I
learned
something about myself by observing war
veterans, specially WW11 veterans and
holocaust survivors. I call that era
the
silent survivors. For decades they
spoke
to no one about the atrocities of wars and
when asked about it fifty years
later, the old men cried. Much like
the
proud Holocaust survivors, the war
veterans could not speak about the
cruelties
they witnessed or were subjected to – even
fifty or seventy years after the
war.
It was
October 1942 at the age of seven that I was
dragged into a war.It
was not a real war but the aftershock was
the same.I did not volunteer for this
war.I
could not fight back and I was warned
not to tell anyone.I
did not tell
anyone because I was much too afraid.I
lived in terror for years and I had no one to
speak to and no one spoke to me
about it either. I was
too young to make
decisions about my life and was unable to
escape. I
was only seven years old and too young to
deal with it rationally.
After
their war, veterans went home to their families.They
went back to work and resumed their social
life.They
did not speak of the episodes
and soon they learned to push the memories away.They
worked hard and many numbed their
memories with the use of drugs and booze.
I did
not have drugs or booze to numb my fear and
push the memories away.I
could not go home because I was home.I
was only seven years old and I had no one
to speak to.How does a child survive
severe trauma?I did the best I could and
I learned to use the only tool I possessed to
survive.I
used my mind to run away from the memories and
the fear. (I suppose
we could call it child meditation)I
ran away from the seven year old girl and
abandoned
her not once but twice.In my
mind, the seven year old died and I was
convinced of that because I had seen her body.I
was too young to know better.I
paid for the rest of my life for these
decisions.
Thirty-three
years of my life were spent running away from
those memories.The rest of my life was devoted to
repair the
damage caused by repressed memories and to
learn to handle post traumatic
stress without it taking me down.
Fifty
years after the war when asked to speak of
their war experiences, the old war
veterans cried. Even sixty or
seventy
years after the war, they cried.
This is a personal website and the
information published and opinions expressed are
those of the webmaster and provided by Elle
on the Web for your personal use. Content
subject
to change without notice.
No
part of this site may be copied, stored into a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or
by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying
or otherwise), without the prior written
permission of the copyright
owner. Contact
C
Petaluma
Feral Cats 
