Writing our heart out

I had to wait in order to write this post. 

As of late, all the days have been too sunny. In order to revisit this part of the past I need earthshaking rumbles and crazy lightnings flying everywhere. Today is a good day.

The first memory I have of really good bad weather is from when I was six years old. My mother and I were visiting my father’s third family. (After relocating to the countryside, my father was now residing with his third wife and their kids. He did not have custody of the older children he’d fathered with his ex-wives. They all lived far away with their mothers. Maybe I should say the third wife and my younger half-siblings were my father’s fourth family. After all, I had been born in between wife number two and three. I can’t say that, though. My mother and I did not count.)

I had pulled two rickety chairs together out on the field. On their backs, my sister balanced an open umbrella, and underneath was our little house. When it started raining, I saw the ground turn into a darker shade of brown all around us. The green grass bent in the wind and glistened with all the water pouring down on it. I saw a lightning. A few seconds later, thunder shook the air around us. My sister wanted to run to the house, but she did not dare venture out from underneath the umbrella. Where we sat the soil was dry and the pattering of rain against fabric very comforting. I looked out at the lightnings and said ”I want to live here”. I would never stay in a building again. I would never change this exhilaration, this pure joy for the dull safety of being indoors. I felt so alive with every breath I took – fresh rain, best perfume in the world – with every blink of my eyes – lightning dancing over a lush green landscape – with every sound I heard – thunder, drowning out the sound of birds chattering in the bushes nearby. 

Suddenly my mother appeared, ripped the umbrella away and hurried us off to the car (in those days, cars would still protect against lightning). I sat in the car, feeling bored and down. I’d just had the best feeling in the world, and now it was gone.

I’ve read that psychopaths love storms – the more violent, the better. 

Compared with a normal person the emotions of a psychopath are dialed down. But extreme weather can enable a psychopath to feel in a way they normally can’t. I believe the same could be true for someone who is dissociative. Because of my dissociative disorder, I have lived long stretches of time with no access to many feelings. I’ve lived with whole memories and parts of myself locked away. This may be why I walk in the rain until I’m soaked through. And when lightning and thunder comes, I stand on the balcony and smile like a lunatic. 

I may be characterized by my love of summer storms. But my father – whom I believe could truly be a psychopath – is characterized by his love of money.