Encrypted Memory

Dear Mom,

I’ve always had this feeling as if I did something extremely bad and that you would hate me for it. Despite the fact that we have a loving mother-daughter relationship, I’ve always felt guilty about something.

I never told you anything about this before as I had no idea why I was feeling such. I’ve spent years trying to figure out what is it that I did.

I’m mentioning this to you now because I’ve finally figured it out. At long last, I have closure and I need to confess what I did to you, Mom.

As you know, I’ve been seeing a therapist for almost a year now. So far, I’ve been having cognitive behavioural therapy with her which is a type of psychotherapy. It’s normally used to treat a range of phobias, addiction, depression and anxiety.

Now I know you would be freaking out over the mention of ‘addiction’. Please calm down. I am neither addicted to anything nor have I ever done anything that might cause addiction.

Recently, my therapist suggested we move on to regression therapy which is a type of hypnotherapy. Unlike psychotherapy, hypnotherapy involves hypnosis.

This is because our subconscious mind can repress trauma if it happened at an age before the mind could figure out how to process it. Therefore, hypnosis is needed to drum up those memories.

I also learned that sometimes, we carry traumas from our past lives to our current one. For example, a man that is extremely afraid of water, even like a pail of water, could have died from drowning in any of his past lives.

Past life memories can be retrieved through past life regression therapy. So, with this information, to overcome his fear, exposure therapy would be used.

Exposure therapy could be done without finding out the root cause of his fear but knowing it would provide closure and acceptance.

My therapist decided to start with age regression therapy before trying past life regression therapy. She wanted to find out first if anything had happened at a young age for me to feel this irrational guilt.

She started off by bringing me back to when I was fifteen years old and subsequently to the years prior to that.

When we had reached my one-year-old memories, there still wasn’t anything that had happened to cause this guilt in me.

She then brought me to when I was in your womb. It seemed that my breath quickened and my pulse increased. I was sweating and restless.

She knew the memory wasn’t too far away because this usually happened when the physical body tried to resist the memory.

She guided me very gently until the repressed memory surfaced.

Mom, do you remember how upset you were when you couldn’t have my gender-reveal party? It’s my fault, Mom. I did that intentionally. I’m so sorry, Mom.

When I was in Heaven, before I came to live in your womb, I heard a lot of stories where babies get killed in the womb. Those stories had me shaking like a leaf. It seems the pain was extremely unbearable.

I admit I was initially afraid to come and live in your womb, but as far as I’ve noticed from Heaven, you were such a wonderful and kind person so I wanted you to be my Mom.

After two months of living in your womb, I always heard people ask if I was a girl or a boy. Your answer would always be, “I don’t know yet, but I hope it’s a boy!”

After four months, you decided to check if I was a girl or a boy. I knew I had to do something. I was so terrified you would kill me like how those babies in those stories ended up.

I decided to reposition myself to make sure the deciding factor of my gender can’t be seen. Whenever you went to check, I would not be facing in a way that would reveal my gender.

You didn’t give up because you really wanted a gender-reveal party as this was your first pregnancy and you wanted it to be special.

Thanks to me, from a happy mom-to-be, you became a depressed mom-to-be. I could sense it as I was living inside of you. I felt so guilty for taking away all the chances you had of having a gender-reveal party.

It wasn’t my intention to break your heart; I just wanted to live. All those stories I heard made me so selfish.

Never for a moment had I paused to think that this kind-hearted woman I’ve been observing from Heaven would never do anything to harm me.

What I did to you had traumatized me. I felt guilty and so angry with myself for doing that to you. When I was born, you were euphoric. My gender didn’t matter to you although you hoped for a boy.

You were so happy to have a healthy baby. You were always brimming with love to shower me with. The betrayal I did and my guilt were increasing even more.

At the age of nowhere close to a year old, my mind could not process all this and hence, repressed this memory. But the effect of the memory still lingered.

This was why I always felt I did something so bad and always felt guilty. Now that I know the reason behind it, I would like to apologise to you, Mom.

Mom, I’m so sorry for always repositioning myself to hide the deciding factor of my gender.

Mom, I’m so sorry for making you lose your one and only chance of ever having a gender-reveal party.

Mom, I’m so sorry for making you depressed when you only wanted to celebrate your happiness of having me.

Mom, I’m so sorry for thinking you wouldn’t love me if I was a girl.

Mom, I’m so sorry for not thinking that you were not the kind of person that would kill me.

Mom, I’m so sorry for not being able to understand your kind heart despite living inside of you.

Mom, I’m so sorry for hurting you even before I was born.

Mom, I’m sorry for ever doubting you.

Mom, I’m so sorry for everything I did.

I feel much better now, Mom. I hope you accept my apologies that came from the deepest part of my heart. I hope you can forgive me so that I can forgive myself. I love you so much, Mom!

With love,

Your only child

P. S. Sorry, Mom. A few of my teardrops fell on the paper and obscured some words up there. I hope they're still legible.

Author's Notes:

This is purely fictional and is an entry for the Mother's Day Confessions Challenge.

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