Repressed Memory is over-rated.

An exaggerated plot device created by Hollywood.

No, I don't remember the worst stuff.

It's been reduced to a number of nameless fears that I trip across and over and unpredictable times.

But I DO remembered a LOT of what happened to me.

The vast majority.

Pretty much everything before and after the during.

I just didn't UNDERSTAND it.

As a result, therapy, for me, was a process of coming to understand those memories — many of which I cherished — for what they meant.

It wasn't necessarily a matter of REMEMBERING as it was about UNDERSTANDING and coming to terms.

Remember, those were memories in which I was and felt singled out and special, so to realize that there was something TERRIBLE to them is hard to handle.

That memory of Special Training with Fr. Valentine in the sacristy of the Church of the Immacolata. Something he olnly did for the most reverent and mature servers; those of us who were the elite and who could handle what he told and entrusted to us.

Those of us who were, in his words, truly special.

Worthy.

Maybe even priest material.

And, oh yeah, while you said the prayers he taught you — which were actually just lies he told to distract you — he left hand would be playing with your hair while his right hand would be touching you.

Down there.