Hi Captain,

You know how there’s a coping mechanism of putting stressful or damaging thoughts/memories in an imaginary box and closing it until you feel ready to deal with them? I have two literal boxes of potentially upsetting artifacts, and I don’t know what to do with them.

Condensed backstory: My parents had a very long, acrimonious, complicated divorce throughout my elementary school years (age 6ish-11ish). I’m an only child. I haven’t had contact with my father in about 25 years.

I have very few memories of this time, and what I do remember is vague and blurry, with brief instances of clarity. For example, I remember that part of the custody agreement at one point was that my father could never be alone with me in a bedroom or bathroom. I remember locking myself in my bathroom and refusing to go with him and the cops being called. (I was an intensely obedient child, so this was almost indescribably outside my normal scope of behavior.)

During these years, my mom recorded everything. She wrote pages and pages documenting everything every day and, I think, recorded (and transcribed?) family therapy sessions. She kept all of this in a couple of boxes in a spare room until she downsized to a condo several years ago. At that point, I ended up with the boxes. I don’t remember if she asked me to keep them or if she told me to or if we even had a conversation about it at all. (My relationship with my mom is quite complicated, and I don’t see a path to having a productive conversation with her now about this.)

I was lucky enough to have friends who agreed to keep these boxes in their storage space for me for a few years, but I’ve since moved states. Now, these boxes are in my home. I don’t know what’s in there, and I don’t feel emotionally ready to unpack them right now. I’m afraid of seeing what’s inside — both the content and the framing of it. I’m also afraid of blindly tossing them out. Keeping them unopened in my space has been a workable temporary solution, but it’s beginning to wear on me.

Am I tying myself in knots for nothing? Am I tying myself in knots completely appropriately??

Thanks so much for your time and perspective,

Living with Literal Baggage
(she/her pronouns)

Read More