October Novel Prep Challenge

That 3-pound grey Blob is a fascinating bugger, isn't it?

It's the secret "star" of my story. A trauma-wired brain is a brain on "survival mode" that processes and stores all information that might help in the traumatic situation and its aftermath. It can make your life real hell, especially those memories formed. (=> (c)-PTSD) But when we decide to heal, it does the most amazing work.

I have a sometimes hyperreal memory. I remember (almost) everyone taking part in my bullying in my youth or the day I called the police for the first time because I thought my fighting parents finish each other off.

But then I remember clearly how my Mom and I are in the kitchen in our flat in Cologne when I'm around 4, we're making French Fries (by hand!), Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" comes on the radio, my Mom stops working, turns up the volume and dances through the kitchen with me. That's one of my first conscious memory.