The Beginning of My Incest

There was one memory of my early life that always stood out. It wasn’t until decades later that I would fully realize the significance of the memory. I was about 6 years old, in my grandmother’s bed and my grandmother and mom were hovering over me. I believed I was very ill and they were concerned. Much later, I became aware that I wasn’t looking up at them from under the covers, I was looking down at the three of us from the ceiling. Even now, all these years later, I still tremble at the fact that I had dissociated from my body at such an early age. Dissociation happens when a person undergoes a trauma that is so devastating they separate their mind from their body as a defense mechanism. By the time I delved more into this memory, I was well aware that my grandfather had incested me in my childhood. I hadn’t talked about this memory with anyone. During a conversation with my mom, I brought it up and she told me that it hadn’t happened. She said I was never sick like that at my grandparent’s house. I knew my memory was true, but now I realized that my mom was not there with me. The only other person that would have been there with my grandmother was my grandfather. It now made so much more sense. It was the first incest experience and it’s trauma had forced me out of my body. It makes me sick to think about myself at that age with such terrible fear. Much of my childhood is locked away from my memory and I have never known the details of what happened that night. Years later, I have often wished I could recover my memories of this and all the other incest experiences. In this moment, I feel it may be better that I never have to relive them. I feel revulsed to even ponder it.