Losing, clinging, forgetting

We've always liked physical things.

Physical books in our hands are vastly superior to ebooks, sure, but even more superior to that is a physical book that you own that you can put on your shelf.

Physical CDs of our favorite albums.

Physical merch from concerts we attended.

Physical shells from beaches we've combed.

We've always liked physical things.

But why?

Losing things

We're deeply scared of losing things.

Memory is flimsy. Especially a disassociative, trauma-filled brain like ours.

We forget so many things.

But we hate that.

We hate that so much. The idea of losing things that are precious to us.

Some things are easy to reconcile. If we forget a favorite book we can just reread it. Favorite songs can be rediscovered. Favorite art pieces can be re-witnessed.

But some things are just lost forever.

Memories of my dad's voice, fading as the years pass. Not his literal voice, but his metaphorical one. His acts, his desires, his vision for what he wanted to do in the world.

We're forgetting. and that hurts.

Conversations with our loved ones that we treasured, but forgot. Conversaions that we remember having but don't remember the emotions of. Remembering bits and pieces but not why we were crying.

We're forgetting, and that hurts.

The hardest thing for us to accept forgetting though, are the things we use to save ourselves.

Words that saved myself, but forgot. Actions that we need to take to help ourselves but don't remember. Self-care mechanisms that we just can't recall during the moments when we need them.

We forget.

. . .

I'm sure this is somewhat normal.

To forget things that you find important. To forget things that you need.

This is a well established phenomenon for those who have depression, that your memory becomes faded and glitchy.

But for us, this represents a fundamental fear.

We've talked a lot about how important it is to us that we find the words to save ourselves

One of our greatest fears is forgetting these things. Forgetting about our identity.

Forgetting about what makes us whole.

Because this has happened. Many times.

Over and over and over again, we've fallen into that black abyss and forgotten everything about ourselves.

Forgotten about our tools, our identity, even our other headmates.

We forget, we lose, and we fall.

Losing things is normal, but when that "thing" is your very identity, it's kinda terrifying.

When you live in a position where your life can snowball to the point of forgetting who you are and what you live for and how to save yourself.

When you forget what you live for.

It can be very terrifying.

So we cling.

Clinging

We've always been a bit of a hoarder.

Our OCD makes it hard for us to throw things out, because we're afraid of losing something important to us in that pile of trash.

That's one thing.

Our desire for physical reminders of things makes it hard for us to not keep keepsakes. A bottle of mate from CCC. A shell from the beach. A stone from treatment.

A ring on our finger, a reminder of our promise.

We need to keep physical items to make ourselves feel secure that we won't forget.

We've also always been a digital hoarder.

Every file, every document, every image, might be something important.

So it gets saved, and backed up, and saved again.

We cling onto digital storage because it's so easy to store so much information.

To store thousands of photos.

To store every document from our past.

To store every moment that we've experienced.

It's a tempting desire, and one that we fall into often.

To cling.

This blog is a representation of this clinging. It's an extension of our personal journalling that we've done for years.

Documents we've written, our attempts to capture how we feel during a given moment of our life.

We don't want to forget. So we cling onto every last thing that might help us remember who we are when we forget.

. . .

Over time though, we've begun to tell ourselves that it's okay not to cling.

That it's okay to forget.

Why?

Because we'll re-learn it.

Antimemetics expert: Terra

An antimemetic in the SCP Foundation universe is an object that makes you forget about it.

An object that affects your ability to spread information about it.

How does one study these objects? These things that take memories and make you forget things?

To become an expert in antimemetics, is to become an expert in deriving from first principles.

To be confronted with a mystery and to be able to re-derive knowledge about it from what you experience in that moment.

It doesn't matter if you forget, because you can re-learn it.

This is the conclusion of Introductory Antimemetics,

"I want to say it was dumb luck," Kim says. "I want to say that I just threw my phone, it was instinct, it was muscle memory. It was my first day, and I got lucky as hell. …I want to say those things, but I'm sitting here, and turning those statements over, and none of them would be true, would they?"

"I see very little luck in what happened today," Wheeler says. "Instinct and muscle memory are just deep forms of training. Like I said, a basic level of competence. An ability to piece your own life and all of your past knowledge back together, faster than nearly anybody else. This is what we try to drill into you. And sometimes, thankfully, it takes."

I believe myself to be an antimemetics expert.

That I deal with SCP-Terra, a unique antimemetic that was built into our brain from birth.

One that makes us forget the words that we need to save ourselves.

A terrifying antimemetic. One that threatens to push us to the edge and make us forget how to step backwards.

But we've been trained.

We've learned.

We've taught ourselves how to live with this antimemetic.

There is very little luck in us staying alive.

Instinct, muscle memory, the ability to re-learn things when we need to, are all just deep forms of training.

A basic level of competence.

The ability to piece your own life and past knowledge back together in an instant to save yourself.

This is what a lifetime of being disassocative has taught us.

We forget things.

But we always re-learn the important pieces.

So that's why we're starting to be less scared of forgetting.

Because our training will always bring it back.

We found the words once, we can always find them again.

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