At the age of 46
I was drying off after taking a shower. While drying my genitals I saw
blood coming out of my penis. Not large amounts gushing, but not a small
amount either. Not like urinating blood, but it was bleeding significantly.
But there was no damage, there was no feeling of damage or blood. It
was just visual, and lasted only a fraction of a second. It was an extremely
clear visual. I kind of reacted like "what the heck?", and on examining
myself found there was no blood, zero zip.
All day I was wondering
"what the heck was that all about". It seemed very familiar, but at
the same time totally foreign, I'd never had anything like that happen
before, especially not in reality. It seemed so familiar that it bothered
me. I was missing something, but couldn't figure out what, or even why
I felt so strong about it. Not scared, just confused.
Over the course
of several days, it happened a couple more times. When I would urinate.
The urine wasn't there momentarily, there was a snapshot of blood coming
out of my penis as if it were really bleeding bad, but not like a stream
of urine, like an injury of some type.
The feeling of familiarity
progressively got stronger over those couple days, but in reality seemed
totally unreal to me.
I decided to try
something I'd been taught previously. I sat down on pillows, surrounded
by pillows, and made myself comfortable physically, but sat erect. I
closed my eyes and cleared my mind for several minutes. Then, with my
eyes closed, I focused on the "picture" of the blood. There were no
feelings, just curiosity. I looked at it from different angles. I was
well aware of the danger of creating memories. I did not focus on memory.
I paid attention to my body's senses, and just kept examining the "picture",
wondering why it was familiar. In my mind's eye, I unintentionally started
a slide show of my past, wondering where I had seen this "picture" before.
I had been a police
officer for 19 years at the time, and had seen lots of trauma, seeing
blood was a regular everyday occurrence while on the job. Never bothered
me. That's just the way it was. Didn't like it, but didn't dislike it.
Like a gardener working around wet dirt, it was a part of the job. But
this thing felt familiar, to me.
I knew I had childhood
trauma issues. Exactly what I didn't know. Memory prior to age 9 was
very little. It regards to my mom, it was nonexistent. I still don't
remember her, in any way. It's as if she never existed, even though
I have photos and have been told stories. It's all blank.
Knowing all of this,
I was careful just to stay with the present, and let the slide show
go where it may. After maybe 10 minutes, I remembered something that
had happened. The slide show had stopped, and I remembered something.
It didn't have anything to do with anything I saw in the slide show.
Something I did when I was 16-17 yrs old.
I was living in
a built on house behind my grandmother's home. By myself. Being a teen
with advancing hormones, I had discovered masturbation years earlier.
There were a series of incidents over a couple years where I would masturbate
alone, while shaving off my pubic hair and applying iodine all over
my genitals. I'd then insert a glass rod up into my urethra while still
masturbating. This had hurt pretty bad, but I would insert the glass
rod as far as I could. When this happened I was sexually stimulated,
but not the usual visions in my mind of girls. My mind would go blank,
and be totally focused on what I was doing to myself. There was no climax,
I would just keep doing it until it hurt so bad I had to stop. After
stopping, I would sleep.
I was in high school
at the time, and because of what I had done to myself, I wouldn't shower
in the locker room with other guys. I felt so embarrassed I stopped
going to the P.E. class. This was 10th grade, and even though P.E. was
mandatory, I'd get scheduled for it but I never went back. All I would
say is that I didn't want too, no explanation.
I kept repeating
the self harm about once or twice a week, gradually increasing to 4
or 5 times a week. Same behavior each time. After a couple years I stopped.
I don't remember why. I didn't care about the pain. I stopped because
it was no longer an interest. I didn't panic over the behavior, I thought
it was just a part of the masturbation and that I had grown out of it.
I'd never done anything like it before, nor anything like it since.
I've always remembered it, but just never thought anything about it
other than I was weird sometimes.
Back to 46 yrs old.
When I recalled the behavior from when I was a teen at the time I was
thinking about the "picture", it didn't fit. That wasn't it. But I had
a feeling that both had to do with something else. I got up and went
on with the day, still wondering "what the heck is it".
Over the course
of the next couple days I had the "picture" come back once or twice,
usually drying after a shower. I'd talked to my psychiatrist about it,
and had already learned to let these type of things have their place,
not to worry about them or panic about them. It wasn't reality, so it
was ok.
During these 2 weeks
I had other senses join the "picture". Not at the same times as the
picture. I would smell blood. I knew/know that smell well, and thought
my mind was pulling the smell from elsewhere in my mind. Then there
was the feeling in my genitals out of nowhere that I was wet. Several
times I had to look to make sure, it was so real.
I felt it was time
to sit down again, and focus on my senses and the "picture". So I did.
It started as before, and on it's own, the slide show started. It's
hard to describe. I didn't start it intentionally, it was just there.
I watched it play back memories as if watching a movie and eating popcorn.
Each slide I'd examine for a time, then it would change. I wasn't changing
the slides cognitively. I don't doubt my mind was doing it to itself,
but I didn't have the remote control to change the pictures. I paid
close attention to my senses the entire time. This time I started deep
breathing exercises, and intentionally relaxing into my feelings. I
didn't have to feel, but if I did it was ok. I forced nothing. I was
just an observer.
I'm not sure how
long this went on, but it was well over an hour. The slide show would
come and go sometimes. I kept my eyes closed, breathed, and paid attention,
staying focused on being observant.
Then it happened
again, the slide show stopped. It had nothing to do that I can tell
with the memory I got all of a sudden.
The memory was that
my grandmother had once told me a story when I first became a cop. This
was more than 8 years after the teenage incidents, and I had not connected
this story with anything else that had happened in my life. It was just
a memory of my grandmother telling me she was worried about me being
a cop, but that she believed I had a guardian angel because there were
several times in my life it had saved me. She told me of 3 times. One
I knew already, and it had to do with a head injury when I was 3 or
4. The second I also knew, it was a car accident and I was in the car.
The third I didn't
know. In her words from her memory....
When I was born I was circumcised. The first night out of the hospital
my mom and I stayed with her at her house, not at my mom and dad's home.
My grandmother woke up in the middle of the night feeling something
was wrong. She got up and checked on me. I was in the 2nd bedroom in
a crib. When she turned on the light, she saw lots of blood on the bedding.
She uncovered me and found that the "stitches" I received from the circumcision
had come loose, and that I had been bleeding really bad. I was covered
in my own blood. She wrapped the wound and took me to the hospital.
The doc told her I had almost bled to death.
Back to 46 yrls
old. This would explain some things if it were true, but like with most
things these things can create as many or more questions than they seem
to answer. Some of this made no sense. I called my dad within minutes
and asked him where I went after I was released with mom to come home
after birth. He said, home...to him and mom. I asked about any circumcision
problems. He says no.
If mom was there
with me at grandma's, why no mention of her and her reactions/actions?
Stitches in a circumcision? Almost bleeding to death?
I know I was circumcised.
That I don't remember is no great shock. So I went to the hospital grandma
would have taken me too, and the hospital where I was born. No records,
all destroyed years ago. Grandma and mom were long since dead. So I
went to a couple older women who were my grandmothers neighbors, and
her friends. Both remembered something had happened in the middle of
the night at grandma's house, and that an ambulance took me to the hospital.
They didn't recall what exactly they'd been told, just that it was me.
And it was "not long" after I was born, but didn't think I was there
the first night out of the hospital.
I've spoken to several
pediatricians since. I learned it is possible that a circumcision might
require a stitch. One, probably not two. Not usually was this needed,
but it can happen. I learned that some babies respond to the stitch
by pulling or scratching at it. Occasionally this might pull the stitch
loose, and cause bleeding. But not to the extent it would be life threatening.
Maybe this is how
grandma perceived and remembered it, as opposed to what it really was.
Conclusions. All
things considered, I've learned from many things that memory is not
always reality, neither are perceptions. The mind records input from
the senses, and stores it. Over time as other input is received, some
memories can become distorted, some entwined with other memories not
related to it. When a memory is triggered, it plays back what it has,
which is not always entirely accurate.
That playback is
not visual. The memories I trust the least are visual. The playback
is from the recording of all the senses. I get memories of smell by
themselves, ditto sounds, ditto touch, ditto taste, etc. Sometimes they
playback 2 or 3 senses together at the same time. Sometimes when 1 gets
played repeatedly, another may join it.
What really happened?
I know I had the visions of blood and eventually the smell, then feeling.
Those were played back not as a "memory", but as if they were happening
to me right that moment they were played back. I thought they were REAL.
I had to check myself physically as I was going to give myself medical
attention, or change my underwear.
I know what I did
to myself in my teens. That is extremely clear. I also know that early
childhood trauma sometimes gets acted out later in life. I'll buy that,
what I did to myself was absolutely strange. The obsession that came
with it fits. What I did by shaving myself, painting myself red, then
the glass rod.....I don't have to know, it seems kind of obvious to
me.
I know something
probably happened when I was very very young that MAY have caused these
things later in life. Exactly what happened and why, I'll never know.
But I don't need to know the specifics. Generally I think it pretty
much speaks for itself.
And I'm ok with
that. This was all extremely interesting to me, and I still take great
care not to make it into something it's not. I've spoken of it to no
one. I guess the best word would be: understanding.
From
“Bill” somewhere in the U.S.
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