emails

in the middle of an email conversation with my mom about memory, and what things were like in our home up until I was seven

mom:
You know, I've come to accept that everyone remembers things differently, and it is scary, but I guess it's just a fact of life. .... [about her friend D...] C [D's daughter] told D that she remembered something really awful from her childhood, and D just can't believe it's true. I don't think D wants people to know about it, so I don't want to say too much.

Me:
I don't know what the story is that D will not believe about C, but I know it is really traumatic to have something horrible happen to you and have no one believe or listen to you. I can't imagine that C would move away and cut off ties with her mom for no reason. But I guess I can't really say anything about it since I don't know the whole story. If the story involves D and it's something that she thinks she would never do then I think that's more understandable, but if the story is about someone else and she just can't believe that person would do something like that, I think a lot of people have those kinds of responses and it's understandable because you don't want to believe the worst about people, but I guess it's just too bad for C since she probably doesn't get to choose what to believe.

Mom:
C has done, and probably still does, a lot of drugs. D didn't automatically assume C was wrong. She thought about it for some time before coming to the conclusion that it was a false memory. She said some things didn't add up that C said. But apparently C believes that what she remembered really happened.

Me:
I just know that lots of people's stories might not 'add up' because when you're trying to survive a traumatic situation you're not all busy about recording the details you're busy about surviving, and someone doing drugs years later is not a reason to not believe them. Sorry if I am being unfair to D, because she could very well have good reasons for assuming that whatever C's story is isn't true, but maybe there's a reason C 'has done a lot of drugs'.

I love my mom but really what the fuck.

[eta:]
mom:
No one gets to go through life without being wronged, hurt, falsely accused, not believed, misunderstood, let down, etc. No matter how hard we try or want to, we can never prevent our children from ever having to experience these things. I guess it's part of life that we have to go through certain things. And nobody goes through life without making mistakes. I sure would do a lot of things differently if I could go back and do them over. All we can do is try to do our best with what we know and what we understand and what we are aware of. You have to try and learn from things, and go on, and do better next time. I love you and A more than anything, and I always had your best interests at heart. I'm sure I made mistakes, and I'm sorry if I did. I don't think I realized when you were born that I couldn't protect you from everything, and it sure hurt like hell to ever see either of you hurting. Still does.