Sylvia Wynter's Dream

Trigger Warning: this piece discusses childhood trauma so if that is a sensitive subject for you then you may want to proceed with caution. 

Throughout my pieces, I have always discussed the best parts about childhood and how we should always remember our youth as we move further and further into adulthood. However, sometimes amnesia may not always be a bad thing. I have said that you should not live with regret for any negative past experiences that you may have gone through but, sometimes, those experiences do more harm than good to your mental state and may not be worth holding on to. Many people, like myself, have trauma related to their childhood that haunts them to this day. Many would rather forget that they went through these things instead of trying to process and learn from these horrific experiences. Childhood trauma is a serious issue and should never be taken lightly because it leads to many other mental issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), biopolar disorder, borderline personality disorder and in some cases my lead to thoughts of suicide. These traumatic experiences can range from issues with parents, all types of abuse (physical, verbal, emotional etc.), rape, childhood neglect, seeing domestic violence, among others. These are experiences that children never fully recover from and some never forget. Nevertheless, amnesia may be beneficial in this scenario to avoid the long lasting mental strain and emotional stress that is put on individuals who go through these things in their childhood. Essentially, forgetting these experiences can be a source of liberation for these individuals as they won’t have to live with the constant negative thoughts and will be free from the mental strain. This is not to say that forgetting every bad experience in your life is the way to go about living because sometimes those experiences do help you to grow as a better person. With that in mind, I do think that childhood traumas do more harm than good when it comes to obtaining life lessons. Yes it is important for them to acknowledge that these things do exist but for the mental health of these individuals, it would definitely be better if amnesia was to affect them. Let me hear your thoughts on the matter.