What no one tells you is that trauma is a lifelong sentence, you didn’t commit the crime for. An invisible dark passenger that makes living and loving an entirely different thing. No matter how hard you try love will never feel like it does for those wired with it.
They just seem to be able to manage better. They don’t need to live going over and over every detail of something looking for threat for a crumb of safety. To add insult to injury the sufferer worries they are crazy, less than, and can be hijacked at any time.
And with trauma comes the many addictions and vulnerabilities the person will blame themselves for: unhealthy love, food, sex, substance, work, busy, isolation, television, scrolling, and on and on.
More evidence to prove their fatal flaw.
Jail is peaceful compared to the bars and cell of your own mind. Your own worst enemy is your constant companion. And everyone expects that you’re a free man.
To all my survivors right now during the Covoid-19 Pandemic. We will be ok. You are not alone. I am right here with you. Never has there been a more triggered time for us my loves. In the words of Glennon Doyle, “We can do hard things”, and we don’t have to do them alone.
So in this 39th year of my life I’ve found myself with something in common with my heroes. The survivors. I’ve found myself at rock bottom. They tell me this is what happens before the ascent. If I could feel anything right now I might believe that. I can’t even feel the water on my skin.
I’m on the bathroom floor with Liz (praying….. like to God), on the Trail with Cheryl, Expecting Adam with Martha, in the Arena with Brené, underneath with Glennon, lost with Abby, and in my late father’s house lonely and facing myself each day.
Last March I attended the International Women’s Summit, a life changing experience. Elizabeth Gilbert spoke, and sometimes I wonder if our exchange, the hug she gave me, changed the talk she gave that night. If my bravery and tears inspired her. She had made a comment she decided to talk about something else.
She told the story of her late love Rayya. One of the themes of the conference was Mercy. And she described Rayya, since she had been an addict, as having mercy, but also radical boundaries.
Liz spoke of how during her cancer she vowed to take the best care of her, and then how when her stomach lining ripped and she was given pain patches that Liz was putting them on her and she wasn’t getting any relief. She sat and watched her love writhing for several days not understanding and aching herself. She was failing caring for her.
Then she realized days later she hadn’t taken off the thin film of the pain patch to adhere it. So her love had suffered because her own incompetence after vowing to do the best by her. When they realized what had happened Rayya looked at her like she wanted to rescue Liz from her own self hatred that she had done that. She gave her compassion even in all her suffering. The way she describes the look in Rayya’s eyes…. there wasn’t a dry eye in the venue. You could hear a pin drop. Everyone’s breath and their tears.
She was trying to protect Liz from her own pain and herself. Mercy. This is how Liz describes her love with Rayya.
She said she went into the bathroom and got on the floor and she cried like a baby, wracked with sobs. Then she said she thought of her friend who had not been attentive to her toddler and the child ended up injuring themselves and dying. And she thought if her friend could live through that she could forgive herself.
So she said, “I kissed my tiny hand and forgave myself.”
Mercy
She then described the rest of Rayya’s journey which included relapse after all that time clean and how Liz tried to give her what she needed and the money spent, and the drug dealers and how her beloved became lost to her to addiction again in those final days.
And how could she set boundaries, how could she abandon the monster she had created, but her life was a dumpster fire.
So she had to ask for help from Rayya’s drug dealer ex. She had to concede she couldn’t be her angel and hero. So she turned the stash and the monster over to people who had loved her previously.
Left with a crater in her home and her life. She had to move and she was decimated.
Rayya got clean again. One last time. During pancreatic cancer.
She returned to Liz and she said, love if we had time I know this would take years to heal, the pain I’ve caused you. I know who I am as an addict. I will listen to every hurt I’ve caused you. But then could you forgive me?
And they returned to love for her final days…..
And Liz had another bathroom floor moment in her life after Eat Pray Love.
She said that Rayya’s return to and from drugs again during their time together and the pain patch and lessons in mercy was how she downloaded Rayya into her forever.
This is how we keep people, by the most valuable lessons they teach us.
So Mercy on Me right now…..
I am on the bathroom floor and I need to kiss my tiny hand.