Who is Angélique? And does it really matter?
This is not the text I thought yesterday I would write today. It has nothing to do with what I was going through yesterday, when I connected with my despair with the world, my depression, but also with the trauma of my adolescence. But everything changed overnight.
I was awake and I was thinking about a recent loss, about an asexual and arromantic love. And suddenly I had a violent flash in which my father appeared, and I saw myself as a 14 year old in the corner of a room on the floor. I started to cry and I started to think about Angélique, a friend, another loss never mourned. I have almost no memories of Angélique. I know she left me a gift on the day of my confirmation (Lutheran confirmation is at the age of 14), I know we were friends, and I know she disappeared. I don't remember if we met again after my confirmation. I don't remember how we met, how we connected, what we did or how long we were friends. I don't think our friendship had a sexual component. I don't know if it was a love, but if it was, it was an asexual love.
I cried as quietly as possible during the night, and I felt fear in my stomach. Fear, but more than fear, anger. A lot of anger towards my father. Rage and hatred. I cried, and I imagined beating my father until he lay bleeding on the floor. Hurting him. Making him suffer. Only sharing my rage and this fantasy through messages with friends finally allowed me to calm down a bit and get at least some sleep. And then I thought about taking a train to the city where he lives now, going to his house, and beating him until .... until he is little more than a mass of flesh and blood...
Really, I don't think this is really about Angélique. In this sense, it doesn't matter who Angélique was. Nor is it about my recent loss. It's about me and my father.
I've always wondered why I have so few memories of my father when I think about my traumas, but some much more concrete memories of my mother. Was I afraid of my father when I was 14? I don't think so. Maybe I was afraid when I was younger, but when I was 14, I don't think so. I remember my father threatening to take me to the hairdresser by pulling me by my hair, as I refused to cut my hair (I started to wear my hair long when I was 14), but this threat didn't frighten me. I was more afraid that they would cut my hair during the night, while I was asleep (again, not being able to feel safe...).
I don't remember any more of my father. But I am left with the fear in my stomach, and above all with anger. I feel that here I am discovering something in the pandora's box of my trauma, but I don't know what it is and where it will lead me. I know it's painful, I know it's scary, I know it makes me very angry....