How long can a well-adjusted child hold a grudge?

Question

This is just a "wondering if" kind of question.

I'm 27, and when I was 7-years-old, my uncle showed me a tape of Terrible Tuesday in Witchita Falls, TX just before my grandparents moved there (Terrible Tuesday, for anyone who doesn't know, refers to a day when two major tornadoes ripped through the area, then joined forces and obliterated a lot of the area in and around Witchita Falls).

I've never told anyone the impact that had on me, but to this day, when I think of tornadoes, or of my uncle, a little part of me remembers that experience, and it's kind of like I've held a grudge (even though it hasn't actively traumatized me or even affected my relationship with the uncle) for 20 years.

Anyone else have an experience like that, where someone did something that scared/angered you so much that it never completely left your sub-conscious?

Okay, "grudge" is apparently the wrong word, I just can't think of what the right term would be.

I suppose "grudge" means something more upsetting than what this is: more an unpleasant memory having to do with another person. Even though I don't hold anger, resentment, anything like that towards my uncle, it's a part of what is recalled when I think about him.

It's the same kind of thing as the cousin who threw a stick at me (not to hit me) and told me it was a snake when he was doing yard work. I don't have any anger over it, just that that's the main memory that immediately pops up when I think of him.

Answer 1

Until they aren't children anymore, afterwards they'll hold it as adults.

Answer 2

Experiences take place on two planes at the same time. One is the cognitive [brain and thinking] plane, and the other is within the MIND realm, or plane. The brain can forget rather quickly an event... because for it there is no emotional content involved.

At the level of the MIND, however, there is an emotional impact... and this is connected with the event itself, and to other memories one may have of a similar nature, and thus, one event may have an accumulated impact much greater than the event itself.

The MIND associates all elements [your Uncle] of an event with the emotional impact within the MIND realm. So when you think of or relate to your uncle, this is at a cognitive level, and at the same time, at a less than conscious level, the memory is also stimulated. But, since your Uncle was not identified by your MIND as "responsible" for the emotional experience, but as only putting you in a position where you experienced the event, your MIND allows you to separate the emotional experience from relating with your Uncle.

That you remember it in connection with your Uncle suggests, as you put it "a grudge" exists. So, there is a bit of "blame" held toward your Uncle... and you might want to address this by watching the tape again [if possible] and consciously clarifying who is responsible for your emotions relative to the event. It is you, or your own MIND, that is responsible, by the way.

Peace

Answer 3

that's pretty normal. Our brain works like a web - associating terminology with other terms and experiences.

But just remembering something doesn't mean you have a grudge. If you hated your uncle, then that would be a grudge.

Answer 4

That isn't a grudge, it is a reasonable reaction to trauma. Now, through your adult vision, you can understand how cruel it was to have done that to a child, and know that you yourself, would never do this to a niece or nephew, so it is reasonable to understand why you would realize your feelings in the here & now, of just how ignorant it was for him to have done that.