Not Forgetting

I have a habit of attempting to completely erase bad memories from my mind. It’s a fairly poor strategy as it doesn’t resolve the associated feeling and they usually tend to manifest themselves in odd ways at a later point in time.

I guess you do need distance from traumatic events but ultimately, I wonder if there is a better approach. Part of my motivation for writing this blog is to remember more stuff and hopefully make some sense of it.

So what am I going on about… well, it’s quite a turning point in my life at the moment for a lot of reasons, but as this blog focuses primarily on climbing I’ll use an example from it, however let’s just say that the principals are a much too common a theme for me.

As I am sure that you are aware I had a bad accident a few months after I took up trad climbing. It was a long time ago now, 3 years (I think – see what I mean). Recently a friend mentioned it in passing and I got upset since I don’t like to be reminded about it, which probably isn’t the best response.

I get angry over climbing. I always feel like I ought to be doing so much more. Yes, this does lead to some positive outcomes as it forces me to push myself, but there is a huge downside of never feeling good enough. Obviously a lot of factors are at play here, not in the least my personality, but I think one issue feeding into this has to do with my accident.

It had a profound effect on me. For the first time I became all too aware of my mortality. It changed my approach to climbing forever. I was never again happy to go trad climbing yet I still feel like I lost out on a lot of opportunities. I tried to acknowledge the fact that I end up shaking and in tears whenever I am in a slightly dodgy situation so I decided not to put myself through it anymore. Perspectives change.

My name is Jenn. I had a bad trad accident. I’m sick of being scared. I’m sick of forgetting.