I Remember

They say your memory starts forming around three or four years old, and anything before then is considered infantile amnesia. However, a child's vocabulary grows around that age, and they gain a stronger sense of self and an ability to articulate events, which helps lock memories in—especially highly emotional or traumatic ones.

I don’t have a full recollection of ages and timings. Throughout this book, they will be approximated because that’s all I've got. I don't even know the time of day I was born and can't seem to get that information. So, what you're reading isn't a perfect timeline. It's the truth as I remember it. 

I was, I’m guessing, two to three years old when we lived on Falstaff in the west end. We moved to Blake Street when I started kindergarten, maybe earlier, but that’s where my memories of Blake start—kindergarten.

The memories I’m about to share with you were disturbing and emotionally fucked up for me. They've stayed with me my entire life, and they happened when I was three or younger. These shit memories are embedded in my head.

I grew up with a brother two years older than me, a very troubled child whose questionable actions and behaviours trickled down onto me.

I have three vivid memories from that time, that apartment. My brother was deviant, and the things he did were all kinds of fucked up.

One time, he smeared toothpaste inside and all over everything in the medicine cabinet—a mess, to say the least. When my mother saw it, she was pissed. Staring down at the both of us, she asked, “Who did this?”

“Not me,” I said, because it wasn’t me.

I didn’t see my brother do it, but there was only him and me, and I knew I hadn’t done it. He said, “I didn’t do it,” too.

So we both got spanked for it, slapped across the bare ass. My mother was a slapper—face, head, ass, whatever it was when it was.

Spankings in the '70s were normal. My mother was strict, so we got our licks.

Another time, my brother chewed up cookies and spit them all over the coats in the hall closet. My mom saw it, freaked out again, and asked who did it.

Again, I said, “Not me,” because it wasn’t me.

It could only have been him, but he said it wasn’t him, and once again we both got spanked on the ass.

I remember trying not to cry while I was getting it, which I soon realized only made me get more. He would get one or two and start crying right away and it stopped. Then it was my turn, and it would be five or six, maybe more. I was getting it until I cried.

When she left the room, he would lean over the bunk bed—that's what we had back then—and he’d fucking laugh at me. Covering his mouth with one hand and pointing at me with the other—laughing his face off. I remember it like it was yesterday.

Laughing at me because he did it, and I got in trouble for it. Again. Like he planned it and this was just the beginning.

He also knew well enough to cry at the first whack so it would stop. To me, his four- or five-year-old head was already fucking twisted. Bent.

He used to play with the electric sockets. He’d throw everything off the balcony—just chaos. Obnoxious shit. I tried to avoid him as much as possible, even back then.

I lived with that fucker for fourteen years of my life, and for fourteen years I was physically harmed and targeted by him.

He was always out to hurt me, tell on me, get me in trouble, and loved seeing me cry. The very opposite of a protective big brother.

Looking back, I still struggle to make sense of him. Whatever was going on in his head wasn't fucking normal.

My third memory from that apartment: we were in the hallway with punching balloons. My mom had this big, heavy metal matador piece hanging on the wall. I can’t recall who hit it with the punching balloon, but it fell, landed on my face, and split me open above my lip and directly under my nose. Blood everywhere. Next thing I remember is the stitches and the tape stuck across my upper lip, blocking my nostrils.

These past few years I couldn’t help but revisit that moment and question what really happened.

Any time I tried to talk about it—any of it—it was dismissed. I was told it was all in my head. I have a fucking scar on my face from it and still couldn’t talk about it or get any clarification.

This is just some of what Raised to Swallow—Forced to Spit looks like. Like the rest of it, it wants out, and this is where I’m starting—at three years old.

Gen X. We were raised on silence, discipline, and survival. Sometimes PTSD is what happens when you grow up and later realize none of it was normal—and it stays with you long after childhood is over.

This is the next book.

I thought writing this book would be easier, but it’s not. Going back there, writing it out, it makes it different—real, painful to look back at the little girl because I can see her now. This book is loaded. My life is loaded. I’ve got words, books, and stories for days.

—Jaye