Ineffable Ontological Detanglement .: Introspective Assistance & Mental Analysis Manual
I'm putting this story in war, as it is a perfect example of how the mind of a young child functions in war. And it was military aircraft.
All my life I would get nightmares of being outside or looking out my window and a plane just dies and falls out of the sky and lands on houses. Every time a plane flies low overhead I get a slight agitation, a slight "I hope it doesn't fall on my head." I had a dream, I was thinking to myself as a plane flew overhead "WHY does my brain do this? ... *snap* It was that stupid fucking air show when I was three."
I get back four conversations with my parents, all the way up to age eighteen. "Nobody really knows it but people do actually die at air shows. People died at that air show we went to." "Yeah people died at that air show." I forgot to tell them I've slipped into a bit of a state, I will be repressing this memory as will you, I keep forgetting that. I slip about half semi-conscious, I fall into calm cool sophisticated analytical I speak at a much higher level of automatic. I can't see the memory, but I have the information... However I'm staring blankly at the information.
Planes falling out the sky. Four high speed simultaneous explosions. Boom boom boom boom dead dead dead dead, massive fuel explosions, centre tarmac right in front of everyone, I'm three rows from the front, I see every bit of it. Perfection fuckup, perfect God fuckup. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, dead dead dead dead.
My three year old mind had to do an instant dehumanization of these people. That's not... Military conduct. You can't be that stupid as a normal people let alone a military people. You're all... Following... The lead. You're not even considering the prospect of practicing independent thought. Is that... Military conduct? That probably... Shouldn't be... Military conduct. You're about to give me something I'm not supposed to see as a three year old you fuckers. No I didn't know that word for another four years I'm paraphrasing. I entered into a surreal daze, they turned into a clothes wearing moving blob of carbon. You see your very life as so disposable that you're prepared to be this stupid, I see, I guess I knew that. Wouldn't have thought reality could go this far, but, okay, I guess it makes sense that reality can go this far.
My semi-conscious alterations to the memory, I possess two images, both images holding nearly the same weight. In both images, I was there and this is exactly how I saw it, I am clearly there right now as a three year old and this is exactly how it unfolded I remember knowing I will forever remember it as exactly this in the memory I'm telling the story to my future self and anybody who will listen and it was exactly like this. The one that really happened, with a hard over associated hammer of reality. Then a second image... Of them off to the far left hand corner of my perception... In a floaty surrealistic daze... Elevated... On a pedestal. A surrealistic little detached farcical God play as everybody in the audience screams in horror "How could you be so STUPID!? How could anything ever be so STUPID!?" Hehe, doopy doopy doop. Hurr. Yes, I repressed a false memory. There is nothing I can do with my mind to tell myself and make myself believe it all the way to my core that the false memory is not exactly how I saw it, I can clearly remember myself in that moment, I'm there, I'm there right now, it happened like that. I'm an ededic hyperthymesiac and there's no denying it I can clearly see myself right there right now, it happened like that. Obviously I was receiving some unconscious assistance with my conscious processing. I'm going to assume a lot of these childhood memories, once brought back, have a lot of unconscious representations of "BECAUSE... I... I clearly heard the noise. Clearly. I decided not to look to my right. So. Okay. DUMB."
We would go to a couple more air shows when I was a child. Nobody remembered what we had seen. Nobody ever said "This was a good air show. Not like that last air show that was bad air show." However I do now recall "Nobody seems to remember what we saw at the last air show." I believe I felt more aware of the potential danger than the rest of these people, but, I probably did at that last air show as well. 80% of people who see an air show disaster forget all about it, 30% of people who see a Nascar crash in person forget all about it, 12% of skydivers who witness a person's parachute failing forget all about it. They helped us keep our memories repressed. It was reported for about a day and then it disappeared. It looks bad when you do these things guys, oh well you're not afraid to look bad, people take their three year olds to these things.
When we returned home, me sitting in the back seat the air growing ever less urgent, the conversation growing all the more reassuring, I received an athouratative "Wellthatwasagoodairshow!" I thought to myself... I'm not... Quite... There... Yet. But I see where this is going.
With a child before the age of six, an isolated incident will rarely trigger a life of PTSD, everything becomes so deeply repressed that it is barely even touching their semi-conscious. It will only ever come out in the manner of a subtle underlying phobia and recurring nightmares.
Sociopath says "It's okay to follow crying, it isn't okay to cry, these men knew what they were doing. You want to cry for your childhood, you want to cry for the bliss of release, you don't need it, everything's fine." I lost quite a bit of tension, this would have to be the most tension lost in a decompartmentalization, obviously this one came with a certain mental tension I was not aware of.
The only part of flying that ever really triggered any anxiety with me was takeoff and landing. It pretty much resolved by the time I was a teenager I was fine. In Steinbach there was a guy who would fly his prop plane over our neighbourhood all afternoon and night. I like that guy. Stop flying over my house I have PTSD and some sort of phobia. One of the students of that academy actually did crash their plane into the ground and exploded. Luckily he was flying over a farmer's field. That other guy was fine I was concerned when I heard the story but he wasn't in the plane, no don't worry about it I always knew this was a me problem.
I'm always a little surreal dream feelings to planes taking off and landing. Watching it on psychedelics at the park by the airport, my second major trip with Travis and his friend. My workplace is like a fence away and they think I'm sick right now. It barely bothered me. I assumed I was feeling purely nostalgia for my walks with my paternal Grandfather to the corner of Ness and Mount Royal to watch the planes taking off and landing, the general vibes of living age four to age fourteen a field away from the airport, but I guess I had some other stuff. At work, watching planes take off and land, I was also feeling an extra dimension of tension, I could feel it. I thought we were both in the same "Cool" but I guess I was in a better "Cool." The speed hit even more alarming.
You thought this world was fun and games, no, this is real, we live in the world that is real.