False memory syndrome and the family dynamic.

I feel fortunate that I am able to make these comparisons of the bygone days and remember a time that was less complicated, but perhaps a little shrouded with denial in some respects. When recalling the key memories of my own life, for example, I am now pretty sure I harbour a lot of false memories, or so I have been told by my siblings. Siblings are great at correcting your spin on your own childhood and usually save their declarations for holiday gatherings, such as Thanksgiving, Easter or Christmas, where a certain amount of food and alcohol is involved. I won't touch the birthday-themed parties, as these tend to go off the Richter scale in terms of family stress and denial. These three aforementioned "holidays", should not be regaled as times of relaxation, and enjoyment with the family, as much as being viewed as a gathering of the clan to assert themselves and aggravate each other, all within the boundaries of false conviviality. Siblings seem to have a desire to clear the "air" by bringing up memories of the past. For example, your own personal recollections of having been stabbed in the leg with a pencil by an older sister, and thus contributing to what you thought at the time was "lead" poisoning at the age of seven, was actually your sister's memory. She could have sworn that this had "happened to her" and not the other way around. I suspect, she assimilated the pain in order to exonerate herself from being labelled as a pencil-stabbing bully. In her eyes, she was the one who was wronged, and felt better in the victim role that your yourself coveted for all those years. You can see where this is leading... there will be no winner, and of course you wonder how your memories could be so fickle. You might even doubt if you lived your own life, or just imagined it. It can be pretty mind bending and freaky to say the least.

It would be a great exercise to get your family together in some sort of therapy session and recall key memories, and find out how you lived your lives. Everyone can contribute and define each other's experiences like a kaleidoscope of sorts. When you were doing something, someone else saw you doing something else, because they weren't exactly in the same place that you were at that time, when you were doing that thing. They might have been ten feet away and saw things differently. This is what you call perspective, and it seems to be the main problem of seeing things differently. By reviewing our lives, in a more logical manner, this might be the only way to determine exactly what the heck went on, and record it for posterity's sake for some future get together of the clan. So thank goodness that Christmas is a few months away, so we can all get ourselves readied and strengthened for more family fun and frolic and personal growth.