justification. Say one day, you decide to lock away a portion of your memories because it helps you or others involved deal with situations better. Is such a conscious decision a righteous decision? Are you dealing with it or are you running away? I must assume these are the first doubts to come to mind. But the questions foraging me are different in nature.
Is it really imperative that you deal with your past, present and future by preserving your memories? Is that the only good way?
If these memories and experiences have painstakingly forged you over the years, do you cease to exist in the same intellectual or conscientious form if they happen to vanish one day?
And what if you try hard to make them vanish and you succeed? If the learnings stay with you, but the preached source doesn’t, I concede it will be no easy task proving to yourself that you are the wise man or woman you were cut out to be. The source of conviction would be forever lost.
If you are ever in a similar position, muster the courage to ask yourself these questions. You will only end up bolstering your belief system. Take some time to ponder, then try to have a healthy discussion with someone in your family or a trusted friend. I am ever the reticent one, and that is how I know it will be better for you not to be.
Even though it may seem a bit much, I do not mean for this suggested pondering to be infested with nihilistic traits. It is just that these existential questions beg us to traverse treacherous paths to find ourselves again. I am all for memories, believe me, being someone who doesn’t often benefit from their patronage. They are as much a vitality as a by-product of our existence.
As I have attempted to elucidate here, the ones that may have to face this quicksand can find solace in the existence of methods to redeem yourselves and your memories. But be unyielding.
Latch on to your memories if you can.
Lest you forget: it is possible that you deny your memories so deeply that you get disconnected from them altogether. For life.
About the author
Sarang Deshpande is an engineer, founder (Yuja, MobilityIQ), and writer. He regularly writes about science, tech, business, and sometimes about life. He is an editor at World In Mind, a new publication which brings cutting-edge research to students and working professionals: important research across industries will set the tone for humanity’s future trajectory, and young humans would do well to keep the world in mind when they choose their area of professional focus.
