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. "People do die 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.
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.
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. 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.