I found it while looking for something else. Trying to find photos of my cat when he was just a little baby kitten. I completely forgot what else lived inside this archived folder of iphone photos from a previous life. Just scrolling through old photos and there it was.
My whole body froze, and it’s like my insides dropped through the floor . Like that thing where you're fine and then suddenly you're not fine and you don't even know what time it is or that you are even existing in time.
Thirteen years ago I took a screenshot of something. Evidence. And then I just... lived with it? Kept going? Had breakfast the next day? I don't even know or remember. I literally completely forgot about this.
I'd forgotten. Completely. Which is the part that's making me cry. Because forgetting means there was worse. So much worse that this particular thing became just another thing. And then that makes me start remembering the worse.
I keep thinking about her. That girl who took the screenshot. I remember her. She was so different and so desperate for someone to believe that everything was as crazy as it seemed.
Because without proof you start thinking maybe you made it all up. Maybe you're being dramatic. Maybe it's not that bad.
It was that bad. It was so bad.
But also there was so much bad that this specific bad thing got filed away with all the other bad things until I forgot it existed.
Until today. When I was just looking for a photo. And instead I found her. That girl who took the screenshot.
I don't know what to do with this feeling. It's not even sadness exactly. It's like grief for someone who didn't know she was drowning. And anger at myself for forgetting. And relief that I did forget.
I forgot what this flavour of violation feels like because the person I am today would absolutely not allow this to happen, or at least would have done something about it. Wouldn’t have taken a screen shot and then forgotten it even existed. Its a really sour feeling.
Like, I'm fine. I'm actually fine. I've been fine for years. And then suddenly I'm not fine in a way that feels devastating and fresh at the same time. Which makes no sense but here we are.
I was just looking for cat photos. That's it.
Pain does not age like wine. It ages like... I don't know. Like something left in the back of the fridge that you forgot about and then one day you open the container and the smell hits you and you're like, oh. Oh fuck. This is still here?
But here's what's really fucking with me: I'd forgotten. Completely forgotten this thing that felt world-ending awful at the time. It had just disappeared into the photo roll between dinner pics and work screenshots.
All of it. None of it. My body can't tell the difference between then and now. Now is then, basically!
Time isn't linear. I've been back there all week. Just existing in 2012 while also making coffee in 2025. While also answering emails. While also being a completely different person.
But also isn't Mercury in retrograde? I don't know.
The thing is, I'm struggling with how to process things now as a completely different person than I was then. Like, I have more feelings now. I'm more raw. I cry more. But that's good. I think. Cortisol comes out in your tears. At least that's what I read on TikTok. Or maybe that's bullshit but it made me feel better about crying so much so I'm keeping it.
Back then I was just... surviving. Documenting. Filing things away. Not feeling them. Couldn't afford to feel them. Had to keep going. Had to make breakfast. Had to pretend everything was fine.
Now I can feel everything. And it's fucking overwhelming. Because I'm feeling it for the first time AND feeling it for her. That girl who couldn't.
It's like emotional time travel where you have to process your own trauma but with a completely different nervous system. Different capacity. Different understanding of what was even happening.
She didn't know what gaslighting was. Didn't have language for any of it. Just knew something was wrong and took screenshots like breadcrumbs. Evidence for later. For never. For thirteen years later when she'd be someone else entirely.
I don't know how to hold both versions of myself at the same time. The one who survived it and the one who can finally feel it. The one who forgot and the one who remembers. The one who took the screenshot and the one who found it.
Maybe that's just what processing is. This weird nonlinear mess where time collapses and you're everyone you've ever been all at once.
Hard to tell the difference sometimes.