Don't Look Back

Shonna talks about when repressed memories creep up, trying to pull you back into the darkness. She talks about how to look forward and how to work through the memories that want to haunt you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Take me back to the good old days when I didn't feel pain, when I didn't feel the shame. Hello and welcome to His Light in the Darkness podcast. I am Shauna Fontaine. I started this podcast inspired by a devotional that I wrote talking about depression, anxiety, grief, fear, worry, addiction, basically trying to bring some light in the darkness. Today's subject is talking about repressed memories and when they come back to haunt you. I wrote my book Skeletons many years ago to help people who were victims of sexual and mental abuse. It is a book to help you get past the fear, the grief, the feeling that you are at fault. Because as we know, those who have been through that feel like they're dirty. They should feel ashamed when it's not their fault. So I had an experience recently of some repressed memories that came back. I guess I had buried them so far deep that I didn't even remember some things. Now, when I had them come back, obviously I've dealt with a lot of healing, getting past uh really, really devastating experiences, hence my book. And it really shocked me. The reason why is because I remembered enough, I believe, to be able to work through and teach people how to work through forgiving themselves because even though we know things aren't our fault, we still feel that guilt. Like we did something wrong. Did we look a certain way? Did we talk to someone a certain way? What did we do to ask for it? Even though you don't ask for it, they're just bad people in the world. Simple as that. Bad people, and you can be doing absolutely nothing of inviting something in, and it happens to you. And then you sit and think, I must have done something, it must be my fault, usually because they either make it feel like you are the one that asked for it, or it's just one of those subconscious things that keeps you chained. And again, that's one of the reasons I wrote my book is to cut the chains. So having these repressed memories come back was very surprising. It wasn't something that I expected, it wasn't something that I was looking for. It happened because someone had done something, and I guess I had held them on a high pedestal. And coming up with these facts, having to face these facts, I realized they weren't this amazing person that I thought. That triggered some repressed memories coming back. They weren't involved with those memories, but they did deal with the people that were involved in the uh the memories. So it was a little disheartening, I guess. You know, I I've worked through so many things, and I think I'm doing pretty good. Not on drugs, and I am living a, I think, pretty successful life. Uh, you know, good person, I think. Well, I try to be anyway, and just trying to do the right things. I'm mentally, spiritually, physically healthy. So I've worked past what could keep you down. That's one of the reasons I wrote my devotional, was to try to help people work through really bad things like addiction, depression, anxiety, and these feelings of bad situations, bad experiences with sexual and mental, even physical abuse. Well, it's just a way of healing. Like, for example, my devotional is a workbook, and I took it from what I've done to help get past that. And you do have to forgive people, and that will be another topic for another podcast. How to forgive people that have wronged you, not for their benefit, but for yours to be able to heal and grow and move on. It's difficult, especially when you have been in these situations, you really want to be angry, you're depressed, maybe you've thought about, you know, not continuing life, and you're just at one of those points where why? You know, you don't want anyone searching your dirty laundry, as they say. But like in my book, Skeletons, I talk about this dirty laundry is not your doing. You feel dirty, you feel bad, you feel like maybe no one should want you after all this time. No one should desire to be with you. And it's just one of those mental things that you have to not just push past and forget and you know put it in the box and never think about is something that you have to deal with, you have to go through, you have to go through the process. So some of these memories, yes, I had gone through the process and of healing. I just, I guess because it happened so long ago, and we're talking about wow, I would say 40 years ago, almost 40 years ago. That's a long time. And so sometimes you may think, oh, well, it's just because you're older, you forget. No, I think it was so bad that I didn't want to remember. Now I wrote my book, Skeletons, like I said, many years ago. I think it's probably going on 12 years ago, 13 years ago. It's been quite a while. Yeah, something like that. So obviously during that time, I think they were pretty prevalent in dealing with um giving some advice, telling kids, especially kids, that's you know what it's geared towards, is just helping people, especially children, get past all these feelings of um negativity, depression, uh, self-hatred. And I had these repressed memories come back. And I was, I guess, in shock because I knew that things would happen, obviously. I wrote the book, so some of those are involved in the book. I just I guess sometimes you try to convince yourself things aren't that bad. Things aren't that bad. It wasn't that bad, it shouldn't have that big of an impact on my life. And there's certain things that I don't like, you know, situations I don't like to be in. And it's because of these repressed memories that because of these situations that I don't like certain things, and that's understandable. Everybody's like that. Hey, something happened, you don't like it, uh, you want to get past it, so you try to try to move on. And I guess I just forgot how bad things were, and it took me probably about a day or two just to come out of that shock, you know. Like I always say, victim knows a victim, survivor knows a survivor. So as I'm speaking, I'm sure those who have survived and have conquered understand what I'm talking about. Because you're in a good place, you know, you're doing good, everything's great, and it's just it's not that it's going to take you down, you know, it's not that, it's not that it's an anchor, it's not that it's a chain, it's just, I guess, a memory that comes back and you realize, wow, I did go through that. Wow, it was that bad. Wow, I I should be proud of myself. I have gotten to this point. And if you are in a situation and you haven't quite gotten to that point and you're like, hey, I would love to be there. I would love to be successful in being a human being. I would love to get past these anger and, like I said, self-hatred and depression and desire to just not go on. I hope, and the point of this podcast is to reach you, to bring some joy, to bring some encouragement, that everybody has a purpose in life. Everyone, every single person has a purpose in life. Now, finding it, that's a journey, is to find your specific purpose. And, you know, trying to be better, trying to forgive, trying to get through these horrible emotions and memories is part of the journey. Now, when I wrote my book, um, Skeletons, I as I was writing, I was thinking, you know what? Some of these experiences were they were bad. They were horrible. And I realized that, you know what, maybe God allowed me to go through them so that I could help people, so that I could encourage people, that you know, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There is, I promise, there is. It's just a matter of putting a step forward every single day to get to that light, to try to not only be a better person, but forgive yourself. You know, a lot of people say, Oh, just forgive yourself. It, I believe, would have to be the hardest thing. Not even forgiving other people for things that they've done, how they've wronged you. I think that forgiving yourself is the most difficult thing, especially when you feel guilty. Even though you know, you know you shouldn't feel guilty about this, and you're like, I didn't do anything wrong. I know I didn't do anything wrong, but you still feel guilty. You shouldn't, but it's one of those things that play on the mind, you know, that guilt is just it's such a heavy, heavy burden. And when you're a victim, you really have to forgive yourself. And it's a journey, it's not something that happens in a day, two days, three days. It's a journey. For some people, it may take a month, some people maybe a year, and some people several years. It took me a while to work through the memories and the experiences. And writing my book, I think, was very therapeutic because it's not that you want to just come out and shout things to the world. People do not want to shout things to the world that have been through these kind of things. You see it in movies, you know. Oh, I want to talk about it, I want to share with everybody. If you've been through this stuff, no, you want it hidden, you want it out of the limelight, you want it buried. But the reason why I wrote my book was I just knew that my experiences could help people. I knew that me writing it out could help people. Because let's be honest, victims do not want to hear from people who don't understand. Survivors don't want to hear from people who want to give their opinion and their advice when they've never dealt with experiences like this. I talk about in some of the podcasts, it took me a long time, a long time, to be able to accept a compliment of being beautiful. You're so beautiful, you're so beautiful, you're so beautiful. And I would have so many women or young girls come to me. I wish I I wish people would tell me, I wish people would say, and I would say, but you don't know the bad that goes along with it. Now there are people, of course, good people, that will compliment you and they mean it in a truly sincere way. But in my experience, I was around people that told me that to get something, or that they thought they could get something. And so it took me, gosh, years and years to be able to say thank you. I mean, that was, gosh, I think even into my 20s, that it took me to just refrain from thinking it was this horrible thing. They were expecting something. Because growing up through my preteens and teens, somebody telling me I was beautiful meant things were gonna come. There were gonna be not good things following through. And I was supposed to say thank you. I had so many people tell me, you don't like that? People would appreciate that. And I'm like, you just don't understand. It's not that, you know, Mr. Waters over here is just a nice neighbor saying, What a pretty girl you are. You're such a nice girl. That's one thing. But when people are coming to you saying, You're so beautiful, and you're expecting the bad, the bad's coming. That's the preface to the bad with bad people. Now, like I said, there's plenty of good people out there that would say that in honest and you know, sincere ways. It's just if you've had my experience, and I'm sure a lot of you are going, yes, somebody gets it. Yes, she's right. Yes, that's how I feel. Because victim knows a victim, survivor knows a survivor. And this podcast is to help those who feel like they're still the victim, or maybe you're a survivor and you have these repressed memories coming up and you don't know what to do with them. I describe it as sometimes like an octopus coming. You know, you're you're in a good place. Now, mind you, like I said, it took me a day or two. We processed it, okay, we're good, we can continue on. But there's some people that they can't work like that. So let's say people who suffer with addiction or depression, right? You're in a good place, you're moving forward, and then these repressed memories come, and it's like an octopus pulling you back to the dark, pulling you back where you can't continue on. That's where you have to fight for your life to go to the light, find encouragement, get out, talk to friends, get some fresh air, get some sunshine, and go towards that light, metaphorically speaking, and well, literally, because the sun is some light and you want to get some sunshine. This is just a way of encouragement and encouraging you to as much as you want to fall into those repressed memories, as much as you want to go into that darkness because it's tempting. You know, you start thinking about that, and then it takes over your thoughts and takes over your mindset. And where are you? You're back in the hole again, you're back in that darkness, and it's just because it's pulling you, and that's where you have to take all your strength and find joy and work and fight to be in the light. I thank you for joining me. I hope that I've brought some encouragement, some light, some uh some sort of hope. So if you've you know been feeling this or working through these things, hopefully my words have helped you to try to search and fight and to break yourself free of the chains. My devotional, I think I have it here somewhere. There it is. Is Light in the Darkness. It's a workbook and it discusses all these things: anxiety, worry, fear, grief, addiction. It's just something that I really feel like is gonna help people. It's gonna help people work through your own thoughts because it is a workbook, you know. You answer questions, and by answering those questions, you help to work through these difficult things. And that this is something that I've done and that I think has helped, even you know, in times like these when you feel inferior, because everybody has those days. If somebody says, I never have a down day, pretty sure they're not telling you the truth, because it's just humanity. We have down days. And I hope this book helps, and I hope that you reach out to friends that can help you, not ones that are gonna bring you down or insult you or question your feelings and why. Why would you be like that? Come on. Friends that are supportive and encouraging, reach out to the ones that are going to help you, and you know what? Shed the ones that are gonna keep you down. Please like, follow, share, subscribe to our podcast. Share it where we can share the joy, the encouragement, and the hope in the darkest of times. Join us next time.