Relax and Write…
Strengthening the Therapeutic Bond. Yalom
When Things Fall Apart.
That’s where we are now.
Things fell apart my whole life. I became the glue, at the expense of knowing who I was or what I wanted or needed. I became a machine that met the needs of others, while begging to be loved.
So it is not surprising that healthy love was a complete mystery for me and while I’ve spent lots of time trying to solve that with my own experimentation. Simultaneously I’ve been living in a manner of consistently seeking to make the pain stop.
I’d do anything to make the pain stop for a few moments. And then became shamed and shamed myself for it.
This is the cycle I’ve been living in for nearly 41 years of my life.
And the only way to make the pain stop is to acknowledge the experiences that shaped me and how that has affected the children I brought into this world. Which brings another red hot wave of searing pain.
The only time the pain really stops is when I can use it for meaning, which in my life means to serve others with the knowledge I’ve gained. And to also be less alone in those moments. To stay in my humanity, rather than falling into insanity. A tether to belonging that has become consistent, and hopefully modeling that to myself.
It hurts to become.
My work makes me enthusiastic and hopeful and useful enough to make the pain stop. But rarely if ever is anything unconditionally provided to me. I have to look to the Universe for that. Nature, which also usually feels like an enemy as it bites me and makes me burn and itch, and in its vast unknown presence I always feel in danger.
So I return to the ways I know how to make the pain stop.
While this is happening I have tried to raise my children to the very best of my ability. Always doubting in that, my ability. Why wouldn’t you doubt something you’ve never known ? Something that was only dangerous and painful.
The tears slide down my cheeks.
The self doubt is probably the most painful part, and what I have drawn into my life, what I’ve chosen to invest myself in are things that end up harming me further. Then I harm myself with my choices.
I feel an experiment in human suffering and would victimize myself if I wasn’t so damn curious and concerned with meaning. My saving graces. The light shines out of the darkness, but not very much right now.
The message is to rest. But how when you have never known it, and when there is no loving touch to soothe to sleep.
Craving and starving touch, constantly leading to choices that harm some more. Self harm. Way more than cutting. There are far worse wounds to be had.
It gets good when you do. They say. The mystical, mythical they. The generalizations of our time.
I do good and I feel good. I do bad and I feel bad. What goes up must come down. My mind spins round and round.
Suffering. Relieved by service.
Will I always be fragmented or am I becoming whole and I have no vision for this because there is no template programmed into me.?
It’s all meaningless my existence except for moments. Moments of relief is what my life has been characterized by, with a lot of chaos.
I hope one day to see myself differently.
In the wake of all of this grief hope is difficult to find at the moment. It is times like this we just stay the course.
Steady as she goes…. Becoming steady out of chaos, that is the path of the warrior.
It takes one and it makes one.
This warrior is weary ….