dougvincent1138
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- Joined
- Jan 13, 2018
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- INFJ
Have any of you ever been smacked in the face by nostalgia? I know that sounds weird, but that's what happened to me recently.
Hey, this is Louise. I've written in this group before, but it's been a while. I am an "alter" or "part" in a system of a person who has DID, which stands for dissociative identity disorder. To learn more about that, you can read my previous post here...
https://www.typologycentral.com/for...pes-helped-bring-balance-own.html#post2966780
or my "internal sister" Leyna's introductory post of our system here...
https://www.typologycentral.com/for...1-hello-introduce-myselves-4.html#post2949762
Having gotten that out of the way, on to what I really wanted to write about today...
So, the other day I was in a small local bookstore that is around the corner from where we work. Some of the others had been to this bookstore fairly often in the past, but we hadn't been there in a while, and I don't think I, Louise, have ever been there before. I've been wanting to go there for a while. It seemed like it would be heaven for me. And it was!
You see, I used to be the head librarian of the library in our inner world. I say "used to be" because the library doesn't exist anymore. (Long story for another time...) And this was a very "old school" bookstore that feels more like a library, not like the big corporate Barnes & Noble type bookstores (Not that I don't enjoy going to those also...) Another thing about this bookstore that I knew I would LOVE is the fact that it has very very narrow aisles and low ceilings in the basement. Why would I love that, you ask? Well, I know this is going to sound weird, but I absolutely love being in small, cramped spaces. I do NOT like being outside or even in buildings that have huge rooms with really tall ceilings. I guess you could say I'm agoraphobic, although from what I've heard a lot of agoraphobic people are like that because they are afraid of "the outside world", people, society, etc., which I am not. For me it really is about the fact that large spaces make me feel unsafe, small spaces make me feel safe, regardless of how many or how few people are with me.
Anyway, so I was down in the basement of this AWESOME bookstore, and I turned a corner, and I saw... a whole section of books about space exploration!!! And it was, like, "BAM!!!!" Nostalgia just smacked me in the face. It immediately brought back childhood memories of how I was very fascinated with space exploration, and astronomy (not to be confused with astrology, which I have never been interested in.) I think the reason this took me by surprise so much is that until recently, I, and most of us, had assumed that most of our childhood memories were "Doug's" memories. That's because we are a bit of an unusual system in that we share almost all of our external memories, but have a LOT of amnesia of internal memories. That meant that when we were growing up, Doug remembered pretty much everything that went on, but he didn't realize how much of "his" memories weren't actually his own but other parts' memories. Well, now we are starting to figure out which memories belong to who, and sometimes it's very startling, because I didn't know that those certain memories belonged to me until I'm reminded of them.
I ended up not looking through that section, because I knew that if I did, I would end up spending too much time there, and we were on a time crunch. I will have to go back some time when we have more time to look around. I did buy a couple books by a couple of my favorite science fiction authors, Alfred Bester and Stanislaw Lem. Both of those authors are really good at telling stories that are simultaneously really intelligent AND really creative, which is a rare feat. It's like the left and right side of their brains are both working overtime, which is really cool. Another author like that is Kurt Vonnegut, I really like his stuff too.
Has anybody else had experiences like this, where you were really just startled by a sudden nostalgic moment of memories? Just curious to know if this kind of thing happens to non-DID people as well. Sometimes I wonder what it's like to be only one person in one body...
Take care! Thanks for reading! - Louise
Hey, this is Louise. I've written in this group before, but it's been a while. I am an "alter" or "part" in a system of a person who has DID, which stands for dissociative identity disorder. To learn more about that, you can read my previous post here...
https://www.typologycentral.com/for...pes-helped-bring-balance-own.html#post2966780
or my "internal sister" Leyna's introductory post of our system here...
https://www.typologycentral.com/for...1-hello-introduce-myselves-4.html#post2949762
Having gotten that out of the way, on to what I really wanted to write about today...
So, the other day I was in a small local bookstore that is around the corner from where we work. Some of the others had been to this bookstore fairly often in the past, but we hadn't been there in a while, and I don't think I, Louise, have ever been there before. I've been wanting to go there for a while. It seemed like it would be heaven for me. And it was!
You see, I used to be the head librarian of the library in our inner world. I say "used to be" because the library doesn't exist anymore. (Long story for another time...) And this was a very "old school" bookstore that feels more like a library, not like the big corporate Barnes & Noble type bookstores (Not that I don't enjoy going to those also...) Another thing about this bookstore that I knew I would LOVE is the fact that it has very very narrow aisles and low ceilings in the basement. Why would I love that, you ask? Well, I know this is going to sound weird, but I absolutely love being in small, cramped spaces. I do NOT like being outside or even in buildings that have huge rooms with really tall ceilings. I guess you could say I'm agoraphobic, although from what I've heard a lot of agoraphobic people are like that because they are afraid of "the outside world", people, society, etc., which I am not. For me it really is about the fact that large spaces make me feel unsafe, small spaces make me feel safe, regardless of how many or how few people are with me.
Anyway, so I was down in the basement of this AWESOME bookstore, and I turned a corner, and I saw... a whole section of books about space exploration!!! And it was, like, "BAM!!!!" Nostalgia just smacked me in the face. It immediately brought back childhood memories of how I was very fascinated with space exploration, and astronomy (not to be confused with astrology, which I have never been interested in.) I think the reason this took me by surprise so much is that until recently, I, and most of us, had assumed that most of our childhood memories were "Doug's" memories. That's because we are a bit of an unusual system in that we share almost all of our external memories, but have a LOT of amnesia of internal memories. That meant that when we were growing up, Doug remembered pretty much everything that went on, but he didn't realize how much of "his" memories weren't actually his own but other parts' memories. Well, now we are starting to figure out which memories belong to who, and sometimes it's very startling, because I didn't know that those certain memories belonged to me until I'm reminded of them.
I ended up not looking through that section, because I knew that if I did, I would end up spending too much time there, and we were on a time crunch. I will have to go back some time when we have more time to look around. I did buy a couple books by a couple of my favorite science fiction authors, Alfred Bester and Stanislaw Lem. Both of those authors are really good at telling stories that are simultaneously really intelligent AND really creative, which is a rare feat. It's like the left and right side of their brains are both working overtime, which is really cool. Another author like that is Kurt Vonnegut, I really like his stuff too.
Has anybody else had experiences like this, where you were really just startled by a sudden nostalgic moment of memories? Just curious to know if this kind of thing happens to non-DID people as well. Sometimes I wonder what it's like to be only one person in one body...
Take care! Thanks for reading! - Louise
[I wondered at the meta of doing this topic as a group project...
