Memory Bank

My therapist recently recommended that I start writing a memoir.

I’ve been seeing them since April, for reasons I won’t bother getting into now, and which aren’t particularly thrilling in any case. But one of the issues we’ve uncovered in our weekly sessions together is that I apparently suffer from a very fractured sense of self.

Don’t be alarmed: that doesn’t mean that I have a split personality or anything like that. To be honest, I wouldn’t actually mind having another personae to sub for me from time-to-time. I could do with a break from it all.

No, what she means is that I’ve become a stranger to my past self.

Picture your own life as a long chain, with each link representing a day, stretching all the way back 30-odd years to the exact date of your birth. Now, in a healthy, non-fragmented psyche, this chain is a linear, unbroken sequence — connecting the you of yesteryear to the person you are today. Intact, it can be pulled in the direction of actualisation. However, in a fractured psyche like mine, where a damaging event has shattered the cord, there is no solid connection between the here and now and the there and then. The broken chain cannot pull us anywhere. Result: ennui.

In my case, what this means is that I often think of the 5/12/15-year-old version of myself with nothing but embarrassment, contempt, and disgust. When I stare at old photos of myself I feel profoundly alienated from the boy staring back at me. ‘Who is this little git?’ I think. ‘He can’t possibly have been me, can he?’

I used to hate myself all the time, quite indiscriminately: past, present, and future. But I am wiser now, and my neuroses have grown up along with me, become more cunning.

My therapist believes that my self-loathing is solely concentrated on the person I was in childhood and adolescence. Since I was often so unhappy during those times — so my warped thinking goes — I must have deserved it by being flawed and cringeworthy and a burden to others. The old me, it follows, was so much lesser than the person I am today, and thus worthy of contempt. It’s apparently much better to bully the person you used to be than love the person you are now, and any contradiction in that narrative cannot be tolerated. My unconscious has learned to protect my present self my sealing off most of memories — locking me out from my own history.

Hence, the subject of my writing a memoir has come up. My therapist thinks that, if I make it a habit of recovering these careworn recollections in one place, I might be able to regain some empathy for my past self, recognise him and embrace him again, heal my fractured self, and live happily ever after, the end.

Now, I’ve been given a lot of different writing assignments in my time, but none have made me nearly so squeamish as this one.

For starters, I have a really shit memory. These days, I can’t always readily remember how old I am, let alone where I last left my house keys, or what I thought and felt in 2001. So, I’ve always been discouraged from any kind of autobiographical writing because I know that going back in my mind any further than a month is going to be a really cognitive strain.

Secondly, I worry I’ll lack the kind of discipline needed for this kind of task. I’ve tried keeping a diary a few times in the past, but journaling has never been the kind of writing I’ve enjoyed — I’ve always been too anxious to polish the prose when I should just be jotting down the day’s events in freeform.

Lastly, I just feel as though this sort of thing is a bit self-indulgent. I’ve always hidden my writing behind genre, high concepts, and outlandish characters. As a writer, I worry that I’m not enough of a hook. I haven’t led a particularly interesting or gripping life — I haven’t been caught up in historical events, or privy to any interesting subcultures. I haven’t pioneered a new industry, or had a smashing career, or even any juicy affairs and scandals. For the most part I’ve just muddled through life, always seeming to lag behind my peers — horizons narrowing, potential diminishing, and success just out of reach. The whole reason I read novels is to have a holiday from my own life, and escape the tedium of myself. Personal memories are often like dreams: they’re usually only interesting to the person recounting them.

But all these reasons are just excuses, ultimately. I think the real reason I’ve never tried this before is because I’m scared of what I might find and of living through my life again. It wasn’t an especially awful one; quite a lot of it was very pleasant. But the bad bits stick out like rusty needles.

Yet, I think I need to press on with this, even if it isn’t entertaining, or funny, or particularly literary. I’m going to be sharing these memories as I go on with this project, and as they occur to me, but it’s more for me than it is for you. All I can promise is that, as often as I can, I’ll be sharing all the memories of my life that I can muster, even if they make me blush crimson. Some of you reading this will probably make an appearance, although it might not be for a while.

Anyway, here goes nothing. Let’s meander down memory lane, shall we?