Post by sorceress on Dec 13, 2011 13:35:52 GMT -5
Hello.
I am not sure if what I have is past life recall or what or even if it's from the war, but please bear with me and I will explain.
When I was a little girl, aged about 3, my mother took me into the toilets at the local junior school. I vividly recall skipping in and then freezing in horror at the sight of the high up cisterns above the cubicle doors. The doors were all open, and for some reason, the sight of all these toilets and their cisterns side by side put the absolute fear of God into me. All I can remember feeling is panic but my mother said I was fighting and screaming and sobbing saying "Don't make me! Please! Please!!"
All my life, the sight of high level cisterns has had a similar effect. There is something about them that makes me terrified. The fancy white victorian style ones make me jump when I see them, but nothing more. It's the old, heavy cast iron ones that make me almost vomit in horror. I have nightmares about them, being unable to escape from places where they are, or feeling hopeful about something and then seeing them and knowing true dread.
In recent years, I took my young stepdaughter to a public toilet when she was sick coming home from school. I was holding a vomiting four year old so I just rushed in with my eyes on her. She went to the toilet to be sick, and that's when I raised my eyes from floor level. There was a long row of these cisterns and some of the cubicle separators has been removed, so they were literally side by side. I felt all the blood draining from my face and the sound getting muffled...like I was about to pass out. In an attempt to calm down and not frighten the child, I turned around with the idea of muffling a scream in my coat. That's when I saw the other row on the other wall. I don't remember much of what happened next, but a man was talking to me outside the toilets and my stepdaughter was looking at me curiously. He was saying "Were you hurt, love? You weren't half screaming! You look like you've seen a ghost!"
A phobia like that doesn't come from nowhere. So I looked it up. Very unusual, could find no reference to it anywhere. I randomly decided to search for pictures of toilets in a row like that so I could show my very bemused sister what I meant. A picture came up that made my blood run cold. It was like the very worst of my nightmares. I had something like a fight or flight response just to the sight of this picture. It was a room with a row of these toilets on one side, and a row on the other, facing each other, with no divides between them. I felt like I could smell damp, and blood and had a feeling of having been violated and abused. I felt dirty, ashamed and scared.
The pictures were taken at Auschwitz.
Does this mean anything, or is it just one of those things? There isn't much else that links me to this apart from the fact that I was a natural at German at school and college, and that I aced WW2 history and am very drawn to british soldiers.
I hope that if I understand this, I can handle it better.
I am not sure if what I have is past life recall or what or even if it's from the war, but please bear with me and I will explain.
When I was a little girl, aged about 3, my mother took me into the toilets at the local junior school. I vividly recall skipping in and then freezing in horror at the sight of the high up cisterns above the cubicle doors. The doors were all open, and for some reason, the sight of all these toilets and their cisterns side by side put the absolute fear of God into me. All I can remember feeling is panic but my mother said I was fighting and screaming and sobbing saying "Don't make me! Please! Please!!"
All my life, the sight of high level cisterns has had a similar effect. There is something about them that makes me terrified. The fancy white victorian style ones make me jump when I see them, but nothing more. It's the old, heavy cast iron ones that make me almost vomit in horror. I have nightmares about them, being unable to escape from places where they are, or feeling hopeful about something and then seeing them and knowing true dread.
In recent years, I took my young stepdaughter to a public toilet when she was sick coming home from school. I was holding a vomiting four year old so I just rushed in with my eyes on her. She went to the toilet to be sick, and that's when I raised my eyes from floor level. There was a long row of these cisterns and some of the cubicle separators has been removed, so they were literally side by side. I felt all the blood draining from my face and the sound getting muffled...like I was about to pass out. In an attempt to calm down and not frighten the child, I turned around with the idea of muffling a scream in my coat. That's when I saw the other row on the other wall. I don't remember much of what happened next, but a man was talking to me outside the toilets and my stepdaughter was looking at me curiously. He was saying "Were you hurt, love? You weren't half screaming! You look like you've seen a ghost!"
A phobia like that doesn't come from nowhere. So I looked it up. Very unusual, could find no reference to it anywhere. I randomly decided to search for pictures of toilets in a row like that so I could show my very bemused sister what I meant. A picture came up that made my blood run cold. It was like the very worst of my nightmares. I had something like a fight or flight response just to the sight of this picture. It was a room with a row of these toilets on one side, and a row on the other, facing each other, with no divides between them. I felt like I could smell damp, and blood and had a feeling of having been violated and abused. I felt dirty, ashamed and scared.
The pictures were taken at Auschwitz.
Does this mean anything, or is it just one of those things? There isn't much else that links me to this apart from the fact that I was a natural at German at school and college, and that I aced WW2 history and am very drawn to british soldiers.
I hope that if I understand this, I can handle it better.
